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

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Atrevida,

Most, though not all, of those are well attested facts.

The trouble is not one of them offers any evidence of official Argentine "COOPERATION BETWEEN THE KRIEGSMARINE AND ARGENTINA IN THE RIVER PLATE, 1939-1945."

I am in haste now, but will, get back to you in more detail ASAP.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Atrevida,

1. This refers only to German activity, not Argentine.

2. You ask "Why would they (the Graf Spee crew) want to be interned in Argentina and not in Uruguay?". Probably because Uruguay was arguably the most pro-Allied country in Latin America. Virtually any country in Latin America would have been preferable and Argentina happened to be most convenient.

3. This refers only to German activity, not Argentine.

4. This also refers only to German activity, not Argentine.

7. You yourself say, "No Argentine could be blamed". So, this is not, by your own word, evidence of "Cooperation between the Kriegsmarine and Argentina".

8. Again, "no Argentine officer could be faulted." So, once more, this is not, by your own word, evidence of "Cooperation between the Kriegsmarine and Argentina".

9. Again, "...provenance could not be determined". So, neither is this evidence of "Cooperation between the Kriegsmarine and Argentina".

10. Again, "...no Argentine could be blamed." And again, by your own word, this is not evidence of "Cooperation between the Kriegsmarine and Argentina".

11. Again, "...no evidence could be found to identify who....." For the fifth time, this is not, by your own word, evidence of "Cooperation between the Kriegsmarine and Argentina".

12. Doesn't this imply that that the escape rate was higher under pro-Allied Ortiz?

14. So Castillo expelled the German naval attaché. Hardly a shining example of Argentine-German collaboration!

15. So what?

16. There is no substantive evidence that any German U-boats were ever sent to Argentina or that any landed anything. However, there is evidence that U-boats were forbidden by the Kriegsmarine to operate south of the Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul for fear of mistakenly attacking neutral Uruguayan, Argentine and Chilean ships. There is also evidence that a sailing vessel was used to land agents in Brazil and Argentina.

17. There were multiple U-boast sightings all over the globe. For example, Chile sent warships to hunt down one non-existent U-boat reportedly seen signalling to shore off its coast. However, there is no evidence from primary German sources of any U-boats being deployed there, or to Argentina, or to Uruguay.

18. See 16 & 17 above.

19. So we have an anonymous Argentine source making a claim of which there "appears" to be a facsimile in a book by a not very reliable author. Not exactly cast iron evidence, I would suggest.

Cheers,

Sid.

[MikeCCampbell]

hi folks - a bit late to this, but it cropped up in a google search about secret u-boat bases, and I was trying to rediscover something that I had seen in "Hunting Hitler" regarding Spanish "bases" - and here it is:

http://www.outono.net/elentir/2012/04/1 ... a-de-vigo/ (google translate works fine)

This is the old mineral loading dock at Vigo - you can still see it in google Maps/earth just east of the bridge over Vigo Harbor at Ponte de Rande.

This facility was built in 1925 and used to load minerals - probably iron ore - for Germany in WW2 - it is presented as something rather more in "HH" IIRC - I saw it a couple of years ago and remembered trying to find it then.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi MikeCCampbell,

Thanks.

Spanish support for German vessels as late as 1945 (running supplies to the Atlantic ports) is well established.

However, over much of Latin America (including the British colony of British Honduras) there are unsubstantiated stories of U-boats being resupplied by locals. The problem seems to be that (1) there is is no evidence of this from German archives and (2) no hard evidence from the Latin American side either.

The British certainly feared this might happened and prepared sabotage operations against interned German ships in case, but they never had to be mounted.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Rzewsky]

Do you know if the U 534 successfully delivered its cargo and was then destroyed, or was it sunk on the outbound leg of the journey? And do you know of any WW2 Soviet Navy archives available anywhere on the web? I was able to find some records documenting a number of deadly encounters between Russian and German units in the extreme north, but there were mostly from German sources. Many thanks for weighing in on this topic!

