U-boat casualties in the Gulf

[DeepGeek]

Not sure what forum this lives in... not sure how many of these wrecks are diveable!

I was curious what wrecks the U-boats produced in the Gulf, so I wrote a little mash-up to visualise them on Google Maps. The result can be found here: GulfUBoatCasualties.

The answer is: not many near Houston. A little further digging revealed that the waters right off Galveston are too shallow for the U-Boats to operate safely.

The source of the underlying data is the old BOEM, which can be downloaded tediously slowly here: http://www.data.boem.gov/PI/PDFImages/ESPIS/3/3680.pdf. Not sure how reliable it is, one casualty at least is clearly wrong.

When I get a second I'll alter the mashup to add more details when you click on a wreck (tonnage, type, date of sinking, etc.)

All the best,

Chris

 

[ReefHound]

That's an interesting workup. Many of us here like wrecks, mostly in recreational range. Subs are always especially interesting. The one many of us have dived is the U352 off Morehead City where one of our charter members is manager of Olympus Dive Shop.

 

[Earl Grey]

Very interesting - thanks for providing.

Also looks like there is one u-boat sunk in the Gulf. U-166 was sunk not far from where it sunk Robert E. Lee. Sadly both wrecks are well outside the realm of recreational divers - Wikipedia lists the depth at 5,000 ft.

 

[DeepGeek]

I love the story of the Robert E. Lee and the confusion around the U-166 and the U-171 (which they thought they sank).
U-171 was sunk 9 October 1942 in the Bay of Biscay near France at 47°39′N 03°34′W.

The US Navy lists these locations and dates of sinking for 'Gulf-related' U-Boats:
6/7/42 24°13' 82°03' U-157
8/1/42 28°37' 90°45' U-166
5/15/43 23°21' 80°18' U-176
10/7/51 24°52' 83°19' U-2513

Maybe I'll do a quick plot of those on another page.

The U2513 is on my to-do list. Type XXI subs are rare. Guess what, it's in the Dry Tortugas... I wonder if the Spree would ever go there? At 214 ft it's well within tech range.
http://www.advanceddivermagazine.com/articles/u2513/u2513.html

I really must edit my U-352 footage... I've got some reasonably-edited shots of the U-853 off Block Island, but I was still learning how to video at that point. The interior came out nice though.