Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

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Sid Guttridge
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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#106

Post by Sid Guttridge » 12 Oct 2017, 07:46

Hi Atrevida,

We have been down this route previously on other threads.

As before, you provide absolutely no traceable evidence. Nada.

And, once again, you dangle information without providing it (i.e. "If requested I will produce full details of this allegation".)

If you have tracecable information, put it up. Without it, your claims have absolutely no evidential value.

You are not simply failing to provide "extraordinary" evidence, you aren't even providing "ordinary" evidence.

In hope, rather than expectation,

Sid.

Rob Stuart
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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#107

Post by Rob Stuart » 12 Oct 2017, 09:44

Atrevida wrote:The problem of obtaining evidence can be seen in the following case in which a Government has set out recently to quite deliberately deny or destroy unwelcome connections between its predecessors and the activities of possibly one small German U-boat in waters near its federal capital.

This is the trail which suggests that a U-boat was active in the River Plate from September 1939 to the end of 1942.

1) About three miles out from the Uruguayan coastal town of Colonia del Sacramento is the mile-long island of San Gabriel. It was discovered in 1516 but remains overgrown and has never been inhabited except by Charrua cannibal Indians and Portuguese soldiers occcupying a small fort prior to 1763. In the early 1930s a German company obtained the rights to excavate stone and for about seven years they excavated tremendous quantities of stone with great explosions and so forth, shipping the stone ashore by a launch from a pier still extant. It is not known what was the purpose of the stone or why the stone had to come from this offshore island and not anywhere else along the Uruguayan coast. The waters around the island are fairly shallow: a small galleon could come inshore in the days of sail but not a 40-gun man o'war. (If requested I will produce details of the German excavation.)

2) The distance between San Gabriel island and the port of Buenos Aires is 35 kilometres: the island is in a direct line between Colonia and Buenos Aires city as the gull flies.

3) From the outbreak of war until the end of 1941, regular transmissions were made from very close to "the Cape Polonia lighthouse" providing details of all movements of naval and merchant traffic arriving in and leaving the River Plate. (If requested I will produce full details of this allegation). Uruguayan and British naval intelligence cooperated in a huge search around Cape Polonia which even today is bleak and very sparsely populated (in 1941 five fishermen's houses). The searchers knew that they were looking for a powerful transmitter which would have been large and difficult to conceal, and equally difficult to operate while the search was proceeding and finally they decided that the lighthousemen must be responsible and the two of them were arrested. During their remand in jail in Montevideo the transmissions continued even when the lighthouse was operated by accredited naval intelligence personnel and so the original lighthousemen were released and it was assumed that a U-boat must be responsible.

4) At the end of 1941 the transmissions suddenly ceased. By the strangest coincidence the Argentine island of Martin Garcia upsteam from Colonia del Sacramento was used from early 1942 as a prison camp for Graf Spee internees, and there now began a series of mysterious escapes from the island for which no explanation could ever be found. All that is known is that these men disappeared from Martin Garcia island, and a few months later were in Germany in the U-boat Arm. These escapes are described very fully by Professor Ronald Newton in his book El Cuarto Lado del Triangulo, and mentioned in his CEANA report to the Argentine Government during the period in which he was commissioned by that Government to investigate U-boat activities in Argentine waters.

5) By consulting Wikipaedia's history of Martin Garcia island, however, the reader will discover that the Graf Spee crew were supposedly not present on Martin Garcia island until 1943. When I visited there last year and looked at its "history museum", I found that though German internees from the pocket battleship were held prisoner there, no mention was made of any having escaped.

Not having "extraordinary evidence" I mention all this as a curiosity providing a suspicion that a small U-boat was based in the River Plate. I have seen a statement by a former member of the Argentine Navy of the time regarding what went on at Martin Garcia island but he is now deceased and it would not amount to "extraordinary evidence", just what an engineering cadet based there saw and experienced..
There is absolutely no possibility that a U-boat was based in the River Plate. Absolutely none. The service histories and movements of all 1154 U-boats are known in detail, and I defy you to find, at the site https://uboat.net/boats/ or anywhere else, any credible evidence suggesting otherwise and identifying the U-boat in question.


