Priens U-47 . has it been searched for ????

as title says . possibly one of the most famous subs ( and it started my interest in WW2 u-boats )has anybody ever tried to find it over the years ????????

 

Blimey, hatch - thought we'd lost you..... I was going to send a squadron of Catalinas out on an ASR search.....

 

Personally never heard of someone being after the u-boat to find it.

 

Looking deeper ( oops ! ) into this it would seem unlikely that anyone's tried to locate it.

The loss position of U-47 ( which may have exploded underwater )is vague but is near the Rockall Bank, 200 miles off Skye in the North Atlantic. This is a notoriously inhospitable area and, worse still, the Rockall Trough is nearby. This is 9000 feet deep and has been the dumping-ground for much nuclear rubbish including other submarines.

I think it's likely that this one will forever be listed as 'missing'.

 

alrite martin .ive been on the site now and again but has there been a problem with it as it seemed to be blank for a while...like everything was wiped out ??????
anyway U-47 really should be looked for at some time if it hasnt already as ........maybe ballard should get on the case ........ill see if i can e-mail him .

 

The site suffered major technical problems for a couple of months back at the beginning of the year , but now...all is back to normal !

As for Dr Ballard, U-47 probably doesn't have the media appeal of Titanic or Bismarck....

 

Off the subject a little but...was wondering if anyone was ever to excavate the Japanesse submarine I-169 enough to find any trace of the supposed cache of gold it was carrying?

 

Are you sure it was the I-169 that was carrying the gold? The I-169 sank in 1944 in the lagoon at Truk Island after submerging to avoid an impending B-24 raid on the island. Either a valve was left open during the dive or had come loose thus flooding the control room and she wasn't able to resurface. An attempt was made at salvage and to rescue the crew however it failed and all aboard perished. Fearing a US invasion of the island the Japanese depth charged the submarine so as to deny the Americans recovering any technology from the boat. The sub still remains a fairly well known and popular wreck with divers in the Truk lagoon.
The only Japanese submarine that I recall reading about carrying the cache of gold was the I-52, a C-3 class submarine that the Japanese used as a cargo transport during 1944. She had been carrying a load a tin, rubber, tungsten and gold along with some engineers from the Mitsubishi company. The boat left from Singapore enroute to German occupied France where I believe she was going to exchange these for some German technology. This boat was sunk after a rendevous with the German submarine U-530 to take on fuel. The I-52 was hunted down by the hunter/killer group led by the USS Bogue (CVE-9) and was sank by torpedo bombers from the same group. In 1995, Paul Tidwell found the wreckage of the I-52 on camera in water about 1 mile deeper than that in which the Titanic has been found. As far as I know no attempts have been made to dive on the sub since then.

 

More on I-52:

http://www.nauticos.com/I-52.htm

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004TX2K/104-5992637-0703939?v=glance



http://www.npt.nuwc.navy.mil/PAO/Pr/sub_i52.htm

In 1995, Paul Tidwell located the wreck 5240 meters deep, mostly upright. Her conning tower is intact and her hull number is still visible. The bow is broken up, probably due to impact on the bottom, and a large hole, undoubtedly caused by one of the torpedoes, is aft of the conning tower. Debris was scattered over a large area. Plans were made to raise the sub and recover the gold. The Japanese government objected, indicating that they considered the wreck site was a grave. Tidwell has worked on the proper proceedures with the Japanese government and has received the blessing from the war graves authorities in Japan. Tidwell took down a Japanese Naval Ensign and fixed it to the wrecked submarine. A metal box from the debris field was brought to the surface in the hope that it would contain some of the sunken gold, but when opened, the salvagers were disappointed to find not gold, but opium. It was dumped overboard.

http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/j/ja/japanese_submarine_i_52.html

 

All things considering.....she looks like she is still in pretty good shape for being on the bottom for 60 yrs.

 

Since Kia has posted that pic I believe I AM mistaken- it was I-52 not I-169. It jogs my memory since I have seen that very same picture in a book called- LOST SUBS. I may have confused the two from the few seconds of History channel on I-169 I saw the other night. Thanks for the correction.

 

great pictures of I-52 . still in amazing condition being so long underwater