I left in the early morning, a steady rain giving my trip an ominous start. The windshield wipers swept back and forth as I drove thru New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, heading to the ferry terminal in Portland, Maine. The downpour was incessant and I feared this weather would blow out my trip. I still had hundreds of miles to go, so I shook the negative thoughts and focused instead on how I wound up on this journey. I recalled how this trip to Nova Scotia had begun years earlier, in a waterfront bar with an old friend.
U-215: The Plan
Flush with success from identifying U-869 in 1997, I was ready for another challenge. The idea was simple and the plan straightforward: we would charter a fast sport fishing boat, head out to the historical location, then locate and dive U-215. Before the first beer was quaffed, the stumbling blocks became apparent: the location we had was fifty years old and rather vague, taken by dead reckoning in the heat of battle. The site was 150 miles from Gloucester on the Georges Banks, an area that had been never dived. We both knew fishermen who had been there on commercial boats. They reported that currents and conditions had been so bad it proved impossible to dive there. Impossible they said. We finished our beers, and each of us promised to do his part to make this trip happen. I would dig deeper into archival sources for more detail about the sinking, and talk to more commercial fishermen who had worked the area, begging them for hang numbers. My friend was to find us a boat that could safely deliver us there.
Using contacts in Washington DC and England, I acquired every file and report available concerning the sinking of U-215, and her one and only victim, the Liberty Ship Alexander Macomb. The search area was on the Canadian side of the Hague line, an important economic fishing zone exclusive to Canadians. I located American commercial fishermen who had worked the area before The Hague Convention had gone into effect. I had no access to Canadian fishermen, but still my database grew fat with historical locations and hang numbers. My pal didn’t fare so well. No one felt comfortable taking sport divers 150 miles offshore to dive the Banks. It was crazy. The weather was unpredictable and the currents too strong. I was told that if you didn’t like the weather on the Banks, stick around fifteen minutes and it was sure to change. It was impossible they said. Our plan fizzled and my file grew dusty.
In 1999, I led an American team of divers to England to dive U-boats in the English Channel. It was there that I learned to do drift decompression in high current situations, an unpracticed skill in the Northeast dive community. I had found a way to do the impossible. I tried once again to raise interest in an expedition to the Georges Banks and even located a 100-foot boat willing to take me out there. It was a commercial vessel out of Gloucester, and for $25,000 we could charter it for five days on the Banks. I couldn’t gather enough people to make the charter happen. For that kind of money, people demand guarantees I couldn’t give. Such is the nature of these expeditions. Without guarantees that they would be diving something, interest waned and again I shelved the file.
It was early in 2004 when I finally got my break. I bumped into Peter Hess, an old friend, who asked me about any pet projects I might have on the burner. As a maritime and admiralty attorney, Peter had many contacts in the international wreck diving community. I told him about my frustrations organizing a U-215 expedition and that I need an affordable boat to get me out to the Banks. Peter had a friend in Nova Scotia, a commercial diver named Mike Fletcher, who might be able to help me.
Mike Fletcher and John Davis the two men who I approached with the idea of diving the U-215
A few days later I spoke to Mike and sent him my research about U-215 and the Liberty Ship Alexander Macomb. He sounded excited and told me he would talk to his boss about it. His boss was John Davis, a former commercial diver who owns “Econova,” a television company that produced a program for Canadian cable television called the “The Sea Hunters.” Mike, along with his son Warren, were the stars of the show.
John reviewed my research material and liked the story. He liked it so much; in fact he decided to shoot it as an episode for the “Sea Hunters.” He would fund the entire operation, and he welcomed me to join the search and discovery missions. John was no stranger to success locating and identifying wrecks: both the Carpathia and the Mary Celeste were located and identified by his teams.