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Ironmachine
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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#108

Post by Ironmachine » 12 Oct 2017, 14:38

Atrevida wrote:About three miles out from the Uruguayan coastal town of Colonia del Sacramento is the mile-long island of San Gabriel. It was discovered in 1516 but remains overgrown and has never been inhabited except by Charrua cannibal Indians and Portuguese soldiers occcupying a small fort prior to 1763. In the early 1930s a German company obtained the rights to excavate stone and for about seven years they excavated tremendous quantities of stone with great explosions and so forth, shipping the stone ashore by a launch from a pier still extant. It is not known what was the purpose of the stone or why the stone had to come from this offshore island and not anywhere else along the Uruguayan coast.
Yes, I know the tale: An unnamed German company who performs strange activities without any clear purpose in a remote place where almost no one had been before. All very misterious, so that when later someone claims a German submarine was lurking around the place, it all really makes sense (not really, but whatever...).
However, things were somewhat different. We have an article, Rieles al pasado... La explotación minera de la Isla San Gabriel by Alejandro Ferrari, Antonio Lezama, Gustavo Casanova, Magdalena Muttoni and Ximena Salvo, published in the Cuadernos del Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Pensamiento Latinoamericano - Series Especiales (2015) Nº 2 Vol. 4, pp. 176-190 (and which can be downloaded from various webs), that paints a very different picture. Basically:
Towards the end of the 19th century, the San Gabriel Island began to be exploited by mining enterprises as much for obtaining stone and sand, with the aim of providing aggregate to constructions in Uruguay and in the Republic of Argentina. Employment opportunities to important contingents of local and foreign workforce were offered by these and other quarries in the Uruguayan territory. The requirements and the investment in the island favored the establishment of an industrial complex of relevance, which included quarries, power stations, mills, pools, magazines and embankments for the rail and wagon system, and a pier; all in an extractive activity that reached mid-20th century.
Regarding the German company, this is what the article says (my translation):
According to an interview with Mrs. Inés Díaz (in Pos Arenas 1996), wife of the Customs Officer in San Gabriel, Sr. Agustín Devoto, years after
his arrival on the island in the 1920s, the German company "Dickerhoff and Widmann S.A." came, authorized by the Uruguayan government, to work in the extraction and export of stone. So far we have not found information that prove the exploitation by the German company or the years in which that happened.

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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#109

Post by Atrevida » 18 Oct 2017, 04:25

I am grateful to Ironmachine for his useful post which shows the extent to which the stated authority went to cover over the exploitation of San Gabriel Island. It is, as I say, and I see it every morning, a totally overgrown island about one mile long and a quarter of a mile wide with a jetty.

The History is as follows.

The company was founded as Lang & Co in 1865 by the Geman cement pioneer Wilhelm Gustav Dyckerhoff of Karlsruhe (1805-1894). It was mainly engaged in the production of concrete components. In 1866 his son Eugen (1844-1924), in business with his father-in-law Gottlieb Widmann, changed the company name to Dyckerhoff & Widmann, which became one of the leading companies for concrete construction in Germany. In the late 19th century, their compressed concrete became a stanard for concrete construction.

At the end of 1920 the company developed the Zeiss Dywidag system of concrete shell construction used for aircraft hangars, large scale armament production plants and bunkers. Dywidag subsidiaries in Uruguay and Argentina erected seven edifices in this period (1929-1933), almost 2/3rds of all them Z-D shells, comprising nearly 100,000 square metres of shell surface.

In 1939, Hubert Rüsch in Argentina commented: "Very little about the international use of this construction type has become known to the public even though it has been widely applied in most countries around the world."

The information about the company sought by the various enquirers on this site can be found in "Shell Sellers: The International Dissemination of the Zeiss-Dywidag System 1923-1939" and by consulting the plaque erected at the shore end of the unloading quay facing the north end of San Gabriel island in which it is explained by the municipality that for the period from 1933 up to 1939, the quay was used exclusively for the unloading of stone quarried on the island "by a German company."

I hope this satisfies the various doubters and encourages them to visit Colonia del Sacramiento, hire a local fisherman to visit the island and imagine for themselves this colossal enterprise alluded to with its great industrial base, work force, railway system and so on excavating stone from a small island, the stone being of such a nature that it could not be found anywhere else in Uruguay or Argentina.

