Primary Sources

Preserving U-Boats

Neat piece from the Raleigh N&O:

Sixty-two years ago a German submarine prowled the Hatteras waters. Its mission: Sink anything afloat.

U-701, commanded by a 29-year-old orphan from Hamburg named Horst Degen, was carrying out the Nazi plan to sever besieged Britain from its lifeblood of American war materiel. But on July 7, 1942, an Army bomber caught the U-boat cruising on the surface and sent it to the bottom, 22 miles east of Ocracoke Inlet.

At least five crew members made the U-701 their crypt. Now, with the wreck laid bare by shifting sands, the ship is a target again.

Souvenir hunters have stripped artifacts from the U-701 and have tried to enter the sub, which the German government considers a war grave. Sport divers and the U.S. government are trying to protect the site.

Joseph Schwarzer, executive director of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum at Hatteras, said the U-701 should be afforded the respect the United States expects for its own hallowed ground. “How would we feel if someone tried to dig up Normandy?” he said, referring to D-Day memorials in France.