 
## THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE

The cover-up of the Caribbean war

### The new underwater mapping systems

Copyright 2019

Bill Grayyn

Smashwords Edition

The Bermuda Triangle. The cover-up of the war of the Caribbean. The new underwater mapping systems / Bill; illustrated by Bill Grayyn Grayyn. - Buenos Aires : the author.

E-Book.

ISBN

Release Date: 2019-04-11 cataloging

## Table of Contents

1 - Introduction

2 - The area

3 - US. In the Second World War

3 - 1 - Business and colonialism

4 - First Wave of U-Boats in the Caribbean

4 - 1 - Cuba

4 - 2 - Puerto Rico

4 - 3 - Panama

4 - 4 - Colombia

5 - Crews, and witnesses

5 - 1 - Survivors

6 - Trailers

7 - German submarines in Bahamas

8 - Fundamentalism

9 - Coining the term

10 - Artificial reefs

10 - 1 -Euphemisms and "voluntary censorship"?:

10 - 2 - Manufacturing reefs or what hiding a war sinking an aircraft carrier?

11 - Pilots of Civil Air Patrol

11 - 1- Some statistics of the Civil Patrol

12 - Sunken ships in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean

13 - Manufacturing a myth

14 - Cuba and the German submarines

15 - The Navy of Cuba and anti-submarine warfare in the Caribbean

16 - Failure to comply with the treaties of war

16 - 1 - The beginning of the "U-Boot"

Annex: Maps of German submarine campaigns in the Caribbean
Epilogue

References

Chapter 1

## Introduction

After the Second World War and in the face of the enormous unexplained disappearance of ships and aircraft in areas close to the islands of Bermuda, the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, it begins to speak of a supposed "mysterious" triangle that would be between Miami, Puerto Rico and Bermuda, which today is called the "Bermuda Triangle".

This Bermuda triangle always has been associated with strange disappearances that have not been able to be explained or that you may have been trying to explain through strange phenomena, geologic, and climate change,- moving a little more in the strange-, vortices, portals to other dimensions, alien abduction, etc, etc, etc.

It is clear that has been exacerbated in the public imagination end before such a set of disappearances of ships, since by its size and number it has become difficult to justify their "evaporation" in broad daylight and in weather conditions - many times - normal, without search some justification.

We all have heard, read, or seen in movies, the iconic cases of the famous triangle. Cases analyzed over and over again and on which there have been all sorts of possibilities and theories: from simple unexpected storms until marine swirls swallowed the unsuspecting sailors without giving them time to transmit their position or situation.

Before we delve into what could be one of the greatest cover-ups of recent times, let's look first at this site, this particular area of the coast of United States of America and its features that have helped the creation of myth.

This area, which we have to analyze and that is a place of alleged disappearances- presents a great depth, which greatly hindered and made it practically impossible the investigation or its survey in search of remains for a long time, remains that could have clarified the reasons for such subsidence and disappearances and also be able to check if in truth it had sunk or if they had simply disappeared into nothingness, leaving no trace... traces that were thought lost forever... until now.

Chapter 2

## The area

This site of USA and the Caribbean has the particularity of being very busy; the transit of planes and ships, are of tourism, military or commercial, in extremely high.

To this must be added that the Gulf of Mexico \- very close to the "Golden Triangle", is an area of extraction of oil because it has a large oil reserve in its subsoil; therefore, since the end of 1800 and early 1900 have existed in this place large amount of oil platforms, with the consequent flow of tanker ships that carry crude oil extracted, supplies, and the transport of personnel.

We also need to put into perspective the time of the disappearances initials in a context of global political history. Let us remember that we are at the end of the First World War, and beginning of the Second. At that time the Germans developed and perfected the submarine weapon, who had become his greatest battle machine, causing the English as much damage they had managed to slow down its use in political contests to promote agreements of restrictions. These agreements of arms limitation never came to have an effective compliance by what the Germans continued to improve and expand its fleet of U-Boot, abbreviation of the German submarine Unterseeboot (Underwater boat), which came to count at the end of the Second War with more than 1,000 units.

(Coast of USA. Compared to Bermuda, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean)

Germany introduced in 1936 the tactic of wolf pack (in german, Rudeltaktik). These "herds of wolves" referred to the groups of submarines that "hunted" boats together, in groups coordinated. Although these innovations and others were not well received by the German High Command OKW -(Oberkomando der Wehrmacht)-, in the end achieved its adoption in 1937.

At the beginning of the Second World War, the German Kriegsmarine had 57 submarines in operation.

Germany carried out in front of his naval construction plan, also called Plan Z, which provided for the construction of 250 submersible, but in the next six years built more than 1,100 units, which would be a constant threat to the United Kingdom and the United States in the course of the war.

The submarine weapon had its crisis in 1939 and was placed under the magnifying glass by some events that marked a certain mistrust about your accurate use. The transatlantic liner Athenia sunk by a German submersible, the U-30, generated a serious incident, since in the steamer traveling 300 American civilians and did remind the Lusitania -a similar case - which in 1915 had been sunk by the U-20.

The decisive moment of change in German naval operations and her final acceptance to its new procedures gave U-47 with the sinking of HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Flow in command of Günther Prien, 13 October 1939. Then Adolf Hitler gave his backing to the entire underwater weapon and, thereafter, the U-Boot would have to reap only successes, successes that would be cause of huge headaches for the allies.

Chapter 3

## USA In the Second World War

### Business and colonialism

At the outbreak of World War II, the United States assumed the responsibilities of the defense of Britain in the Caribbean. In September 1940, the two countries agreed to the Agreement of Loan - Lease (also called Bases Agreement for destroyers), which involved the loan of 40 obsolete destroyers in exchange for the lease, -free rental, for ninety-nine years - British naval and air bases in five british islands of the West Indies: Bahamas, Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as British Guiana, Bermuda and Newfoundland. The Loan Agreement and Lease is formally signed in London on 27 March 1941. Under the terms of the treaty, the United States established eleven military bases in the area (also in Bermuda) and quickly transformed five British colonies in the "West Indies" in outposts of the defense of the Caribbean to be used against the German submarine warfare. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt shall designate the Caribbean as a coastal border, the Eastern Caribbean became the vanguard of the United States defense strategy during the war. United States strategists at the time referred to the West Indies as "the bulwark that we observe."

The strategic importance of the Caribbean became evident during the Second World War. More than 50 percent of supplies to Europe and Africa from the United States were shipped from ports on the Gulf of Mexico.