The National Institute of Anthropology and Latin-American Thought, being a government sponsored body, reflects its Uruguayan master's wishes by creating a monstrous industrial enterprise in which the single basic purpose of excavating stone from the island by Germans of all people immediately pre-war is never called into question.

I did not suggest "Secret U-boat base", "U-boat assistance point" would perhaps be nearer to the point, but as I stressed earlier, and you read it carefully, I did not claim it as such, it is simply a suggestion.

A much clearer case of what I mean by a "U-boat assistance point" is Villa Gesell. This is nowadays a popular beach resort on the coast of Buenos Aires province some distance from Mar del Plata.

In the late 1930s, Karl Gesell, a German, bought a large plot of seafront land for development into an exclusive holiday site for Germans. This strip of coast was then characterized by very high and long sand dunes. During the war it was believed that Karl Gesell operated a short wave transmitter/receiver for communicating with U-boats. The Argentine Government of the time would not have interfered with such a practice.

FBI Report 65-531615-17 to the US Dept of Justice dated 1 August 1945 stated: "Reports indicate that the provincial police department raided the German colony located at Villa Gesell looking for individuals who had possibly entered Argentina illegally by submarine. During the search at (name and address blacked out), a short wave receiving and transmitting set was found and confiscated."

At the end of the 1960s during the development of Villa Gesell as a seaside resort, work on the beach to remove a huge sand dune below the street Buenos Aires unearthed rails leading from the sea into a kind of bunker under the dune 50 metres long near the house of Karl Gesell. According to the architect Jorge Castro, "at the shore end of the rails lived a German mechanic who specialized in diesels. Upon investigation the concrete bunker was found to contain lubricant and spare parts for submarines."

Source: Jorge Camaras. "Puerto Seguro" Buenos Aires, 2006 quoting Guillermo Saccomanno, "El Viejo Gesell" publ. Alfonsin, Buenos Aires, 1994, and the privately published manuscript by journalist Martin Malharro, "El Tesoro del Tercer Reich en la Argentina."

I would imagine that Villa Gesell was not a base but a U-boat help point, the bunker probably housed a tender which liaised with U-boats offshore as and when required, the radio transmitter would be self-explanatory. The offshore U-boat would most likely have frequented Cabo Polonia and the River Plate as far as the island of Martin Garcia, passing San Gabriel island on the way.

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Ironmachine
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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#110

Post by Ironmachine » 18 Oct 2017, 08:21

Atrevida wrote:I am grateful to Ironmachine for his useful post which shows the extent to which the stated authority went to cover over the exploitation of San Gabriel Island. It is, as I say, and I see it every morning, a totally overgrown island about one mile long and a quarter of a mile wide with a jetty.

The History is as follows.

The company was founded as Lang & Co in 1865 by the Geman cement pioneer Wilhelm Gustav Dyckerhoff of Karlsruhe (1805-1894). It was mainly engaged in the production of concrete components. In 1866 his son Eugen (1844-1924), in business with his father-in-law Gottlieb Widmann, changed the company name to Dyckerhoff & Widmann, which became one of the leading companies for concrete construction in Germany. In the late 19th century, their compressed concrete became a stanard for concrete construction.

At the end of 1920 the company developed the Zeiss Dywidag system of concrete shell construction used for aircraft hangars, large scale armament production plants and bunkers. Dywidag subsidiaries in Uruguay and Argentina erected seven edifices in this period (1929-1933), almost 2/3rds of all them Z-D shells, comprising nearly 100,000 square metres of shell surface.

In 1939, Hubert Rüsch in Argentina commented: "Very little about the international use of this construction type has become known to the public even though it has been widely applied in most countries around the world."

The information about the company sought by the various enquirers on this site can be found in "Shell Sellers: The International Dissemination of the Zeiss-Dywidag System 1923-1939" and by consulting the plaque erected at the shore end of the unloading quay facing the north end of San Gabriel island in which it is explained by the municipality that for the period from 1933 up to 1939, the quay was used exclusively for the unloading of stone quarried on the island "by a German company."

I hope this satisfies the various doubters and encourages them to visit Colonia del Sacramiento, hire a local fisherman to visit the island and imagine for themselves this colossal enterprise alluded to with its great industrial base, work force, railway system and so on excavating stone from a small island, the stone being of such a nature that it could not be found anywhere else in Uruguay or Argentina.

