Hitler's lost U-boats found in the Black Sea

For years, German submarines U-19, U-20, and U-23 preyed on British and Russian shipping, then, 60 years ago, they suddenly vanished to the bottom of the Black Sea.

Now the hulk of one of the lost submarines has been found by divers who are confident they can find the other two boats too. The search began along the Turkish coast near the town of Zonguldak in 1994, after the Turkish navy complained that it was having difficulty conducting minesweeping operations. Local people had known for years that the submarines were out there somewhere. 

The U-boats of the 30th flotilla were small by Second World War standards – only 140-feet long, But their size was an advantage when choosing craft for the Black Sea.  To have taken the subs by sea past Great Britain and Gibraltar would have been risky. And they would then have had to go through Turkish waters, violating that country's neutrality. So it was decided they would go overland. Each weighed just under 280-tons, making it easier to convey them on their 2,000-mile (3,300km) journey. 

The submarines docked in Kiel and were taken by canal to the Elbe, then upstream to Dresden where they were dismantled and taken 85-miles by lorry to Ingolstadt, on the Danube. They were then ferried hundreds of miles through Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania, to the Black Sea port of Constanta.  Over the next three years, the flotilla sank 45,000-tons of Soviet shipping, while losing three boats. 

But in September 1944, the Red Army entered Romania, its government switched sides, and the remaining three subs were stranded. Their crews were ordered to scuttle their boats and try to make it home overland.   

Calypso sails free of feud 
The Calypso, the former British minesweeper used by Jacques Cousteau to explore the undersea world, is to be rebuilt to roam the oceans once more as the symbol of an environmental campaign being led by his widow Francine. The ship had been rusting in the western French port of La Rochelle, while a legal battle raged among the Cousteau family over ownership of the vessel between Jean-Michel, Cousteau’s son from his first marriage, and Alexandra, the explorer’s granddaughter, head of the Philippe Cousteau Foundation, named after her father, the explorer’s second son, who was killed in a seaplane crash in 1979. 

USA
Key West sinking in May 
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