Sunken U Boats found

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Andy H
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Sunken U Boats found

#1

Post by Andy H » 01 Sep 2003, 18:25

From todays Daily Telegraph
U-boats with entombed crews found off Yorkshire
By Paul Stokes
(Filed: 01/09/2003)

Two German U-boats sunk during the First World War have been found with their crews entombed on board off the coast of northern England.

Divers have spent the past decade looking for the early submarines, known as "iron coffins" or "sisters of sorrow", which were lost between 1917 and 1918. Eight are known to have been sunk off the Yorkshire coast and until last summer all but two had been traced.

Andrew Jackson and Carl Racey made the latest discoveries 200ft down on the seabed off Scarborough.

First they found UB41, last sighted by the SS Melbourne on Oct 5 1917, but have been unable to tell if she had struck a mine or suffered an internal explosion.

UB75, which left Borkum for the Whitby area on Nov 29 1917, was found a mile away upright and intact with little evidence of damage. She sank four ships before coming to grief herself.

The wrecks were at first thought to be off Flamborough Head, but they were found 30 miles away. The precise locations are not being publicly disclosed.

The German Government is taking steps to have the two sites declared as official war graves for the 58 mariners on board. The National U-boat Archive, near Cuxhaven, Germany, was amazed to hear of the discoveries. Expert divers are able to examine the vessels for only 15 minutes at a time.

A documentary on the search can be seen in Inside Out on BBC1 in the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire region tonight at 7.30pm.

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David C. Clarke
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#2

Post by David C. Clarke » 01 Sep 2003, 19:55

Hi andy, I mentioned this a long time ago on the Board, but I have in a book on the U.S. National Archives one of the weirdest pictures I've ever seen. It is a picture of two U-Boats sunk in the North Sea in WWI and blown up on a beach in England together by a storm, I believe, in the 1920s. I only mention it because it seemed a very strange occurrence.

Best Regards, David


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Balrog
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#3

Post by Balrog » 01 Sep 2003, 19:59

does anyone know how the law of the sea would apply in this case?

why were salvage crews able to take away items, even a section of the ships hull away from the titanic, and not be in trouble for distrubing that grave?

if all warships are military cemetaries, legally, how can all the american treasure hunters loot the sunken spanish galleons off the coast of the u.s.?

would spanish galleons not be considered warships?

are merchant ships all considered legal salvage?

how are ocean liners like the titanitic considered?could an oceanliner be declared a cemetry and be off limits to salvage teams?

is there a time limit on ocean graves? after 200 years are all ships considered either as salvage or as historic relics that can be recovered?( viking ships and ancient roman ships are oftened brought back to museums for study, so i assume there must be some time limit on this.

just curious.

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Galicia
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#4

Post by Galicia » 01 Sep 2003, 22:59

to my memory, the titanic is a cemetary. however, this law is not often followed through in the case of the titanic. salvagers have discovered that most of the titanic has already rusted itself into oblivion. now would be a good time to raise the ship, if that is possible.

Keith Loughmiller
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#5

Post by Keith Loughmiller » 02 Sep 2003, 01:50

David C. Clarke wrote:Hi andy, I mentioned this a long time ago on the Board, but I have in a book on the U.S. National Archives one of the weirdest pictures I've ever seen. It is a picture of two U-Boats sunk in the North Sea in WWI and blown up on a beach in England together by a storm, I believe, in the 1920s. I only mention it because it seemed a very strange occurrence.

Best Regards, David
Hey David....any chance you could post that pic?? I would really be interested to see it.

Jagdverband 44
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#6

Post by Jagdverband 44 » 02 Sep 2003, 02:46

It may depend on the commissioning status of the warship. I know USS Arizona is still a commissioned battleship, even though she is a war grave on the bottom of Pearl Harbour. Although the law is probably somewhat different regarding other warships. When Robert Ballard found the wreck of the Bismarck, the location was kept confidential in order to prevent what happened to the Titanic happening again. IIRC, the German government was likely told where Bismarck lay, but not a lot of other people, for the same reasons as the two recently discovered U-boats. Of course, for all this to apply to sunken warships, their locations have to be known. HMAS Sydney is lost to time, with not even a hint of where she sunk being known to the Australian Navy.

I'm no expert on maritime law, so all of what I'm saying is a wild arse guess, but to me, the obvious answer is that if a sunken warship retains it's commissioned status, as the Arizona does, legal ownership is easily ascertained, and thus salvage law can be circumvented. I seem to recall that under the rules of salvage, a shipwreck is assumed to have no owner, and the salvager can do whatever they wish with the wreck, including selling it back to the previous owner. Listing a sunken warship as a war grave may aid in circumventing those rules.

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David C. Clarke
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#7

Post by David C. Clarke » 03 Sep 2003, 03:13

I believe the rule is that a warship remains the property of the nation it served, regardless of its status as "commissioned". In fact, most ships are dropped from the naval list of a country soon after they are sunk. Being still considered "in commission" makes the U.S.S. Arizona fairly unique among sunken warships.

A civilian ship is another matter and, although my "Admiralty Law" expertise is but a dim, dim memory, much depends on where the ship was sunk and what insurance she carried (an insurance carrier that pays the the shipowner on the policy usually takes title to the sunken vessel).
A civilian ship sunk in the waters of a nation beomes subject to that nation's laws, unlike a ship sunk in international waters.

Best Regards, David

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Zeydlitz
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#8

Post by Zeydlitz » 03 Sep 2003, 15:50

Nobody owns the Titanic. It is in international waters, and the Titanic's insurance company is long gone. (The Titanic would have been it's property.)

You can, however, claim salvaging rights. IIRC the salvaging rights to the Titanic is owned by some US-registered company. (AFAIK, IFREMER, the french institute who participated in the discovery in '85, is a partner in this company...) Ironically, Robert Ballards "don't touch"-policy made this possible. You have to bring a piece of what you are claiming the salvaging rights for, Ballard could have picket up a piece of coal, claimed salvaging rights, and noone would be allowed to remove anything without Ballard's permission. Believing people would respect it as a cemetary, he didn't. So much for the corporate world... :roll:

The only hope is Canada's attempts to extend their national waters to a 2000-km zone. If this is successful, the Titanic will end up in Canadian waters. I believe Canada will then have to remove the salvaging rights, wich will probably end i an endless stream of lawsuits... :roll:

I don't know if these rules also applies to warships. AFAIK, Germany renounced any ownership or responsibility for all types of military equipment, including sunken warships, in 1945. So i don't know the status of the Bismarck.

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