The National Institute of Anthropology and Latin-American Thought, being a government sponsored body, reflects its Uruguayan master's wishes by creating a monstrous industrial enterprise in which the single basic purpose of excavating stone from the island by Germans of all people immediately pre-war is never called into question.

I did not suggest "Secret U-boat base", "U-boat assistance point" would perhaps be nearer to the point, but as I stressed earlier, and you read it carefully, I did not claim it as such, it is simply a suggestion.
Nothing in this quote supports the claim that the German company did anything else than mining for stone, in a place that was exploited for the same purpose before the German company did it. Nothing in this quote, but your own suggestion, supports the claim that the island was an "U-boat assistance point". The information about the company in the article you mention adds nothing to support your claim ("suggestion"). As Sid Guttridge posted previosly, "you provide absolutely no traceable evidence".

By the way, regarding your statement that:
Atrevida wrote:The National Institute of Anthropology and Latin-American Thought, being a government sponsored body, reflects its Uruguayan master's wishes by creating a monstrous industrial enterprise in which the single basic purpose of excavating stone from the island by Germans of all people immediately pre-war is never called into question.
As the Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Pensamiento Latinoamericano (National Institute of Anthropology and Latin-American Thought) is an Argentinian organization, I wonder how much they would be interested in reflecting the wishes of some supposed "Uruguayan masters".

Rob Stuart
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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#111

Post by Rob Stuart » 18 Oct 2017, 11:16

During the war it was believed that Karl Gesell operated a short wave transmitter/receiver for communicating with U-boats.
This is an ill-informed statement. Germans agents in South America communicated directly with the Abwehr radio station in Hamburg. If Gesell was a spy, he would have done likewise and would not have communicated directly with German submarines. It makes no sense that he would. What if he had information of use to Germany which had nothing to do with submarine warfare? Why send it to a U-boat? Also, spies are often not free to transmit whenever they wish, and submarines are not necessarily going to be on the surface and able to receive a spy's message when the spy is able to send it. As well, U-boats had to maintain radio silence as much as possible, and would be rather loath to re-transmit messages from spies.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#112

Post by Sid Guttridge » 18 Oct 2017, 12:52

Hi Atrevida,

You post, "I did not suggest "Secret U-boat base", "U-boat assistance point" would perhaps be nearer to the point, but as I stressed earlier, and you read it carefully, I did not claim it as such, it is simply a suggestion."

Why make any such suggestion without any evidence whatsoever?

There are a million other places about which such "suggestions" can be made on the basis of a total lack of evidence and they would be equally invalid.

I know, Atrevida/Ohdruf, how much you want to find evidence of some sort of wartime Nazi military collaboration with Argentina, but the fact of the matter is that throughout the war Argentina was an asset to the Allies, not the Axis.

It provided several thousand mostly Anglo-Argentine volunteers, largely for the RAF, paid to equip several RAF squadrons, one of which carried Argentina's name in its title and was reviewed by the Argentine Ambassador, it massively subsidized the British war effort by exports to the UK on the understanding that most would only be paid for after the war, supplied pistols to SOE, sent Britain large amounts of beef, wheat and leather which helped keep the UK fed and put boots on the feet of its soldiers, it maintained tens of thousands of British POWs with Red Cross parcels throughout the war, its provision of food saved much British shipping as the alternative was Australia, which was much further away, interned some 16 Italian merchant ships which were later used by Argentina for trade, thereby saving even more Allied shipping,.............etc., etc,., etc.

In effect, Argentina was something of a closet Ally.

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#113

Post by Polar bear » 19 Oct 2017, 23:53

hi,
Sid Guttridge wrote:It provided several thousand mostly Anglo-Argentine volunteers, largely for the RAF,
like http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituar ... Honor.html

Argentina became, nevertheless, a second home for many crewmen of the ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE.

greetings, the pb
Peace hath her victories no less renowned than War
(John Milton, the poet, in a letter to the Lord General Cromwell, May 1652)

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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#114

Post by Atrevida » 20 Oct 2017, 15:58

The point about Axis History Forum, always disregarded, is that it exists basically for discussion. It is not a university. People like Sid Guttridge and Rob Stuart make errors for example and are not persecuted for them where they occur as misunderstandings. Both made false statements recently and I will post an item showing their false assumptions.