Hello, gentlemen! Mr. Williamjpellas, my respect! I have not been on the site for a long time and I could not think that rumors about finding the base Kriegsmarine will cause such a storm of emotions.
But first things first. Unfortunately, I do not know the reliable documents that are in the Soviet (Russian) archives, which would confirm this version. There is only indirect evidence. There are a lot of them, but they are not reliable. I read it with a branch and can only add a little to what has been said.
I read everything that says about the secret Nazi base in the Soviet Arctic in Russian. Basically this is the same story about the U 534 in different versions.
But there are other evidence.

From the book S. Kovalev and A Fedorov "What the Third Reich was looking for in the Soviet Arctic"
• On July 27, 1942, the German submarine U 601 near Maly Karmakul destroyed two seaplanes and shot the local polar station.
• On August 1, 1942, the same U 601 west of the island of Mezhsharsky sank the Peasants' transport with torpedo. After the death of the ship, the submarine surfaced, clarified the name of the vessel and, pointing to the crew on the boat, the direction to the shore, went into the sea. Of the crew and passengers killed 7 people, the rest reached the lips of Belushia.
• On August 17, 1942, at the Matveyev Island in the Pechora Sea, U209 discovered a tugboat "Komsomolets" with a barge carrying 267 people, a tugboat "Nord", towing a barge with property, and a tugboat "Komiles" with an idle engine. The caravan was completely destroyed.
• On August 25, 1942, the icebreaking ship "Alexander Sibiryakov" in the area of ​​Belukha Island was shot by artillery fire of the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer. Of the 104 crew members and the next change of winterers going to the North Land, 18 people were saved (17 were taken prisoner by Admiral Scheer, another one a month later was seaplane removed from the island of Belukha).
• On August 26, 1942, the submarine U 601 torpedoed the Kuibyshev timber ship on the approach to the Yenisei Bay. The whole crew perished, a boat with the bodies of two crew members was discovered later on the island of Sibiryakov.
• On August 26, 1942, the submarine U 601 torpedoed the Kuibyshev timber ship on the approach to the Yenisei Bay. The whole crew perished, a boat with the bodies of two crew members was discovered later on the island of Sibiryakov.
• On October 11, 1942, mines laid by submarine U 209 at the western entrance to the Matochkin Shar Strait, blew up and died SCR-23.
• On October 15, 1942, the Shchors transport, which was traveling from the Kara Sea to the Belushy Bay, was blown up by a mine when it left the Ugra Shar. 10 people were killed, the wounded were taken to the Khabarovo settlement. The mines were delivered by the Hitler submarine U 592. On the same minefield July 25, 1943, the minesweeper TSCh-58 (the former RT-94 Zhdanov) was blown up and killed.
• On July 27, 1943, the artillery fire of a fascist submarine in the area of ​​Cape Sporiy Navolok sunk the hydrographic vessel Akademik Shokalsky, part of its crew was shot in water and on ice. After walking to the Bay of Well-being on August 2, the surviving members of the crew were transported by the Polyarnik motobot. Out of 27 people, 15 were saved.
• On July 30, 1943, the minesweeper TSh-65 (former RT-76 Astrakhan), part of the convoy escorting the Roshal transport from Kolguev Island to Belushia Bay, was torpedoed by the German submarine U 703. Of the 42 crew members, 28 people were killed. On Soviet transport, a noise producer was used to create anti-submarine defense at Cape Zhelaniya. Hitler's submarine was discovered 20 minutes before the attack, over the convoy at that moment there were 2 seaplanes of ICBM-2.
• On August 25, 1943, a rescue boat Shkval was blown up and killed on mines delivered by a U 625 submarine in the Ugra Shar passage.
• On August 28, 1943, the Dixon transport was torpedoed by a German submarine U 354 (or U 302) south-east of the Mona Islands. The crew and passengers are saved by escort ships.
• On September 6, 1943, on the way from U 636 submarine in the Yenisei Bay, on the way from Dudinka to Dixon, Tbilisi's transport was destroyed and lost.
• On September 30, 1943 the steamer Arkhangelsk from the convoy VA-18 was torpedoed by the U 601 submarine 60 miles west of the Nordenskiold archipelago. The Soviet caravan came from the Laptev Sea to the Yenisei River. Of the 42 people, only 29 were picked up from the water.
• On October 1, 1943, the steamer "Sergei Kirov" and the minesweeper from the caravan VA-18 were torpedoed off the islands of the Arctic Institute by the submarine U 703. Part of the team was killed, 27 people were saved.
• On August 12, 1944, the transport of Marina Raskova and two minesweepers (almost the entire train of the BD-5 caravan in Dixon) were torpedoed by a German submarine U 365 80 miles west of Bely Island. The boat first used electric torpedoes in the Arctic. Of the 354 passengers and the crew of Marina Raskova (of whom 116 women and more than 20 children) only 145. Only 6 of them were rescued from transport and escort ships.
In August 26, 1944, the Soviet hydrographic motorbike " Nord was sunk by the onboard artillery of the U 957 submarine, anchored off Kaminsky Island (Minin's skerries). Before the GISU sank, the Germans seized a special post, accompanying her communications officer and some crew members. After the war it became known that the Nazis practically from Dixon followed the transition of the Soviet hydrograph to the peninsula of Mikhailov and the cape of Sterlegov. That is, they were well versed in the safe routes of approach to Soviet polar stations. The main success of the fascists was the seizure of secret Soviet documents at the polar station on the Sterligov Cape, including radio-frequency radios.
• On September 23, 1944, the submarine U 957 near Kravkov Island (in the area between the Nordenskiold Archipelago and the islands of the Arctic Institute) was sunk by the SCR-29 ("Brilliant") escort ship from the guard convoy VD-1.
• On September 24, 1944, the minesweeper T-120, sent by the commander of the convoy VD-1 to search for those escaping from the TFR-29, was damaged by an acoustic torpedo of a German submarine. The commander of the minesweeper captain-lieutenant Dmitry Lysov with the emergency party remained aboard the damaged ship, the rest on the ship's boat and on the pontoon sent to the nearest shore. When the fascist boat surfaced to seize shipborne boats, the minesweeper's artillery opened fire on her and forced her to plunge. The second torpedo T-120 was sunk, but 44 crew members managed to return to the mainland.