In the past, John had worked in the past for the Canadian scallop fisheries and knew of highly detailed three-dimensional sonar surveys of the Georges Banks. Both the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, and the Scallop fishery NS 3-D sonar survey, had been used as a data base. These multi-beam images showed back-scatter anomalies as black dots on an otherwise wavy sand bottom. These anomalies registered as hangs. John highlighted nine such targets, each of which fell within the historical search area. Mike was given the go-ahead to put together a trip and sidescan the targets. The trip was planned for the week of June 14th. Due to family commitments, I could not make this trip and had to wait ashore for the results. Mike chartered a 63-foot, wooden-hulled, ketch-rigged motor sailor called the “Arvor”, a Scottish built boat out of Gloucester. They left after midnight on June 14th. Aboard were Captain Mark Tyler Sheldon, Mike Fletcher, Warren Fletcher and side-scan operator Vince Capone, a safety diver, and a mate. The weather cooperated. Of nine targets scanned, only one – number five – fit the profile of a submarine. Throughout the search, none of the other targets matched the size and scope of the Liberty Ship Alexander Macomb. They returned to the U-boat-sized target (#5), and grappled the wreck. Warren and Mike attempted to dive the target.
As Mike Fletcher tells it:
“At 170 ft, Warren and I signaled one another that the current was beyond safe diving and we returned to the surface. A second attempt was made the following day after Vince Capone calculated the tides for the area. This descent went much better, but upon reaching the bottom, the anchor had pulled clear from the target. Using up precious minutes a search put us back on the wreckage. While Warren shot video I tied the 1 1/8” poly propylene line to what appeared to be a hull frame. Warren thought he spotted one blade of a propeller protruding from the sand, but with no time remaining we had to surface, unable to confirm the targets identity. Even so, I felt in my gut that this is a submarine! The video footage documented the event on the bottom but unfortunately was not conclusive. We would have to return with more equipment and a better plan. That plan would include a larger vessel, an ROV, and Richie Kohler.”
John Davis called and gave me the details. No one was sure just what they had dived. It was metal wreckage but the video didn’t show anything conclusive. The next trip would be aboard a much larger boat out of Nova Scotia, and this time I was going.
Eugene Rottmann, IWO of U 215
So as I ploughed on through the rain, I feared that I would drive over 500 miles and get closer to the site then ever before, only to be beat back once again, this time by Mother Nature. Soon enough I made it to Portland, Maine, and drove my car aboard the Scotia Prince ferry for the eleven-hour sail to Nova Scotia. The large ferry yawed side to side in the swell as it crossed the gulf of Maine, the bad weather darkening my mood.
We arrived in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia at eight in the morning and made the hour drive to Shelburne on roads damp with fog and rain. Shelburne is a bucolic and quaint fishing town, and it was quiet and sleepy in the early morning mist. I drove my car onto the government wharf, past the Continental Seafood offices, and toward the large vessels at the end of the dock.
I boarded the Ryan Atlantic II, a 140-foot offshore lobster boat and shook hands with the Captain, Percy Cox. Percy is a native of Nova Scotia and lifelong commercial fisherman who is well acquainted with the conditions on the Georges Banks. The first mate, Alan Bowers, helped me load and stow my gear, and introduced me to the crew of the Ryan Atlantic II: engineer Ralph Cox, winch operator Rodney Hallett, cook Dale Holmes, and deck hands James Wilkens and Calvin Fudge.
U-215: The Team
The team from Econova arrived and I finally met with John Davis, the producer and patron saint of this expedition. John would not be joining us on this trip, but with him was James Delgado, marine archeologist and curator of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, and the host of “The Sea Hunters”. Introductions were made and soon I was shaking hands with the rest of the Econova team:
- Mike and Warren Fletcher – divers and U/W cameramen
- Regan Braund – Canadian Customs officer and ROV operator
- Darien Moss – Benthos ROV senior engineer and technician
- Paul Grantham – support and safety diver
- Marc Pike and John Rosborough – topside cameras and sound
Forming a human chain, we loaded thousands of pounds of equipment all over the boat, and by 7:00 pm we had begun our fourteen-hour trip to the Banks.