From the foregoing post I see that Sid Gutteridge at last comes out with it and makes his political stand. I suspected it, but it is the first time that he finds substantial evidence of economic cooperation between the Allies and Argentina. So that is where he is coming from. This is supposed to be a non-political forum. But all the things he mentions are not illegal transactions between a neutral country and a belligerent at war. Trade continues. If German merchant ships had been able to get through the British North Sea blockade, the Germans would have been the clients of a willing Argentina too.

However, military cooperation between Argentina and Hitler's Germany during the war existed and was illegal. That is the reason above for the title "SECRET U-boat bases....." The modern desire of the Government of today's Argentina, where I have lived for many years, and I know the history and the people, is that no such cooperation can ever have existed despite the evidence. Ironmachine's question shows that he does not understand the twin desires of modern Uruguay and Argentina for there not to be the slightest suspicion in either country that the huge Nazi activity ever amounted to anything. During the war Uruguay was pro-British and Argentina pro-German. From the northern side of the River Plate Uruguay kept an eye on German naval activities and reported them to the Allies. In this field the Uruguayans remain the masters since there is no evidence of any cooperation whereas the involvement of the Argentines was well known and remains undesired.

Rob Stuart
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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#115

Post by Rob Stuart » 21 Oct 2017, 00:14

Atrevida wrote: The point about Axis History Forum, always disregarded, is that it exists basically for discussion. It is not a university. People like Sid Guttridge and Rob Stuart make errors for example and are not persecuted for them where they occur as misunderstandings. Both made false statements recently and I will post an item showing their false assumptions.
I have made no deliberately false statements. If you think I've made inaccurate statements, then please identify them, say why you think they're wrong and I'll respond.
Atrevida wrote:From the foregoing post I see that Sid Gutteridge at last comes out with it and makes his political stand. I suspected it, but it is the first time that he finds substantial evidence of economic cooperation between the Allies and Argentina. So that is where he is coming from. This is supposed to be a non-political forum. But all the things he mentions are not illegal transactions between a neutral country and a belligerent at war. Trade continues. If German merchant ships had been able to get through the British North Sea blockade, the Germans would have been the clients of a willing Argentina too.

However, military cooperation between Argentina and Hitler's Germany during the war existed and was illegal. That is the reason above for the title "SECRET U-boat bases....." The modern desire of the Government of today's Argentina, where I have lived for many years, and I know the history and the people, is that no such cooperation can ever have existed despite the evidence. Ironmachine's question shows that he does not understand the twin desires of modern Uruguay and Argentina for there not to be the slightest suspicion in either country that the huge Nazi activity ever amounted to anything. During the war Uruguay was pro-British and Argentina pro-German. From the northern side of the River Plate Uruguay kept an eye on German naval activities and reported them to the Allies. In this field the Uruguayans remain the masters since there is no evidence of any cooperation whereas the involvement of the Argentines was well known and remains undesired.
Why do you say that "military cooperation between Argentina and Hitler's Germany" was illegal? What law made it illegal? Or are you simply trying to say that such cooperation would put Argentina in breach of its obligations as a neutral country?

Why are you implying that non-Argentinians like myself are motivated in this discussion by some bizarre partisan sympathy for the Argentine government? Geez, I don't even know the name of the Argentine president nor the names of any Argentine political parties! As for Sid's comments, I do not see how any reasonable person can conclude that they reflect a "political stand" on his part.

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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#116

Post by Rob Stuart » 21 Oct 2017, 13:21

Atrevida wrote:The problem of obtaining evidence can be seen in the following case in which a Government has set out recently to quite deliberately deny or destroy unwelcome connections between its predecessors and the activities of possibly one small German U-boat in waters near its federal capital.