A year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Caribbean Defense Command of the United States came to a total of 119,000 employees, half of them stationed in Panama in order to protect the channel of the Japanese attack. Although the Japanese attack expected never came, the Germans if inflicted massive damage on the boats in the Caribbean from 1942. The German submarines even slid in the smaller ports in the region to bomb targets in the coast and sink ships and cargo ships anchored. At the end of the year, the submarines operating in the Caribbean had sunk more than 400 vessels, of which at least half of them were oil tankers, with a total weight of 1.5 million gross tons.

On 8 December 1941, a day after the Japanese air attack against Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on the "Axis Powers".

On 9 December, the German command of maritime warfare lifted the existing restrictions until then with regard to the use of submarines off the east coast North American (Atlantic) and on the same day Dönitz -commander of the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany-, requested permission to send 12 ships of the class greater than the Atlantic coast of the United States. However, in the first wave of attacks, called "Operation Drumbeat," were only able to participate 6 submarines coming from bases French in the Biscay. These attacked the 12 January - in the sector of the coast between the St. Lawrence River and the Cape Hatteras-, and sank within three weeks[1]- sometimes within visual range of the coast-, a total of 11 oil tankers and other ships 28.

[1] Donitz 1958, p. 195

Maximino Gomez Alvarez, in his book, "The Incident 3208: Sinking of the German U-176 in the Canal of San Nicolas, 2010. P. 32, account:

"The 31 December 1941, a coast guard had reported the sighting of a periscope in the channel of Portland, and 7 January an army plane sighted the presence of a submarine off the coast of New Jersey. On the same day as the Navy had reported the presence of a fleet of U-boats in waters south of Newfoundland, the ship SS Cyclops was sunk in front of Nova Scotia and three days later he risked the same fate, the oil tanker in Nontauk Norness Point, southeast of Long Island. The overall situation was becoming more difficult and required immediate decision-making; in the 76 days following the collapse of the Norness reported the annihilation of other 53 vessels, which represented the loss of 300,000 gross tons".

At the same time that these first attacks occurred at the command of the German navy prepared the "New Earth" Operation concentrated in the Caribbean area. On the night of 15 to 16 February 1942 three submarines attacked in the span of three hours in the Gulf of Venezuela, Aruba and Curaçao, sinking ships and doing fire on refineries. In the afternoon of 18 February another submarine attacked in front of the base of the U.S. Navy from Chaguaramas in Trinidad and in the following days other two submarines sank ships east of Trinidad and in the Bahamas/ Cuba, complemented by actions of Italian submarines in the north and east of the island arc in the Caribbean.

The first wave caused the immediate interruption of maritime transport, including travel tanker pendular pandos[2] (slow) and special deals between Lake Maracaibo and the refineries in Aruba and Curaçao. The operation lasted 28 days and produced - in addition to the bombardment of refineries, the sinking of 18 oil tankers and other 23 commercial vessels, in addition to damage other 7 oil tankers and other ships 4. The theater of operations of the Atlantic coast was already in full action.

[2] G. T. M. Kelshall, submarine warfare in the Caribbean,

https://www.u-historia.com/uhistoria/historia/articulos/caribe/caribe.htm

The group of submarines of Paukenschlag (Operation Drumbeat), spent the day at the bottom of the sea and emerged in the dark looking for victims. So, duly ambushed, soon to be awarded the collapse of several ships between Cape Hatteras and Cape Breton Island. From the beginning these submarines found many whites off the coast of South Carolina Capes, discovering many unarmed merchant ships. In the absence of convoys, the so-called "Rudeltaktik" (herds of Wolves stalking their prey) was unnecessary. Operating individually, U-Boots with their covers to water lily flower dispatched its victims with artillery fire or torpedoes. The overall losses in merchant shipping tonnage were on the rise due to this operation. The figure of 124,070 tonnes by sunken submarines in December, amounted to 327,357 tons in January, 467,451 tonnes in February and 537,980 tonnes in March. In that last month 28 ships, with 159,340 tons, were sunk in the western maritime border. More than half were tankers. The U-123 had sunk 8 ships (53,000 tons), the U-66 sank 5 50,000 boats (TN), and the U-130 sank 4 ships (31,000 tons).

Chapter 4

## The first wave of U-Boats in the Caribbean

U-Boats operating in the Caribbean were at least more than a hundred, and usually in waves of 5 to 12 submarines.

### [3] First Wave

[3] G. T. M. Kelshall, submarine warfare in the Caribbean, Donitz 1958, p. 196

The dimension of the almost complete interruption of vital transport of oil and gasoline toward England, and transport of bauxite for the aviation industry in the United States, in 1942, are generally neither were mentioned, or -basically- have been negated by Americans, as well as the vulnerability of the maritime transport system, concentrated in specific strategic focuses, which were qualified by Germany as "nodes of maritime transport"[4] and by the Americans as "killing areas".

[4] Donitz 1958, p. 196

The well-hidden American experience which belonged also the errors, and the weaknesses in 1942 and shock that caused the naval operations of enemy ships at the mouth of the Mississippi River and in the visual range of the Panama Canal, Guantanamo Bay and the coast of Florida, contributed to the potential of maritime threats became a focal point of the American security policy at the following times. Here you should also be sought by that, the reason, that the United States maintained and still today a position very reluctant in the face of the systematic investigation of military conflicts in the Caribbean.

We must remember at all times - when we talk about the conflict in the Atlantic coast of the United States - the system of censorship and, above all, self-censorship or "voluntary censorship", as he called the American government to censor your system during the war. This system of censorship is responsible for the U.S. population is not aware of the tremendous clashes that occurred in their coasts.

All communications were tampered with, all channels, and distributed to the media black lists of topics that could not be touched.

It is remembered even today as lists of rates were published in newspapers or radio stations without being able to communicate to the relatives where, how or where they had happened those deaths of their loved ones. Especially in relation to the attacks of the German submarines. Censorship was clear as to who could only mention some data - only and only need to be -- if you already was open and notorious. I wasn't even allowed the publication of the climate, for they are not used in any way by the enemy.

The idea behind the censorship was that the enemy should not know if his actions had been successful, and on the other hand should not serve these for their achievements lifted their morale. Therefore, in order to raise awareness on the need for self-censorship, censorship or "voluntary" as they like to call it, it was stipulated from the government with those who violate the codes of censorship would be penalized with up to 10,000 U$S, up to 10 years in prison, and confiscate their properties, artifacts and goods that had to do with the act criminalized. Let's say that the threat that hung was more than enough to think seriously before speaking - or mention of any form- something that was clearly regulated, it is more, just in case self-censorship covered a little more of what detailed explicitly. This was evident in the way in which those who knew of these standards looked the other way and changed the subject. It is not cared for so-called for help, it is not commented with anyone, and avoided discussing these issues. Here nothing had happened. Of course, in the Caribbean islands and in the countries of Latin America it was not so clear this censorship and therefore often spoke more than necessary, but this did not pass the borders of the United States. The United States, and not coming to the American people, the common citizen. Also because the large consortia of news as the Associated Press - which distributed the news to other countries, did not publish what it was censored, nor in the rest of the world had idea of a conflict in the Caribbean. But if it was beginning to have a feeling that it was dangerous to navigate those waters since many boats had gone there without that news of the because.