U125: TheExpedition
Target on sonar.
The seas had calmed nicely and the ride was uneventful until we were two miles from the wreck site. Percy slowed the vessel and turned her about, calling Mike and me to the wheelhouse. The bottom sounder had registered a large hit in two distinct pieces, and we were coming about to investigate. On the second pass we ran over a large target in 250 feet that stood nearly sixty feet off the seafloor. This target was not one of the nine that the scallop fisheries surveys had provided, and a quick check on my database recorded an AWOIS hit registered there in 1982. Could this be Macomb? We surveyed the area and marked the location before continuing over to Target Number Five. Mike’s float and the high flyer he had left were gone. The tide was running so we drifted back and tried to anchor near the wreck. After a few passes we hooked Mike’s old 1-1/8” polypropylene line. His two floats had chafed through at the surface, and the poly line was dragged down by the current, still soundly attached to the wreckage below.
Once tied into the wreck, the decision was made that at the next slack water (12:30 that afternoon) the Benthos ROV was going in. We divers would be held in reserve in case the ROV became entangled in the wreck. We waited and watched as the estimated five to seven-knot current tugged and pulled at the two large tuna balls and high flyer attached to the down line. The tide in this area of the Georges Banks rarely reaches a true slack water state; rather, it slows and swings around in a circular motion as the Atlantic pushes and pulls its way in and out the Gulf of Maine. Percy told me that on Georges, the ebb tide was always shorter and stronger then the flood, and that if there was an east wind blowing the tide would swing about with such violence that diving would be impossible. Fortunately for us, the wind had been slight and westerly over the past few days, and the next tide would be the flood tide and therefore the better of the two. We pulled up on the 1-1/8” poly line until it was as near to straight up-and-down as the winch operator dared make it. We attached over three hundred pounds of clump weight to a half-inch steel cable, and ran it down the poly line to the wreck. With a fifty foot leash shackled to the cable, the Benthos unit was eased over the side and began its descent to the wreck
Getting kitted out to dive. Its amazing how fast the weather can changed on the Gerorges Banks, two hours later this blue sky was obscured by pea soup fog.
Mike, Warren, Jim, and I crowded into the small storage room now turned into a ROV control room, and stared at the flat screen monitor mounted on the bulkhead wall. A snowstorm of suspended silt and plankton with an occasional clump of seaweed shot past the camera lens. If these are the conditions we could expect when we got to splash, it wasn’t going to be a pretty dive. Regan guided the Benthos along the down line until it finally hit bottom at 278 feet. Unfortunately, the ROV was unable to make any headway into the tide. It swung back and forth on its tether, looking aft as plankton whizzed past. Regan had some luck bottoming the unit out and then turning it into the tide, but on each attempt the unit was blown around and even tumbled over when it left the bottom. When the tide fully turned, the debris was flying past the camera lens with incredible speed, and any side-to-side maneuvering was impossible. We pulled the unit back on board and re-tethered the cable to the bow of the ROV so that the cameras would face into the current. On the next dive, the ROV could not hold a heading or progress forward against the now-stronger ebb tide, and it again failed to locate any wreckage.
Our next slack water was going to be at 1:00 am. After dinner we decided to go back and hook the larger target two miles away in hopes that we would be able operate the ROV in the lee of this massive wreckage. We surveyed the wreckage and found two large distinct pieces separated by a fifty foot debris field. The larger section was our primary target, and after pulling up various pieces of wreckage on our anchor – including a coil of stainless steel cable and a steel plate – the anchor was set next to the wreck. This time we had some success in filming a debris field of steel beams and wreckage, but the ROV failed to locate and film the main body of the wreck. Nothing was seen that could identify the wreck, but due it to its size and location, it is probable was the wreckage of the Alexander Macomb. But it will take more detailed exploration and evidence to bear this out.
