Wreck of a German submarine found

The wreck of a German submarine has been found in the north of France, in the waters of the English Channel. The vessel 8.5 Mm off Cap Barfleur was located by the crew of the Royal Netherlands Navy’s HNLMS “Makkum” mine catcher.

The found vessel is the UC-69 submarine mine-layer belonging to the Kaiserliche Marine, which sank off the coast of Normandy in 1917. Dutch sailors made their discovery as early as October, but it was not until November that its identity was finally confirmed.

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The identification of the wreck was made by Royal Netherlands Navy submarine specialist Lieutenant Jouke Spoelstra. He analysed the photographs of the German ship he had found and matched them to the German submarine mine-layer type UC II.

SM UC-69 sank on 6 December 1917 as a result of a collision with another German submarine. The vessel was rammed by U-96 while minesweeping the waterways leading to and from the port of Cherbourg. UC-69 went down within 10 minutes of the collision. At that time, 11 crew members were killed. The remaining 18 were rescued and transferred aboard U-96.

The discovery of the wreck was not planned and happened by accident, during the mapping of the bottom in the area by the Dutch Navy. This does not mean that the Dutch were not looking for the wreck of the submarine… For a long time the Royal Netherlands Navy has been combing various locations in search of the ship O13, which disappeared in the North Sea in June 1940.

Source: navaltoday.com