For the sake of completeness, we present a list of the Soviet polar stations destroyed or damaged by Nazi submarines:
on July 27, 1942, the polar station in Maly Karmakul.
August 25, 1942 - the polar station at Cape Zhelaniya.
September 8, 1942 - polar station on the island of Solitude.
September 18, 1943, a radio station on the island of Pravda.
September 19, 1944- landing of a reconnaissance group from U 711 to the island of Vardroper.
September 24, 1944 - a radio station in the Novaya Zemlya Bay of Well-being.
September 26, 1944 - the polar station at Cape Sterlegov.

And here is a direct proof of the presence of the fascists in the Arctic. It has already been mentioned here. You can see for yourself.
All that remains of the meteorological station "Treasure hunt". My subtitles.
https://youtu.be/SaFpFztb8f4
sorry for my bad english

[williamjpellas]

Rzewsky, many MANY thanks for the list of sources and for the information about the lonely clash between the Soviets and the Germans in the Arctic! The YouTube video was excellent, and is exactly the kind of documentation I am trying to find. Here is a fairly detailed story about the archaeological expedition to the German base Schatzgrabber ("Treasure Hunter" in German) on Alexandra Land. (Igorr mentioned the name of the German outpost earlier in this thread.) This is 650 miles north of the northern Russian coast---extremely cold, dangerous, and remote territory, and yet there was an airfield on the island.

https://www.livescience.com/56764-secre ... vered.html -- You have to "join" the site to see the whole story, but I would imagine you can subsequently unsubscribe from it.

MikeCCampbell,thank you for the additional and timely information about Spanish support for U-boat operations. I appreciate your input very much!

Regarding commerce going on even while the bullets were flying, this certainly occurred during WWII, both in terms of smuggling and---somewhat shockingly---in terms of multinational corporations attempting to carry on with business as usual. As for whether there was formal trade at an officially recognized level going on between Germany and Argentina, I have not read much about that and so I can't comment.