Dive One, 270 foot sand dive, no wreck
The next day we returned to Target Number Five, picked up the mooring, and prepared to make our first manned dive. The weather had cleared and the fog which had hung over us like a pall the last two days had finally burned away. The sun warmed us as we were getting kitted out on the foredeck, when suddenly the mooring broke free of the wreck and the Ryan Atlantic II drifted free. There wasn’t enough time to anchor next to the wreck and make the morning slack water, so we had to wait until the afternoon tide to make our dive. This time we decided to anchor next to the wreck using a much lighter line and to allow the Ryan Atlantic II to drift free. The Zodiac chase boat would be attached to the down line, with Alan Bower, and Paul Grantham the safety diver aboard. We all would be diving 17/30 tri-mix as our bottom gas, and 36% and 80% nitrox for decompression. There was a bottle of O2 on the hang line below the Zodiac in case of emergency. When the tide had slowed considerably, Percy motored as close to the down line as he dared, and Mike, Warren, and I made the twelve foot jump from the side of the vessel and swam with the tide to the Zodiac.
The tide was still tugging at us as we pulled our way down the line. The surface water was a chilly 47 degrees and although it had a pea green hue to it we did have thirty feet of visibility. This was a flood tide and there was no sign of the sediment and plankton that filled the ROV camera lens. There was quite a bit of scope on the line and it took us almost five minutes to descend. I was the first down the line and hit the silt and sand bottom at 276 feet. The temperature on the bottom was still 47 degrees, and the visibility was the same as on the surface. As I made my way towards the anchor, I was disappointed to see that it had pulled free, leaving a deep trough gouged into the sand behind where it had dragged away from the wreck. Mike had attached a hundred-foot length of orange half-inch polypropylene tag line to the chain just in case. I grabbed the line and we all headed into the current, following the gouge marks in the sand. When we got to the end of the tag line there was still no wreckage in sight. We had been down for nearly fifteen minutes. It was time to turn the dive. As we ascended the line I was disappointed. We each had only one set of gas remaining, and I couldn’t believe I had come so close and was still so far from finding and diving U-215.
Dive two decompression was a hairy experiance
Both Mike and Warren had ascended first and were a few feet above me on the line. When I made my gas switch to 36% nitrox at 110 feet, I turned to look at them and was horrified to see them buddy breathing! Warren noticed that I had turned around to look at them, and he very calmly gave me the OK sign, as did Mike. It didn’t warm my heart very much though, as we all had nearly an hour of decompression ahead. When I had reached the thirty foot stop, I switched over to 80%, and gave my bottle of 36% to Mike. Warren had carried enough 36% for the both of them and no stops were missed. They both extended their stops to compensate for the lag time required in buddy breathing, and when we surfaced all was well. The post-dive analysis revealed that the diaphragm on Mike’s 36% nitrox regulator had somehow inverted and no matter what he did, he couldn’t purge the water to get a single breath out of it.
The next morning the fog was back and it seemed to have an effect on all those aboard. Although everyone was upbeat and positive, we knew we had just one shot remaining. The only tide we could dive today was the ebb, the worst of the two. We had to leave the site by early afternoon because the film crew and boat had other commitments, and the flood tide was just too late in the day. Percy suggested we use two of his 150-pound kedge anchors connected with six feet of heavy chain as a super anchor. Because a 140-foot ship doesn’t maneuver quickly, we had to drop the anchors and then swing back around to drop the divers and try to time this all in our half-hour hour of slack water. Of course, there was a good chance he would lose this tackle. And he knew it.