This is the trail which suggests that a U-boat was active in the River Plate from September 1939 to the end of 1942.
It is known that every German submarine in existence in September 1939 was in European waters for the whole of that month. Here is the complete list:

U 1, U 2, U 3, U 4, U 5, U 6, U 7, U 8, U 10, U 11 In use by training schools
U 9 On patrol 25 August – 15 September
U 12 Sunk 8 October, probably lost on a mine in the Strait of Dover
U 13 On patrol 2-6 September, 11 September – 3 October
U 14 On patrol 13-29 September
U 15 On patrol 31 August – 8 September, 20 September – 8 October
U 16 On patrol 2-8 September, 13 September – 5 October
U 17 On patrol 31 August – 8 September, 9-10 September, then employed as training boat
U 18 On patrol 30 August – 7 September, 14-24 September
U 19 On patrol 25 August – 15 September, 27 September – 1 October
U 20 On patrol 1-20 September
U 21 On patrol 9 September – 1 October
U 22 On patrol 26 August – 9 September, 27-30 September
U 23 On patrol 9-21 September
U 24 On patrol 2-5 September, 13-29 September
U 25 Employed as training boat
U 26 On patrol 29 August – 26 September
U 27 Sunk on 20 September, in the North Atlantic west of Ireland
U 28 On patrol 19 August – 29 September
U 29 On patrol 19 August – 26 September
U-30 On patrol 22 August – 27 September
U 31 On patrol 9 September – 2 October
U 32 On patrol 5-30 September
U 33 On patrol 19 August – 28 September
U 34 On patrol 19 August – 26 September
U 35 On patrol 9 September – 12 October
U 36 On patrol 7-30 September
U 37 On patrol 19 August – 15 September
U 38 On patrol 19 August – 18 September
U 39 Sunk 14 September northwest of Scotland
U 40 On patrol 19 August – 18 September, sunk 13 October in English Channel
U 41 On patrol 19 August – 17 September
U 42 Sunk 13 October southwest of Ireland
U 43 Commissioned 26 August, first patrol 6 November – 14 December
U 44 Commissioned 4 November
U 45 On patrol 19 August – 15 September, sunk 14 October southwest of Ireland
U 46 On patrol 19 August – 15 September
U 47 On patrol 19 August – 15 September
U 48 On patrol 19 August – 17 September
U 49 Commissioned 12 August, first patrol 9-29 November
U 50 Commissioned 12 December
U 51 Inactive, CO transferred to U-53 in August and not replaced until January.
U 52 On patrol 19 August – 17 September
U 53 On patrol 29 August – 30 September
U 54 Commissioned 23 September, sunk in North Sea on 13 February during first patrol
U 55 Commissioned 21 November
U 56 On patrol 25 August – 8 September, 12-19 September
U 57 On patrol 5-18 September
U 58 On patrol 25 August – 9 September
U 59 On patrol 29 August – 11 September

This data shows that there is absolutely no way that any of these submarines was in the River Plate in September or October 1939.

This data is from https://uboat.net/boats/listing.html. Although I did not take the trouble of writing it all down for this post, the data on the above U-boats also shows that none of them could ever have been in the Plate.

I invite you to go through the records at https://uboat.net/boats/listing.html for every other German submarine and tell us which one(s) could possibly have been in the River Plate at any point from September 1939 to the end of 1942. You are the one putting this theory forward, it's up to you to provide the evidence to back it up. If you cannot identify any U-boat which may have been there, then you should admit that you have no evidence to support your assertion.

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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#117

Post by Sid Guttridge » 21 Oct 2017, 13:52

Hi Polar Bear,

There is a very big difference - the Argentines serving in the RAF volunteered to go to the UK. The crew of the Graf Spee were in Argentina involuntarily.

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#118

Post by Sid Guttridge » 21 Oct 2017, 13:54

Hi Atrevida,

If, during the war Argentina was pro-German, why did it "provide several thousand mostly Anglo-Argentine volunteers, largely for the RAF, paid to equip several RAF squadrons, one of which carried Argentina's name in its title and was reviewed by the Argentine Ambassador, it massively subsidized the British war effort by exports to the UK on the understanding that most would only be paid for after the war, supplied pistols to SOE, sent Britain large amounts of beef, wheat and leather which helped keep the UK fed and put boots on the feet of its soldiers, it maintained tens of thousands of British POWs with Red Cross parcels throughout the war, its provision of food saved much British shipping as the alternative was Australia, which was much further away, interned some 16 Italian merchant ships which were later used by Argentina for trade, thereby saving even more Allied shipping,.............etc., etc,., etc"?