Kelshall -for his book The U-Boat War in the Caribbean (1994)- had to overcome major existing and oppositions presented -based on a rigorous work and documents Americans, British and German-, a systematic study that offers multiple perspectives and positions.

Gaylord Kelshall (born in 1940) was founder and director of the command of the Coast Guard and of the Military Division of helicopters of Trinidad/Tobago. In 1976 became expert on aviation security and head of civil airports in the country. His book contains 10 maps (routes of convoys, location of the submarines in three different times, and sinking of ships and submarines); longitudinal profiles of the two most important classes of submarines, as well as 24 photos of military bases, ships and commanders of both sides. In annex contains lists of all the assets in the Caribbean submarines (depending on missions and tonnage sunk) [5] of the submarines of "success", in total and according to actions of each one of the most important commanders, of the bases in France, Allied units of the defense and escorts for convoys. Complement the work references, records of the names of the boats and a record of raw and people.

[5] See Annex at the end.

As can be seen behind the disappearances "without explanation" starts to look a theater of operations that is not very well known, if not totally unknown to the majority of the public that provides, ultimately, a perfect explanation of what happened. But the fact that there were fighting very close to towns and cities - and they aren't aware of-, finds only an explanation, as we said earlier, in the hide in a premeditated way from sectors of the power to turn, who censored media to the "action" will not come to the consciousness of the common people, of the population, of the American voter.

But let's look a little more of the frame to understand some details that made the myth.

The United States, are surprised by the quick attack of German submarines that occurs is practically your sidewalk, or in your backyard as they like to say to Americans, and strangely take more than eighteen months to react... But why was this supposed to slow and late reaction? Consider for a moment what it meant to have the German submarines in your own yard, close to their ports, swinging at everything that moved. On one hand they paralyzed marine transport of all types of loads, but on the other hand, allowed them to remove from their fleets all obsolete boats that were going to be taken out of circulation with the consequent expense that it meant for the firms that own those ships, shipping companies. At that moment it is possible that there will be two options: or sold as scrap, which usually did, or sent them to death against the U-Boot, or in simple, normal travel on routes that they knew infested with submarines, or as decoys to sail on the edges of the convoys of Americans, where the ships that they wanted to protect were in the middle, and those who were going to death at the edges. Possibly all of these vessels were secured and the companies pay only if the ships were sunk or their loads were lost. So a large number of boats (disposable) were sent "joyfully" in travel that they knew were the last. This may explain why many of the ships "disappeared" in the Triangle of Bermuda were river boats with flat bottoms that are not suitable for marine navigation. Perhaps because they were sent on missions especially prepared in order that they were sunk? It is a plausible theory. Possibly the insurance companies were too slow to react and understand that was what was really happening, or -going a little farther, to be the same as the owners of the shipping and insurance companies perhaps paid through the reinsurance with the state, or with London as it was the most common. Once again the U.S. State or the English reinsurers would pay the broken dishes, and the shipping companies would transform garbage into money.

It should also assess the situation of defenselessness of ships that sailed those waters toward that their countries of origin was asked to use to protect them. The Sinkings were produced in controlled waters mainly by the USA and the reason of these was the war, a war in which USA was part declared. We think that the sinkings were hundreds in just a few months. Some sources come to account for more than 600 ships in six months.

This pressure exerted by the sinkings allowed USA to reach agreements for very advantageous "cooperation" with those countries that requested it, and usually farms of 100 years in favor of USA. We have to mention 50 Brazilian ships sunk in front of Venezuela what led Brazil to enter the war as part of the allies.We have to mention 50 Brazilian ships sunk in front of Venezuela what led Brazil to enter the war as part of the allies.

It is inevitable to assume that the incursions of the German submarines gave the USA a position of power and extortion to developing countries almost boat owners, or of those who needed the goods that they wore. Also with regard to the facilities injured by attacks on earth, as oil refineries or ports, both of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Islands and Cuba.

An example of this was that "free" we talked about before. Also several treaties and agreements that were signed between the United States and some Latin American nations. Cuba was a signatory to several of these agreements of a military nature, among them the signed in mid 1942, becoming one of the most committed.

### Cuba

Cuba had been a supplier of cane sugar and alcohols of USA, and also sold the rest of his production to countries in the Middle East. Upon entering used in World War II and before the permanent threat of German submarines, USA and England offered to Cuba to purchase the entire production. The sugar was key in the rations of soldiers in the war. Obviously Cuba accepted. It is clear that it was either that or not to sell, because without the protection of the U.S. convoys the loads of Cuban sugar had hardly managed to get out of the Caribbean. So without mentioning such pressure began a bid of extortion of prices, freight, amounts to buy, etc.

At some point in the negotiations USA attempt that Cuba would be responsible for the cost of freight, which had tripled due to the U-Boots. In those days the Cuban delegation argued that given the conditions of war had disappeared the freight market and all available transport tonnage was controlled by the United States Maritime Commission.

The American press[6] was part of the pressures on Cuba trying to get support on the part of the American people to boycott the purchase of sugar accusing the island to experience a disproportionate enrichment, which was denied by the associations of settlers and landowners, as well as by other institutions and government authorities. More insightful analysts considered that this manipulation of the media responded in reality to a campaign that is intended to prepare the American public for a significant shortage of sugar and induce it to the consumption of sweeteners.

[6] Irritation caused a special magazine article that accused Cuba to enrich themselves at the expense of the overall sales propitiated by the war. See Cuba Economic and Financial Assistance, June 1942, p. 17

### Panama

During the Second World War, the US maintained about 63,000 soldiers in Panama and forced to sign an agreement to establish more than 100 military bases to the interior of Panama, apparently to defend the canal. However, some of these troops were deployed for a project of tests of chemical weapons, with the objective to see how they reacted these in tropical rain forests, during the preparation of an anticipated chemical warfare against the Japanese in the Pacific.

### Puerto Rico

United States expanded dramatically its military presence in Puerto Rico before and during the Second World War, establishing Naval Station Roosevelt Roads and expropriate land for area bombing and maneuvers in the islands of Vieques and Culebra.