As the slack water approached, Percy maneuvered the Ryan Atlantic II into the tide, nudging her gently towards the middle of the target 270 feet below. Mike and I both stood in the wheelhouse next to Percy with our dry suits halfway on and watched as the unknown wreck appeared on the scope. Percy gave the signal and the two anchors went over, followed by 350 feet of three-quarter-inch polypropylene line. Mike, Warren, and I started to get kitted up when Percy hung his head out the wheel house and motioned the two of us back up. He didn’t like the way the line was laying, and felt that the anchors had landed to far from the wreck. Although the tide was changing he wanted to make sure the anchors were as close to the wreck, as possible. Mike and I looked at each other and then back at Percy. It was our decision. We looked at the screens on the bottom finder, and plotter, and then out into the fog trying to see the high flyer and tuna balls. We made a decision: pull it back up and do it again.
A full twenty-five minutes went by before the anchors were back on board and the signal to drop them again was given. This time all three of us were fully dressed out and ready to splash behind the anchors. The slack water had been in effect for about 15 minutes already, and there was no time to waste. Percy gave us the thumbs-up to let us know this was a better set than the first drop. Mike splashed first, then I and Warren was last. Once again we pulled ourselves down the line but the current was a stronger than our first dive, and it took longer, almost six minutes, to reach the bottom. The visibility was worse than before with sediment and plankton swirling by, but this time when I hit bottom, I could see a smooth steel hull ten feet to my right. Mike continued straight on toward the anchors, but I exchanged the anchor line for the orange tag line and angled to the wreck
Me tiying in our shot line.
As I tied the orange line into the hull Warren followed me over and started filming. He could hear me hooting and hollering that, “This is it, this is it!” as I tied the tag line through the freeing port of a Type VII German U-boat, its signature saddle tanks bulging out in front of me. After securing the line and setting a strobe, we headed in the direction of the anchors. I could see Mike’s light ahead and as we approached him, Warren and I could see that Percy had done very well. The anchors had straddled the U-boat, one on either side, with the chain laid taut against the hull. Directly in front of the anchors was the aftermost of the five vertical mine tubes, its cover missing and a SMA mine clearly visible inside. This view told me all I needed to know. I was on the after section of U-215, a type VII-D German U boat. She was listing forty-five degrees to her port side with her bow pointing to the northwest. Percy could not have placed the anchors in any better area to identify the submarine.
Conning Tower
Warren, Mike, and I continued to move forward toward the conning tower. The current was coming from the starboard side, so we swam as much as possible in the lee. The covers for the four other mine shafts were all in place, and as we passed the last one, I could see the main air induction valve sticking up from the pressure hull like a huge mushroom. The winter-garden and most of the streamlined outer hull was gone in this area, the remnants of nets and other fishing gear snagged on the wreckage. The conning tower with the two periscopes and the UZO stand stood in front of our lights. All of the conning tower’s outer casing and deck had been stripped away from the wreck by fishing nets, leaving only the underlying pressure tight form. The conning tower hatch was closed tight and I did not see any breaches into the hull. I took one picture of the closed hatch and then my camera locked up; the shutter spring could not push back against the water pressure. I was not the only one with camera problems; one of Mike’s lights wasn’t working and we later found his video camera had leaked, forming mist on the inside of the lens. Fortunately, Warren’s video camera worked fine and he was able to get some great shots of the wreck, including of the conning tower and mine shafts. I wanted to head further forward and look at the deck gun, but the tide started to pick up and all too soon our 25 minutes were up. By the time we ascended to 160 feet, the tide was in full roar and it was all we could do to hang on to the down line. The deeper deco stops were rough, but the heady glow of success made them pass quickly. Soon enough we reached our shallow stops and the support crew in the Zodiac broke us free of the main line, easing the strain.
By the time we surfaced the fog was gone and the sun was shining brightly. The team was ecstatic; it had come down to our last dive on the last day and nearly everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. It had taken me nearly seven years, but I finally made it happen. I couldn’t have done it without the help of John Davis, Mike Fletcher, and Warren Fletcher.
Together we had done the impossible.
The U-215 has been found.
Success is a fickle and fleeting mistress, and even before we had started back to Shelburne, our thoughts turned to the large wreck two miles away…