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#119

Post by Sid Guttridge » 23 Oct 2017, 15:50

Hi Atrevida/Ohdruf,

OK, if, "military cooperation between Argentina and Hitler's Germany during the war existed", what did it consist of?

There was certainly some attempted liaison, such as via Hellmuth, but what substantive facts do you have to offer?

Please list them and we can analyse them.

Cheers,

Sid.

Atrevida
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Re: Secret U-Boat Bases in Mexico, Spain and Elsewhere?

#120

Post by Atrevida » 24 Oct 2017, 21:16

THE COOPERATION BETWEEN THE KRIEGSMARINE AND ARGENTINA IN THE RIVER PLATE, 1939-1945

1. INTRODUCTION
From December 1939 until mid-1945, the southern shore of the River Plate served as an Etappe of the E-Dienst. Let us follow it through chronologically.

2. On 18 December 1939, following the plan worked out by the E-Denst, the Argentine flag tugs Coloso and Gigante, and the sand-dredger Chiriguana, all of Delfino S.A., a subsidiary of the Hamburg-Süd Line, brought 1051 Graf Spee crew members to Buenos Aires. Here all but five medical staff were interned by decree 50.826 under the signature of President Ortiz. Why would they want to be interned in Argentina and not in Uruguay?

3. At the beginning of internment, FregKpt Kay, successor to the deceased Langsdorff, opened a small office in rooms 113 and 118 on the third floor at Banco Germánico, 146 Avenida de Mayo. Here four officers and one senior NCO worked with naval attaché Dietrich Niebuhr to get the escapes rolling. Later the office liaised closely with the Lahusen espionage organization four blocks away for the reception of U-boats unloading clandestinely along the Argentine coast.

4. By the beginning of April 1940, 14 Graf Spee officers, six midshipmen, 31 NCO´s and five ratings had absconded from internment in Argentina. 26 were recaptured but none of these were officers.

5. On 8 April 1940 by Government decree 59.459, President Ortiz ordered all the remaining Graf Spee officers and the veteran technical NCO´s to be confined on the small island of Martin García in the River Plate off the Tigre Delta. The Argentine half of this island is less than 0.71 square miles in size and so ought to have have presented no security difficulties. NCO Martin was the first man to escape, arriving back in Berlin in June 1941.

6. In July 1940 when pro-British President Ortiz stepped down in favour of Vice-President Castillo, the situation took a turn for the better for the internees. Castillo was pro-German, the Navy Minister Almirante Scasso was pro-Italian and best of all, the commander of the corvette which patrolled the waters around Martin García island was Eduardo Aumann, a Volksdeutscher.

7. On 31 August 1940, a boat (no details, no pack drill) turned up and removed fifteen Graf Spee officers and NCOs to Tigre and from there they eventually returned to Germany. Following his investigation, Scasso reported that it was not possible "to determine how the escapers got away since they left no discernible trail." No Argentine could be blamed although the commandant of Martin Garcia was replaced.

8. On 10 November 1940 when five officers escaped, two were recaptured. They had left in an inflatable dinghy wearing lifejackets and carrying a map of the Delta, compass, lanterns and food. The investigators were mystified as to where all this came from, but happily no Argentine officer could be faulted.

9. Similar frustrated escape attempts occurred in February and March 1941 when equipment was seized but its provenance could not be determined.

10. On 11 March 1942 five officers went but three were recaptured. Five more disppeared on 10 April 1942. Investigators found a tunnel from the accommodation block to the water's edge and it was suspected that they "might have been picked up there by a boat" but happily no Argentine could be blamed.

11. On 4 May 1942 one man escaped but two others were recaptured nailed into crates awaiting loading on the ferry. Despite "the most painstaking search and enquiries" no evidence could be found to identify who had nailed up the boxes from the outside.

12. Up to September 1942, of 151 Graf Spee escapes confirmed, 31 had occurred before President Ortiz' decree of April 1940, and 120 afterwards. Of the latter, thirty had gone from the island.

13. In December 1942 it was decided to close down Martin Garcia as a detention camp and relocate the detainees elsewhere in Argentina.For that reason, the perverted "modern history" of Argentina has German internes on Martin Garcia only from January 1943, and of these non-existent internees, obviously none escaped, Magnificent security!

