Articles

Operation Deadlight Expedition II

by Innes McCartney

Day Seven: 12 May, 2002

Target:
U-861
Depth: Weather and sea conditions:
44 metres - Wind W 3 fair. Sunny conditions 20 metres linear visibility.

Diving report:
After some perseverance we located the main part of this type IXD2 U-boat. She is the shallowest of the Deadlight fleet and by far the most broken up. However, she IS Jurgen Oesten's U-boat.

The wreck is in three major pieces and is twisted over to port. From the stern we passed over the twin props, the diesel engines and electric motors. We then found the most intact part of the wreck which contained the control room and conning tower. The forward compartments have broken off and the torpedo tubes lie detached on the sand.

The underwater visibility seems to be improving, just as the sea state turns against us. It remains to be seen how much more diving we will get done this week.

Comments:
We will attempt to revisit U-2506 tomorrow.

Innes McCartney

This article was published on 13 May 2002.

Operation Deadlight Expedition II

Day One: 4 May, 2002 - Diving on the U-1271 since U-861 is hard to locate.

Day Two: 5 May, 2002 - The broken down wreck of U-1009, plus the Laurentic.

Day Three: 6 May, 2002 - Going back to the U-2511 which Innes describes as the world's greatest submarine dive.

Day Four: 7 May, 2002 - A dive on the U-1104 in a nice Atlantic swell.

Day Five: 8 May, 2002 - Another unidentified U-boat location, plus a steamer from WWI.

Day Six: 9 May, 2002 - A dive on another unidentified boat which turned out to be an awesome dive on the other type XXI boat there!

Day Seven: 12 May, 2002 - Finally Oesten's elusive U-861 is located.

Day Eight: 13 May, 2002 - No diving due to poor weather conditions.