Steve Coren
Underwater Photographer

U-Boat 853

;

One of the more interesting dive sites is on U-boat U-853. This submarine lies in approximately 120 of water about 8 miles east of Block Island, Rhode Island and is a well-known site for advanced divers.  U-853, a  Type IXC/40 submarine,  was constructed in 1942 and saw action in the Battle of the Atlantic. She sank almost 6000 tons of allied shipping. In February 1945, she was sent to the East Coast of the United States to harass American shipping. On May 5, 1945, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. Karl Dönitz, recalled all U-boats to return to their bases. However, U-853 either did not receive the message or possibly ignored it.   

On May 5, 1945 U-853 was lying off Point Judith, Rhode Island and sank a coal barge named the Black Point. Within a day, American ships discovered U-853 lying in about 110 feet of water, which is very shallow for a stationary submarine in sandy enemy waters. In what came to be known as the Battle of Point Judith, depth charges and hedgehogs (launched explosive projectiles) rained down on the submarine. At first U-853 tried to run and then attempted to camouflage itself by lying still. She was found through sonar. By the morning of May 6, 1945, the warships and two blimps pressed the attack. All the submarine officers and crew members (55) died.  U-853 became a war grave and was considered German “soil”. Thus, the boat was considered a German burial ground and the bones of the crew were forbidden to be touched or taken.

U-853 sits upright on a sandy bottom.  She lies there now…and is a siren call for divers. When I dove her (with yoked twin tanks) I will never forget when she first appeared out of the depths. New England waters are crammed full of nutrients, so visibility is limited, unlike tropical waters where visibility is very good. Visibility of 20-25 feet is good for New England. I still recall slowly descending and suddenly seeing appearing out of the gloom the black outline of the distinctive shape of a U-boat. This is always a “heart in my throat” moment for me. Viewing the bow of the boat was a striking moment as, to me, there is nothing else shaped like the bow of a U-boat. It has a very narrow V-shaped prow to enable it to cut through the water cleanly at a relatively high rate of speed.                 

U-boat traffic was very common around New England during World War II as well as up and down the east coast of the United States. Routine sightings of U-boats were made in the Cape Cod Canal!

Here is an article from The Boston Globe, May 8, 1995. A survivor of the Black Point, sunk by U-853, recalls the events.
View article

More stories

 

H.M.S. Thistlegorm

H.M.S. Thistlegorm

The Thistlegorm story starts at the Yards of J. L. Thompson and sons at Sunderland, for the Albyn Line. It was here that the 4898 ton, 415ft, cargo ship was built in 1940. She was driven by a triple expansion stream engine, built by North East Marine Engineering, which could deliver some 1850 hp driving her along at a speed of 10 knots.
She was one of a number of “Thistle” ships owned and operated by the Albyn Line. Each vessel carried the emblem of Scotland, the thistle, which formed the prefix of each vessels name followed by a Gaelic word; Thistledhu,Thistlegorm, Thistleglen and Thistlenuir.
Soon after completion she was quickly requisitioned by the navy for allied WW2 duties and armed with the guns which she still carries today – world war one vintage guns in fact. By September of 1941 she had completed three successful voyages (America, Argentina and the Dutch Antilles). Her next however, was to be her last.

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

Some of the best diving in the world is in the South Pacific. Destinations such as the Solomon Islands, the Philippines and Indonesia contain some of the lushest most dense coral reef systems found anywhere. Their reefs teem with sea creatures of all sizes and shapes and framed by gorgeous coral reefs.
For those who have some knowledge of World War Two history in the Pacific, the Solomon Islands were the focus of major land and sea battles between 1942 and 1943. Guadalcanal, the main island, evokes horrific memories of bloody battles as the US strove to eject the Japanese from Guadalcanal in order to capture the airport, called Cactus Field. This was the only island in the Solomon’s that contained the ability to handle large and constant air traffic. There’ve were smaller airports such as on New Georgia Island, but Cactus Field was the largest and most important in terms of depriving the Japanese of a significant air base and securing the base for American troops and materials to move westward. It was part of the plan for the US to hop-scotcvh its way westward form island to island to eventually press a large-scale attack of the Japanese mainland. The Solomons form parallel arms of three islands. In WWII, the sea between these two arms was called the “Slot”. This was a main focus of attacks of Japanese planes and ships as the US desperately clung to its beachhead on Guadalcanal, captured the runways and moved up the chain of the Solomons to Bougainville and onward to New Guinea.

Northern Egyptian Red Sea

Northern Egyptian Red Sea

The youngest of the seven seas, the Northern Egyptian Red Sea has some of the most developed reef systems in the world. It is surrounded by deserts and bounded by the Sinai Peninsula and Saudi Arabia. Reef building corals require warm clear water with a minimum of...