Source: Newton, Professor Ronald: El cuarto lado del triángulo, Sudamericana, 1995, Camarasa Jorge: Odessa al Sur, Buenos Aires 1995.

Eleven Graf Spee officers who escaped from internment in Argentina and eventually commanded U-boats were these:
Four fell in action: Heinz Kummer, Friedrich Mumm, Wolfgang Reckeberg, Hans-Joachim Schwebke
Seven survived the war: Kurt Diggins, Hermann Kotmann, Hans Joachim Kuhn, Johann Reckhoff, Rold Schauenburg, Günter Schiebusch, Jürgen Wattenburg. (Source: Sharkhunters)

14. On 22 January 1943, the Uruguayan Emergency Consultative Committee for Political Defence published a document denouncing Kapt zur See Niebuhr the naval attaché as the head of an extensive and well-organized network of Nazi spies in Argentina and Uruguay. Castillo's Government was forced to declare Niebuhr persona non grata and he was expelled from Argentina on 30 January 1943. It made no difference, for his adjutant Oberleutnant zur See Martin Müller was accredited as the new naval attaché and continued to handle shipping intelligence and operate the various agents and agencies.

15. Before proceeding further with this report, it is as well to bear in mind that the River Plate from Cabo San Antonio at San Clemente del Tuyú, westwards as far as Martin García island, is several hundred miles in length and is an international waterway limited only by the coastal territories up to three miles out from the Argentina and Uruguayan sides. Therefore a U-boat was perfectly entitled to travel up and down the River Plate beyong the territorial limits for as long as its commander pleased.

16. Most of the consignments to Argentina by U-boat were unloaded on the River Plate side of Cabo Antonio. So far as is known, the farthest delivery point west along the River Plate occurred in December 1943. In the following month, President Amézaga of Uruguay sent an indignant protest to the FBI providing details of a transfer in December in international waters of the River Plate halfway between the city of La Plata and Colonia del Sacramento. Boxes and crates were transferred from a U-boat to two tugs of the Delfino S.A. based in Buenos Aires. This was the same company which supplied the two tugs to lift the Graf Spee crew from Montevideo in December 1939, and so Buenos Aires docks was a secret U-boat help point.
Sources: Uki Goñi: La autentica Odessa, Paídos, BsAs 2003: Jorge Camarasa, Puerto Seguro, Norma Ed., BsAs 2006.

17. In 1944, the epicentre of U-boat sightings was more frequent on the Uruguayan side, and a commission was set up to investigate Nazi activities in Uruguay and the movements of agents.
Source: Mercader, Antonio, El Año del Leon, Aguilo, Montevideo, 1999

18. From late 1944, U-boats began dropping off consignments near the small town of San Clemente del Tuyú, which is located on the headland at Cabo San Antonio. An imaginary line drawn from the lighthouse there to Punta del Este on the Uruguayan coast separates the South Atlantic from the River Plate. Anybody who has visited San Clemente del Tuyú will know that no disembarkations can ever have taken place on the Atlantic shore, for its sand dunes 20 feet high provide an excellent observation position for Allied agents to see all activities along the coast and out to sea for miles. The coast is also in full view of the lighthouse. On the other hand, the River Plate shores of San Clemente include a huge uninhabited area of small rivers and marshlands stretching for miles in the direction of La Plata city, including the Bay of Borondóm.

19. An important revelation made by Thrird Reich Treasury agent Ludwig Freude to Argentine agent "Natalio" confirmed that on 7 February 1945 a U-boat brought transport load 1744 into the River Plate and unloaded it near San Clemente del Tuyú. The Memorandum of the Dirección de Coordinación Federal sent to the Argentine Navy Ministry on 18 April 1945 appears as a facsimile in the book Aftermath (Avon Books, NY, 1974) by Ladislas Fargo. It is believed that the bags contained a momentous quantity of foreign currencies, platinum, gold and diamonds. Otto Reinbek, head of the Reich Ministry for External Affairs, Latin American Office stated: "The SD told us that the success of the operation was guaranteed by Argentine official circles."

Sources: Camarasa, Odessa del Sur: Oki Guñi, Perón y los Nazis, La auténtica Odessa .

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