### Colombia

Following the establishment of the principle of mutual assistance and cooperation defensive at the Second Meeting of Consultation of Ministers (Havana, 1940), and then a new meeting in early 1942 in Rio de Janeiro, the Colombian government began talks with the United States to receive materials of war in that country. As a result, the 17 March 1942 was signed between the two countries the Loan Agreement and Lease, by means of which the United States undertook to provide to Colombia defense equipment up to a value of approximately 16 million dollars at no cost and with the possibility of acquiring them after the war with a discount of 50 per cent of its value. (Bushnell, 1984: 134-135). Although not all requests for Colombian arms transfers were attended by the US government, this Convention became an important background for what would happen later during the Cold War.

Chapter 5

## Crews, and witnesses

There we could see a use of a particular juncture for doing business and mount bases in countries of the region, something that Americans will never despise, but what the crews? The sailors, boaters, all such personnel that he had to go on the boats to make them navigate what happened to them?

According to some accounts, it is clear that there would have been ordered not to leave witnesses. Testimonials reminiscent of the "Voluntary censorship" in action.

Let's take a look at the "incident" of Laconia, which was a series of events surrounding the sinking of a ship british in the Atlantic Ocean on September 12 1942, during the Second World War, and later an air attack against German submarines and italians involved in rescue attempts. The RMS Laconia, took about 2,732 crew members, passengers, soldiers and prisoners of war, was torpedoed and sunk by the U-156, a German submarine off the coast of West Africa. Operating partially under the dictates of the old "rules of awards," the commander of submarines Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein, immediately began rescue operations. The U-156 conveyed its position in radio channels open to all the allied powers nearby, and they were joined by the crews of several other submarines in the vicinity. [7]

[7] Prize / praiz / is a term used in the law of admiralty to refer to equipment, vehicles, vessels and cargo captured during an armed conflict. The most common use of the prize in this sense is the capture of an enemy ship and its cargo as a prize of war. In the past, the strength of commonly capture was allocated a portion of the value of the prize captured. The United Nations often granted letters of mark that allowed private parties to capture enemy's property, usually ships. Once the boat is secured in a territory friend, would be the subject of a case of prize, an in rem proceedings in which the court determined the state of the property condemned and the way in which should dispose of the property.

Front view of three quarters on the bow from a control tower of another underwater submarine with numerous people stops at both submarines at sea.

Date: 12-24 September 1942 (12 days)

Location: 210 km (110 nmi) NNE of the Ascension

Rates and Victims: 100 British crew, 30 Polish guards

Losses: 1 armed merchant cruiser, 1.600, 1.100 dead rescued

The U-156 and U-507 collected the survivors of Laconia on 15 September, three days after the attack.

After coming to the surface and pick up survivors, who stayed on the foredeck, the U-156 went to the surface with banners of the Red Cross to meet with the French ships of Vichy[8] and transfer to the survivors. Along the way, the submarine was discovered by a Liberator B-24 bomber of the Air Forces of the Army of the USA crew, after report the location, intentions and the presence of the survivors of the submarine, received the order to attack the submarine. The B-24 killed dozens of survivors from the Laconia with bombs and attacks of their weapons, forcing the U-156 to throw the sea to their remaining survivors and dive to avoid being destroyed.

[8] The Vichy France or Vichy regime (in french) Regime of Vichy) is the name given to the informally known political regime established by the Marshal Philippe Pétain in part of the French territory and in the totality of their colonies, after the signing of the armistice with Nazi Germany in the framework of the Second World War, subsisting until August 1944.

The rescue operations were continued by other vessels. Another submarine, the U-506, was also attacked by aircraft and forced to dive. A total of 1,113 survivors were rescued, however 1,619 were killed, mostly Italians. The event changed the general attitude of the naval personnel of Germany to rescue the stranded marine allies. The commands of the Kriegsmarine were issued shortly by the Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, -the Order of Laconia, which specifically prohibited any attempt of that type and gave way to an unrestricted submarine warfare during the rest of the war. [9]

[9] Laconia Order: This is the document known as the Order Laconia, which was used in the Nuremberg Trials to condemn the Grand Admiral Doenitz for war crimes.56 The order was issued after the incident of Laconia, in which the commander of the submarine U-156 tried to rescue over 2,000 men, among whom were women and children, and requested help from any boat around to save the survivors. The response was an air strike ordered by the United States aviation from Ascension Island. It should be remembered that under this same type of orders operating in the Pacific the submarines. There is in addition to the spanish translation, the original in German.

The pilots of the B-24 reported erroneously that had sunk to the U-156, and were awarded medals for their "courage". Neither the American pilots or their commander were punished or investigated, and the matter was forgotten by the U.S. Army. During the last Nuremberg Trials, a prosecutor attempted to cite the Order of Laconia as evidence of war crimes by doenitz and divers. The strategy was counterproductive and caused much embarrassment to the United States to arise the full report of that incident.

Although this situation from the Laconia occurred far from the Caribbean anyway we can see the line that followed the U.S. policies with respect to the submarines and survivors/witnesses.

### Survivors

#### SS Norlantic

With respect to the treatment of survivors on the part of the German navy let us remember the SS Norlantic, cargo ship of 3,860 GRT [10] with American flag, sunk in the morning of 13 May in the Caribbean by a U-Boot. This ship was carrying cargo from Pensacola, Florida, to Venezuela when she was attacked by the U-69 to 90 miles (140 km) east of Bonaire. To the 03:38, the U-69, under the command of Kptlt. Ulrich Graf: fired two torpedoes from a position of surface. Both Torpedoes failed, so Graf ordered his crew to close the range up to 2,200 yards (2,000 m) and opened fire with the canon of cover. To the 03:47 The U-69 began bombarding the Norlantic while trying to flee the scene. After several blows, the American ship told them the Germans a cease- fire so that they could escape the sinking in their life rafts. The Germans have suspended the fire as they walked down two lifeboats; then at the 04:11 fired a coup de grace that hit the boiler room of the Norlantic. This sank, bringing to six men with him, two men were killed by the torpedo and four more men because of the bombing. The surviving crew of Norlantic was adrift in the sea for several days before being rescued by the Allied ships.

[10] Gross Registered Tonnage (GRT): Gross Registered Tonnage (GRT): Vessel tonnage used to set premium amount (GT or GRT). Tonnage of the vessel considered to set premium amount (GT or GRT).

#### SS George Calvert

The SS George Calvert was a warship of a single canon. During the war he sailed from Cuba when he was sunk by the U-753 on 20 May 1942. Ten men died when three torpedoes crashed against the boat and this was under water in a matter of minutes. The crew survivors were captured by the Germans and interrogated before being released in several lifeboats. Three armed guards were killed in the confrontation and the rest of the survivors arrived at the coast of Cuba.

Usually the survivors were taken to countries in the Caribbean, or to the islands for their recovery, but not to the bases or American hospitals on the continent, it is more, many were buried in the islands. It is clear that what was sought from those who controlled the area of operations was to minimize the information reaching the people in general. Avoid to witnesses and journalists who will try to find out what it was not due to know or transcend.