[williamjpellas]

Regarding prepositioning of supplies ahead of a planned operation, I am surprised that a professional soldier would describe that as "absurd". That happens all the time in military operations, from prepositioned supply ships to fuel supplies being airlifted to forward bases still in enemy territory so they are waiting for oncoming tanks and so on.

None of these examples, real though they are, are for comparable situations. The prepositioned supply ships you are thinking of are/were either kept at sea in areas controlled by one's own navy or kept in friendly ports with the knowledge and permission of the host government. They are not pre-positioned secretly. As for using airlift to preposition supplies at forward bases, the forward bases are not secret ones and the opposition does not have air superiority. Do you seriously think the US would ever attempt to pre-position supplies at FOBs in places like Afghanistan if the FOBs had to remain secret and the Taliban had an effective air force which could shot down the unescorted transport aircraft?

US forces used prepositioning of fuel dumps for armored vehicles and airborne troop transports during the Second Gulf War. You're correct to note that the US enjoyed air supremacy and that obviously meant there was far less danger than would have been the case in a war against a peer equivalent force, but that doesn't mean there was no threat from insurgents and irregulars who might have been able to overrun or destroy those dumps. As for whether the US would still have tried it if the Taliban, etc., had an effective air force, my answer is: yeah, or at least, maybe.

American troops conducted similar operations in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Air Force was certainly more of a threat than anything the Taliban might have in the air (which is next to nothing). Operations like this were why the "Daisy Cutter" bomb--the ancestor of the current "MOAB"--was developed. It was used to blow out all of the trees in an area of the jungle that had been selected for a landing in enemy territory. Drop the Daisy Cutter off a ramp at the back of a C-130, kaboom, instant clearing. Certainly it was mostly troops that were subsequently rushed in for short duration search and destroy battles, but there were plenty of supplies landed for longer duration missions, too. And what about the numerous fire bases that were set up as "islands" in enemy territory? That's what the Battle of Khe Sahn was all about.

I know that's mixing the metaphor a bit because we're specifically considering the likelihood of supplies being successfully prepositioned, in secret, in Allied territory by Axis forces in WWII, but again I ask, Why not? We're talking about a pre-digital age in which there were no spy satellites, and the vast majority of reconnaissance was done by human eyes, whether in person or from aircraft. Much easier to hide things back then, generally speaking. And by the way, in the present day it is rumored that certain Russian spetznaz units have already done the same thing--in the continental United States. Even if this is true and not just a fantastic rumor from the right wing fringe, it would be on a much smaller scale than what we are looking into here. But as I say, I am keeping an open mind, and broadly similar operations have been carried out in the past.

[Rzewsky]

Rzewsky, many MANY thanks for the list of sources and for the information about the lonely clash between the Soviets and the Germans in the Arctic! The YouTube video was excellent, and is exactly the kind of documentation I am trying to find. Here is a fairly detailed story about the archaeological expedition to the German base Schatzgrabber ("Treasure Hunter" in German) on Alexandra Land. (Igorr mentioned the name of the German outpost earlier in this thread.) This is 650 miles north of the northern Russian coast---extremely cold, dangerous, and remote territory, and yet there was an airfield on the island.

https://www.livescience.com/56764-secre ... vered.html -- You have to "join" the site to see the whole story, but I would imagine you can subsequently unsubscribe from it.

Yes, I heard the full version of this story. As for the aerodrome, this was not an aerodrome in its full sense. Most likely it was just a cleared playground, on which a transport plane could board, and even then in the summer season when it was free of snow.
but this is perhaps the only place for the presence of the Nazis, which can be proved today. As for the Nazi base in the Lena Delta. This is still a rumor that sticks to a few little significant facts. Someone, once, somewhere saw a 200 m berth pier, which now could be viewed from space. Remains of a German submariner. A mysterious ring found by one of the expeditions. As for the barrels for fuel, how did you correctly write before. These barrels followed the Red Army from Germany after the Nazis' rout to the east.
As you know, the Red Army had allies of obligations to enter the war with the emperor of Japan. Therefore, these barrels are now found all over the Far East from Kamchatka to Vladivostok. There are even Matua (Matsuwa). This is another topic, but I have some interesting messages.

