User:Graeme Beckett/U-559

From German submarine U-559: Userfied, Xyl 54 (talk) 18:05, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Aftermath

There is a sequel to the sinking of the U-559. Lieutenant Commander Peter Keeble, in his war autobiography, Ordeal by Water, describes a dive made on a U-boat in the Mediterranean not far from Port Said in 230 ft (70 m) of water. He was told that it was U-307, and that it was thought to have on board a top-secret infra-red sighting device; however, U-307 never operated in those waters. Since HMS Petard had taken an accurate fix on her last resting place, the wreck was easily located. Prior to the dive, Keeble was informed exactly where in the control room the secret device was located. A mock-up of the control room was built so that he could practice locating the device in the dark. That the Allies would have known exactly where a secret device would be located on a U-Boat in general is unlikely; however Brown, the third person to enter the sinking U-559, would have seen the location of the radar device. Keeble was almost certainly fed misinformation to maintain secrecy, he likely dived on U-559. The secret device was successfully recovered, but not before two corpses were encountered: one jammed in the ladder, making it necessary for Keeble to dissect it with his diver's knife. The other's finger ring tapped his helmet several times during his attempt to free the device, and he was obliged to push it away. He assumed the corpses were German seamen, but they were most likely those of Fasson and Grazier since there were no German casualties during the action that sank U-559.

(Factual errors: Sources at the U-559 article say the Enigma machine was recovered from the U-boat by Petard's crew; also that U-559's crew suffered 7 casualties (KIA) during the action.Xyl 54 (talk) 18:10, 28 January 2013 (UTC))

Re-write

Peter Keeble #Top secret dive

In … (date needed) Keeble was given a top secret mission; to dive on the wreck of a U-boat in the Mediterranean, not far from Port Said in 230 ft (70 m) of water. He was told that it was U-307, and that it was thought to have on board a top-secret infra-red sighting device. Prior to the dive, Keeble was informed exactly where in the control room the secret device was located. A mock-up of the control room was built so that he could practice locating the device in the dark. In his autobiography he describes this dive in grisly detail, including an encounter with the corpses of two of the crew.

Anomalies in his account (U-307 was sunk in 1945 in the Arctic; in fact she never operated in the Mediterranean) suggest that this was misinformation, to maintain secrecy, and that Keeble's mission was somewhat different. JR Mallman Showell, the U-boat historian, examined the theory that he was in fact diving on the wreck of U-559 to retrieve an [[Enigma machine[[, but…

Bibliography

• Keeble, Peter; Ordeal by Water, Longmans, Green and Co. London. 1957 Chapter 8 "Top Secret Dive"