### Censorship and concealment

(Extract from the note of: New England Historical Society) The Burning Shore by Ed Pewterers House

"While thousands of New Englanders looked to the sky for enemy airplanes, few had any idea about the carnage wreaked in the waters nearby.

The U.S. Navy lied to the public about the terrifying U-boat attacks. The news media agreed to government censorship, which helped to hide the military's incompetence in protecting shipping and the lives of merchant seamen.

New London, Conn., native Ralph Sturgis was one of the few who knew about the U-boat attacks. He ran an observation post on Fishers Island in Long Island Sound.

"I would watch boats go out, and probably an hour later get a radio message that the boat had been sunk," Sturgis remembered. "The Germans use to operate right off of the coast here and they used to sink the ships, it was really something."

#### Lying

On the evening of Jan. 11, 1942, Reinhardt Hardegen, the audacious captain of U-boat 123, jumped the gun. He spotted the big British freighter Cyclops, carrying Chinese sailors and cargo to the British Isles, 300 miles east of Cape Cod in Canadian waters. U-123 sent a torpedo into the Cyclops that cut her in two.

The Cyclops lost 87 passengers and crew. The 95 survivors spent 20 hours enduring cold and wind in lifeboats before they were picked up. Two days later, the Navy made a cryptic announcement: An unidentified merchant ship had sunk off Canada.

#### Abandoning the survivors

By the early morning of Jan. 15, U-123 approached New York Harbor. From the bridge, Hardegan could see the lights of Manhattan skyscrapers. "I cannot describe the feeling in words," he said "but it was unbelievable and beautiful and great. . . We were the first to be here, and for the first time in this war a German soldier looked out on the coast of the USA."

Later that night, U-123's lookout saw the bright lights of the Coimbra bearing down on the submarine. The British tanker, like the Norness, transported oil to Britain. She made an easy target against the brightly lit coast. U-123 torpedoed the tanker, and within minutes the explosion sent a fireball 650 feet into the sky.

Thirty-six crewmen were killed; six survived. People in the Hamptons called to report the fire 27 miles away. The U.S. military did not respond. No airplane, no Coast Guard cutter, nothing. Hardegen didn't even bother to submerge the U-boat.

Throughout Operation Drumbeat, the military said as little as possible about the U-boat attacks along the East Coast. Only if the enemy knew of sinkings, or if they were witnessed by people along the coast would the Navy disclose successful U-boat attacks.

On Jan. 23, an unnamed Navy spokesman told the press the U.S. had sunk some of the U-boats. It was a lie.

#### Radio Silence

In the first three weeks of January, U-123 would destroy eight ships and damage a ninth. During that time the nine German U-boats in the Atlantic destroyed 35 Allied merchant ships and a British destroyer and killed 1,219 crew and passengers.

In February, the killing continued. Sixteen U-boats destroyed 34 more Allied merchant ships and a warship between Nova Scotia and Venezuela and 15 more vessels, mostly oil tankers, in the Caribbean. The cargo ship Dixie Sword sank on Feb. 12, 1942 near Monomoy Island off Cape Cod.

#### The United States fired nary a shot in their defense.

But by then, the U.S. military began to take some defensive measures against the U-boat attacks. Mine fields were laid in the harbors and mobile artillery was positioned to protect the harbors. Shore craft and planes were ordered to be ready for combat. It was something, at least.

#### The permanent denial and a coast lit.

In March, the U-boats attacked 48 ships, and almost all sank. They were easy prey as the U-boats could spot them easily against the lighted cars, buildings, streetlights and billboards along the coast. Ships continued to operate with all their lights on.

The U-boat attacks were destroying ships faster than the British and Americans could replace them. (...)"

Chapter 6

## Trailer

Damaged boats that had not come to sink were brought to a port where they are able to repair, or, in some cases, those vessels that were not in a position to navigate by their own means they were being towed to change your location and they were there when they were torpedoed and sunk, on some occasions torpedoed a second time.

It is clear that a boat - to serve as a decoy- it was not necessary to sail by its own means, so many of them were towed in the periphery of the convoys, or empty, minimum load, with minimum crew. These -even though they were sunk by submarines- could have been abandoned to be sunk the ship that was towing.

We have to remember how many vessels were found in the famous "Triangle" drifting, with no trace of violence and without crew.

#### USS Erie

The gunboat USS Erie escorting the convoy TAG-20 in the Caribbean between Trinidad and Guantanamo Bay when he was 10 miles south of Curacao by a German submarine in November 1942. The U-163, under the command of Kurt-Eduard engelmann, emerged and fired three torpedoes at the Erie. The Americans at the sight of the submarine and torpedoes took evasive maneuvers. The Erie escaped from two of them but was beaten by the third and severely damaged. His crew took him to land on the shore nearby and this caught fire during several hours before the flames were controlled. The American forces suffered seven dead and eleven wounded in the attack. Later, the Erie was towed to the port of Willemstad Curacao, but capsized and sank on 5 December.

Serve the Erie of example.

Chapter 7

## German submarines in Bahamas

In his book "Drifting to the Duchess" Eric wiberg narrates:

"The morning of Saturday, August 7, 1943, began clear and calm, with good visibility from the bluff on which the town of Clarence Town, Long Island, Bahamas is perched. During the summer, when school was not in session, young Ancil Rudolph Pratt was able to take his father's horses out to pasture in the morning. He and his friends - Wellington Smith, Kipling Simms, Jeffrey Strachan and Isaac Taylor - liked to take the horses to the coast southeast of Clarence Town and enjoy playing on the seashore while the horses ate fresh grass.

Pratt remembers that it was a clear sunny day and the boys had made it to the bluffs around midday when they all saw something so unusual that they remembered it to their dying days, and confirmed it by looking at photos later. They were several miles southeast of town on the bluffs. A boat of some sort emerged from the water about two miles out to sea. They could clearly see the "sail" or conning tower, but not any people on deck or on board. The craft was moving slowly and leaving a wake behind it. The boys could clearly see machinery on deck.

Judging from the comparative distance between telephone poles strung along the coast, which are spaced roughly 200 feet apart, the judged the length of the vessel to be about 200 feet. After ten to fifteen minutes the submarine submerged, though a kind of radio mast was still visible. The sun was over their heads at midday, the submarine headed from left to right away from land, towards the southeast. The boys' backs were to the high bushes and trees. They watched the mast cutting through the water and heading away.