[Rzewsky]

But still, there is some evidence of the construction of a German base in the Western Litza near Murmansk in 1939. At first I was skeptical about this, but later I changed my mind slightly. The version requires additional checks.

[Polar bear]

hi,

• On August 1, 1942, the same U601 west of the island of Mezhsharsky sank the Peasants' transport with torpedo.

The ship's name was KRESTYANIN

• On August 17, 1942, at the Matveyev Island in the Pechora Sea, U209 discovered a tugboat "Komsomolets" with a barge carrying 267 people, a tugboat "Nord", towing a barge with property, and a tugboat "Komiles" with an idle engine. The caravan was completely destroyed.

The "people" being NKWD prisoners ..

• On July 27, 1943, the artillery fire of a fascist submarine in the area of ​​Cape Sporiy Navolok sunk the hydrographic vessel Akademik Shokalsky, part of its crew was shot in water and on ice. After walking to the Bay of Well-being on August 2, the surviving members of the crew were transported by the Polyarnik motobot. Out of 27 people, 15 were saved.

The submarine was U 255 (Harms)

• On September 23, 1944, the submarine U957 near Kravkov Island (in the area between the Nordenskiold Archipelago and the islands of the Arctic Institute) was sunk by the SCR-29 ("Brilliant") escort ship from the guard convoy VD-1.

Actually, it was the contrary : U 957 sank the BRILLIANT.

For the sake of completeness, we present a list of the Soviet polar stations destroyed or damaged by Nazi submarines:
August 25, 1942 - the polar station at Cape Zhelaniya.

by U 255


btw : "Schatzgräber" translates into "Treasure Digger"

greetings, the pb

[Rzewsky]

hi,

• On August 1, 1942, the same U601 west of the island of Mezhsharsky sank the Peasants' transport with torpedo.
The ship's name was KRESTYANIN

Peasant and there is KRESTYANIN in Russian, excuse me.

• On August 17, 1942, at the Matveyev Island in the Pechora Sea, U209 discovered a tugboat "Komsomolets" with a barge carrying 267 people, a tugboat "Nord", towing a barge with property, and a tugboat "Komiles" with an idle engine. The caravan was completely destroyed.
The "people" being NKWD prisoners ..

Maybe prisoners were often transported on barges

• On September 23, 1944, the submarine U957 near Kravkov Island (in the area between the Nordenskiold Archipelago and the islands of the Arctic Institute) was sunk by the SCR-29 ("Brilliant") escort ship from the guard convoy VD-1.
Actually, it was the contrary : U 957 sank the BRILLIANT.

Of course there was destroyed of BRILLIANT (diamond in Russian) is a machine translation error, thanks for clarifying

[Rob Stuart]

US forces used prepositioning of fuel dumps for armored vehicles and airborne troop transports during the Second Gulf War.

These fuel dumps were not set up at secret sites inside Iraq before that country was invaded, so they are NOT comparable.

American troops conducted similar operations in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Air Force was certainly more of a threat than anything the Taliban might have in the air (which is next to nothing).

You must be kidding. American ground forces did not operate inside North Vietnam and the North Vietnamese Air Force did not operate outside North Vietnam. NOT comparable.

[williamjpellas]

My point is that the fuel dumps used in the Second Gulf War were set up in hostile, enemy controlled territory.

The North Vietnamese Air Force did operate outside of North Vietnam, though not often. And American ground forces did operate inside the North as well as in Cambodia. I know one of the guys who did so personally. These were small scale "black ops" to be sure, but nevertheless.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

[vladalex]

Hello for all,
On the topic :
All comparisson of the facts, political movements , secret operation or alleged events from years 1940-42 with our current-contemporary years
is only a construction fallible for human majorities who do not know history - in other words a pure discussion around a false news, allegedly true for some people prone to accept the current reality.
Regards,
Vladalex

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Rzewsky,

Are you sure the possible German base near Murmansk in 1939 doesn't refer to the reception of German merchant ships there? Some were directed there to avoid the British blockade.

Cheers,

Sid.