Asked whether he had witnessed a submarine in Bahamian waters during World War Two, Mr Pratt, a former insurance salesman in Nassau for 25 years who runs a shop in Clarence Town and is a well-respected member of the community, he replied "it couldn't be nothing else". It also could not have been any other day - Sunday the boys would have been in Church and in weekdays engaged in either school or church. "This is not no story," he says, "I'm telling you I saw it with my own eyes."

The channel off Long Island was used by eight German and Italian submarines in World War Two: the Italian submarine Finzi and the German U-boats U-84, U-108, U-129, U-185, U-508, U-732, and U-751. U-84 had transited the Crooked Island Channel east of Long Island on 10th July 1942, and the British Admiralty reported a submarine spotted on the 22nd of July, which might also have been U-129 under Hans-Ludwig Witt, however the sub was described heading southeast (same direction as U-84) and Witt was heading back to Europe.

Neither can be verified with certainty, though possibly the sighting of U-84 was made on an earlier date by fisherman and reported on the 22nd when they returned. The source of the sighting was "Hardbargain South Side Long Island course South East." Hard Bargain was a largely abandoned salt harvesting community, also just south of Clarence Town Long Island.

Given the certainty of it being a Saturday in early August 1943, it was much easier to verify the sighting by young Pratt and his friends.

On Saturday, August 7, 1943, Oberleutnant zur See Claus-Peter Carlsen, aged 23, was conning his submarine, U-732 back to Brest, France. He was on the 58th day of an 83-day patrol during which he attacked Allied ships three times and was counter-attacked more often, first by two US Kingfisher reconnaissance airplanes, and another time driven away from a convoy by two American destroyers. On the afternoon of Friday, July 6, U-732 put the north coast of Cuba astern and passed west of Great Inagua in the southern Bahamas. At 10pm local time on the 6th, Carlsen noted his intention in the sub's log book, or KTB, that he intended to take a winding course through Crooked Island Passage as part of his return voyage.

By 2am on Saturday, U-732 was able to take a visual bearing on Castle Island Light at the southern tip or Acklins Island. He noted that the light was "shining peacefully and is very good for position-fixing". At 5:30am, the submarine submerged, having ventilated and charged its batteries on the surface. By submerging, it made itself less vulnerable to detection and attack by enemy aircraft and ships, however their transit of the winding passage was only about halfway completed. They would need to verify their position before they were through. At 10am, they were southeast of the coast of Long Island, and by early afternoon were only seven or eight miles from land. If the submarine was on the surface it would have been visible from an elevation ashore with 12-mile visibility on a clear day.

During the hours between 2pm (it might have been noon depending on the time difference between Germany and the Bahamas), and 4pm, when the sub was next reported east of Clarence Town, Carlsen did not record anything, whether he surfaced or not was not noted. Certainly if it was surfaced the sub could achieve four times its submerged speed of about three knots, allowing it to cover substantially more ground. It is also possible that before crossing the wide Atlantic Carlsen wanted to visually verify his position, particularly to line up a safe passage between Samana Cay to the south and Rum Cay and San Salvador to the north. In particular there are two large, Spanish-colonial-style churches on the bluffs east of Clarence Town which would have served as reliable beacons enabling a captain to confirm his exact position.

Whether Carlsen took the calculated risk of surfacing southeast of and out of sight of Clarence Town proper will not be known with certitude. He demonstrated in writing a propensity to approach landmarks and verify his position as recently as passing Castle Island Light some 12 hours before.

The evidence suggests that five pairs of eyes witnessed the submarine indeed surfacing for a short time before heading east to break free of the shallow Bahamas and head back for Europe, where U-732 arrived on the last day of the same month. If so it would be the only verifiable incidence of a living witness having seen a German submarine patrolling in the region - one Saturday morning out of some 1,500 other patrol days where the enemy prowled the watery region around the islands over the course of more than two and a half years."

  * ABOUT the author: Raised in Nassau, Eric Wiberg is licensed as a sea captain and maritime lawyer. He has spent the last five years researching and lecturing on German and Italian submarine attacks in the Bahamas area for the book 'Drifting to the Duchess,' to be published by Brick Tower Press of New York, NY in early 2014.

Chapter 8

## Fundamentalism

To analyze the phenomenon of "Bermuda Triangle" it is inevitable to think about why the Germans had so large fleet of submarines, as developed technology, and the allies do not? What prevented the allies develop submersibles on this scale?

And there we collided with a wall of Puritan religious beliefs that made the British and Americans do not want to finance the development of machines that would go in the depths, in the abysses. In that place of Creation where the dead reside, the place of hell. A resistance that lasted until not long ago.

For Americans has been easier to talk to investigate the sky that the abyss of the sea, although the cost of going to heaven, into space, multiply by the millions, and the possibilities to bring something of return must be zero.

Today the underwater prospecting pushes Americans beyond their fundamentalist beliefs in search of minerals they need and they cannot get them free of charge in other countries, as well who are corralled and all you have to do is another option. Or go down to the depths to look for them or they must accept that the other powers such as Russia and China to do it and exploit the sources of natural resources, which in fact are already doing so.

But, by giving its approval to the companies that conduct the surveys by checking the seabed and relieving it with new systems such as side-scan sonar, and others, nothing can be hidden. If you are at the bottom of the sea is going to be seen, and if it can be seen you can arrive there and filming with the submarines of great depths. The more technology available there is \- and this is available for all powers-, the more difficult it becomes to keep these secrets, lies and concealment. As a matter of "gentlemanly" between pairs, or mutual "cooperation" between world powers is that there is this " I do not tell if you do not tell ", so each one looks the other way on issues that are not concerned about or does not affect them directly, but as the information is so visible it is inevitable that I ended up seeping, and that is what has just happened with the huge amount of sunken ships in the U.S. coastline.

Chapter 9

## Coining the term

"Give me all the attention of a man and a herd of elephants preceded by a band of music can go behind me, and you won't know" (Vincent Gaddis)

The term "Bermuda Triangle" was created in 1953 by several writers that articles published in journals about the alleged danger and mystery of the area.

The first mention documented about the Bermuda Triangle was made in 1950 by Edward Van Winkle Jones - Associated Press journalist who wrote about some ships lost in the area of the Bahamas. Jones said that the disappearances of ships, aircraft and small boats were "mysterious", and gave this area the nickname "Devil's Triangle." We are speaking of Mr Winkle who was a journalist and therefore knew to perfection the system of censorship and codes that handled the press. It is inevitable to think that he knew the real reason for the disappearance of the ships already that he should have implemented for himself the "Voluntary censorship" in their work, and he knew the "parameters", News, or topics, could be mentioned and which are not.

It may be interesting that the agency of government censorship has been in charge of a manager of the Associated Press, Byron Price, and that it was he who design and organized the system of "voluntary censorship", but well, perhaps it is only coincidence that both Byron as Van Winkle belonged to the Associated Press.

Two years later, in 1952, the journalist George X. Sand said in an article in Fate Magazine that in that area were happening "strange disappearances ". A journalist again...

In 1964, the tabloid writer Vincent Gaddis (1913-1997), who had worked as a reporter and editor of a newspaper for a radio station in Warsaw, Indiana, from 1947 to 1952-, coined the term "Bermuda Triangle" in an article in the American pulp Argosy. The next year he published the book Invisible horizons: true mysteries of the sea ("Invisible horizons: the real mysteries of the sea"), where included a chapter called "The deadly Bermuda Triangle". Generally, the journalist Gaddis is considered the inventor of the term. Another journalist...

It was very interesting for me what it said Vincent H. Gaddis in his article "The Art of the honest disappointment": [11]

"(...) You do not see with your eyes alone, but with your brain and mind, which sorts out the confusion of outlines and colors, and forms them into definite, understandable images. Because the mind has so very much to do with what is being observed, deception is made possible.

Your mind is a censor. If you see two men--one twenty feet away from you and the other forty--your eyes tell you, falsely, that one man is only half the height of the other. Your intellect, however, corrects this erroneous impression. The mind, on the other hand, has the habit of building up familiar objects and individuals on the basis of a fleeting glance or a vague impression. If you happen to see a friend, for example, passing through a doorway, you may actually see only a familiar hat or ear or shoulder. But your mind fills out the incomplete picture, and you say to yourself: "That's Mr. Smith!" Usually you are right, but sometimes you are wrong.

As a result of this mental habit details are not observed. Most men cannot tell you whether the numbers on their watches are Roman or Arabic, whether all twelve numbers are present, or whether the manufacturer's name is in view. Unimportant matters, despite clear observation, are not registered in the consciousness.

We see what we expect to see, and it is difficult to recognize anything we are not prepared to encounter. If we ran across a polar bear in a field near Chicago, we would likely recognize it as a large white boulder--until it moved or we got close to it. But if we knew a bear had escaped from a circus and we were searching for it, we might at first identify a rock as a bear.

A magician tosses an orange into the air. Three times the orange rises and falls, each toss being made with the identical motions of the performer's body and hands. The fourth time we see the orange rise--and vanish. Actually, the orange never left his empty right hand the fourth time, but the repetition of his preceding movements had deceived us. We observed what we had expected to see--and were fooled. (...)

It is difficult to mystify children and mental defectives because their general knowledge is limited, and their attention cannot be distracted or misdirected by suggestions of factors they do not understand. Never be ashamed if you are fooled; only your intelligence is proved.

Let us suppose that the performer is causing a ball to float in the air. He refers to the powers of magnetism and cosmic energy; he suggests that mental radiations may be the answer. The adults present in his audience have heard that such powers and factors exist. They may not believe his suggestions, but their attention has been directed away from the natural and obvious, and they seek a complex solution. The children, however, are paying no attention to his remarks. They are looking for the thread that is holding the ball up, and if the performer is not careful they finally see it.

Intelligent persons try to explain what they see in terms of their extensive knowledge of causes and effects, and the remarks of the performer assist in confusing them. On the other hand, children, lacking adult knowledge, rely on direct observation. When the performer points his finger at something on the other side of the stage, the adults look in the direction indicated, but the children first look at his finger. The more intelligent a person is, the more he uses his mind instead of his eyes. Thus he fools himself. (...)

Misdirection (with bad intent) is possible because of the power of suggestion. It is a psychological fact that the first impulse of people is to believe. Doubting is usually secondary. And the power of suggestion wields a tremendous influence on our lives and opinions. (...)

"Give me the full attention of a man," Harry Kellar, the famous necromancer of the last generation, used to say, "and a herd of elephants preceded by a brass band can march behind me, and he will not know it." (...)

The more you try to solve his mysteries by using your intelligence, the more easily he will baffle you. (...) So sometimes, strange to say, we are fooled because we wish to be deceived. And that is the greatest, most important, principle of them all."

11] [Http://www.strangemag.com/artofhonestdecept.html

Reading their own words it is difficult to think Gaddis does not knew what he was saying when he invented the "Bermuda Triangle".

It is clear that after the Second World War concluded, to return life to normal, returning combatants to their homes, when disarmed many of the bases of the Caribbean that had been created or reinforced by the anti-submarine warfare, and at the beginning of the investigations of the events that occurred during the conflict, there were a number of incidents that had not been properly explained, or even explained. All of a sudden the coast of Bahamas appeared as a place of lost ships, not only Bahamas but the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the Caribbean. But, if the investigation would have moved into the Gulf of Mexico there would have been no way to keep the concealment, so had to move the focus out of the oil-producing area that had been the great reason from the incursions of the U-Boot, and so we are talking about a sector external to the gulf in the triangle between Bermuda, Miami, and Puerto Rico. A place of open sea, without anything in particular, nothing of interest, with enormous depths that made it impossible to your research. What had gone to the bottom of the sea \- in that site- it was not recoverable, and not even I could try to take a look, a look that could clarify the reasons for its disappearance. A perfect distraction in the style of the magicians. "Nothing here, nothing there." We watched fascinated the Bermuda Triangle while our backs was "a herd of elephants with a band playing in front"... in the Gulf of Mexico.

In the blink of an eye any shipwreck - which normally occur in all parts of the world -, there became a "mysterious disappearance", so that every time someone referred to a ship disappeared in the area (even if it was in front of Venezuela), ended up being part of the mystery of Bermuda.

I think that censorship is understood, or it can be understood in the context of the war, but once it is concluded what sense had to maintain the silence?, what is earned by keeping the cover-up? I think of all those crews, in all those family members who have been in doubt as to where their loved ones.

The War of the Caribbean disappeared in the mist of the Bermuda Triangle. USA had never been surrounded by the nazis, the country was immune to attacks and wars. Citizens could be confident entering any war in any part of the world because wars would not reach their land, or to its shores...

But how it all ends sooner or later at the end came the underwater exploring. The technology, the blessed technology, such as multibeam sonar, or lateral sweeping, or photogrammetry, or satellite surveys and together with them deep-sea submarines managed by remote control, all technologies that expanded the horizons. Horizons that the treasure seekers, individuals, private companies, documentalists, naturalists, and countless people and companies expanded in wanting to see -- that kept those depths. Many people, too much to keep a secret. And found the boats, tens, hundreds, of all kinds, and many German submarines. These submarines that were supposed to have never been there, nor in the vicinity. Then it was only to join the pieces, assemble the puzzle, and the curtains fell. Everything had been exposed.

Multibeam Biometrics

The German submarine of the Second World War was located almost 70 years after it sunk warships in the waters of Nantucket Island in the Atlantic Ocean, in front of the Bahamas. The U-550 was found by a group organized by the American lawyer Joe Mazraani and funded by private sources, in which some carried two decades looking for the ship. It was the second trip of the members to that place in two years.

Https://expansion.mx/economia-insolita/2012/07/28/encuentran-submarino-70-anos-despues

Data from side- scan sonar obtained in 2001 of the HUGIN 3000 AUV of a sunken ship in the Gulf of Mexico during the Second World War. C & C Technology Inc. (Courtesy of the National D-Day Museum, New Orleans)

Https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Side-scan-SONAR-data-obtained-in-2001-from-the-HUGIN-3000-AUVs-of-a-ship-sunk-in-the-Gulf_fig28_302546326

Of course, after the end of the war and not to notice that the disappearances had been mostly at that time would have increased the uncertainty about some facts typical naval, and had led to the realm of the "supernatural" for the conflict of the Caribbean will be left behind, it was only a tree in the forest. As they say, if you want to hide a tree what better place than a forest. A forest of sunken ships for alleged alien forces.

Chapter 10

## Artificial reefs

### Euphemisms and "voluntary censorship"?

It may be interesting to talk about "Artificial Reefs", and not war in the coasts of USA. Let's look at an article - of so many people - who speaks tangentially of the sinkings that inevitably found when performing the surveys, and how these surveys were carried out with tools accessible and available to the general public such as small remotely controlled submarines with high resolution cameras ROV (an acronym for Remote Operated Vehicle, vehicle operated from a distance).

They Say Robert A. Church, Daniel J. Warren, and Jack B. Irion, in their work: Analysis of Deepwater Shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico: Artificial Reef Effect of Six World War II Shipwrecks: [14]

"In 2004, researchers from across North America came together to investigate six World War II-era shipwrecks discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. The science team included marine archaeologists, microbiologists, marine vertebrate and invertebrate zoologists, a molecular biologist, an oceanographer, remotely operated vehicle technicians, and professional marine surveyors. The US Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Ocean Exploration and Research sponsored this multidisciplinary project under the auspices of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program. The organizational involvement included six universities, two nonprofit organizations, three commercial companies, and three federal agencies. All six vessels studied were casualties of World War II. Each was found during modern oil and gas surveys in water depths ranging from 87 to 1,964 meters. Today, these wrecks function as artificial reefs. Their well-documented sinking dates offer biologists a unique opportunity to study the "artificial reef effect" of manmade structures in deep water. Historically, these sites represent an underwater battlefield and a vital historical resource documenting a little-studied area of world history. They preserve information vital to scholarly and popular understanding of the impact of World War II in the Gulf of Mexico, on the American home front, and in the wider world.

During World War II, German U-boats sank 56 merchant vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, the Gulf contains one of the greatest concentrations worldwide of Allied shipping lost to German U-boats. Currently, the remains of 18 such vessels and the only known German U-boat sunk in the Gulf, U-166, have been identified in federal waters as a result of oil industry surveys required by the US Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS). Taken together, these sites represent a unique underwater battlefield and a vital historical resource documenting an understudied but important period in American history. These sites also represent artificial reefs created on known dates that offer biologists a unique opportunity to study the "artificial reef effect" of manmade structures in deep water. In the summer of 2004, a multidisciplinary team composed of archaeologists, biologists, filmmakers, oceanographers, professional surveyors, and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) operators worked together on the Deep Wrecks Project to document and analyze biological and archaeological aspects of six World War II era shipwrecks in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico (Minerals Management Service, 2007; Church et al., 2007). The vessels (Virginia, Halo, Gulfpenn, Robert E. Lee, Alcoa Puritan, and U-166) were lost to wartime activity in 1942. Each of the shipwrecks was discovered during oil and gas surveys and reported to MMS as required by federal regulations. Water depth at the wreck sites ranged from 87 to 1,964 meters. Each shipwreck was investigated to determine site boundaries, National Register of Historic Places eligibility, state of preservation and stability, and the potential for these manmade structures to function as artificial reefs in deep water.

MMS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Ocean Exploration (NOAA OE) sponsored the study under the auspices of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP). MMS contracted C & C Technologies Inc. (C & C) to manage the project, provide survey support, and conduct the archaeological analysis. In addition to the three government agencies, researchers from six universities, three private companies, and two nonprofit organizations collaborated to make the project a success; individuals who directly participated in the project are listed in the acknowledgements section of this paper. A diverse team of researchers, with archaeologists and biologists working side by side, pooled their expertise to meet project goals. Each site was systematically investigated using an acoustically positioned ROV following a pre-established survey grid. The ROV survey was designed to maximize efforts and time for both the archaeological and biological studies. Detailed visual inspections provided needed data to document each wreck's cultural and biological characteristics. Of the six wrecks designated for this study, three (Alcoa Puritan, Robert E. Lee, and U-166) were positively identified before the project. The remaining vessels (Gulfpenn, Halo, and Virginia) had only been tentatively identified based on geophysical surveys and limited video documentation. During the project, positive identifications were made for each vessel.

### The SHIPWRECKS

#### Virginia

Welding Shipyards Inc. constructed Virginia in March 1941. The ship was 501 ft (152.8m) long and 69.8 ft (21.3 m) at the beam (Sawyer and Mitchell, 1974). In May 1942, the tanker transited from Baytown, Texas, toward Baton Rouge, Louisiana, loaded with 180,000 barrels of gasoline. Virginia stopped on May 12 near the sea buoy at the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River (the Southwest Pass is the main deep-draft navigational entrance into the Mississippi River) waiting for a river pilot (Burch, 1942b). Just as the dory carrying the pilot from Jenny Wilson to Virginia was crossing between the two ships, two of three torpedoes from U-507 passed under the pilot boat and struck the tanker. In moments, Virginia was engulfed in flames as the gasoline-filled tanker exploded. The flames spread over the water, surrounded the tanker, and made it nearly impossible for many of the crew to escape. Those in the pilot boat tried to rescue survivors from the burning tanker, but only 14 of 41 crewmen survived (Burch, 1942a; Michell, 2001, 2004; Peterson 2003). In 2001, a large shipwreck was discovered in the western portion of the South Pass area of the northern Gulf of Mexico during a geophysical oil and gas survey. Marine archaeologist Rob Floyd tentatively identified the shipwreck as Virginia. The Deep Wrecks Project team examined the site, becoming the first to see the ship in its 62 years on the bottom. They determined that the wreck is oriented with the bow pointing northwest and the stern southeast. Average water depth at the wreck is approximately 87 m. The site has approximately 14.6 m of relief above the seafloor. Most of the superstructure is badly deteriorated, with biofouling making many features difficult to identify. The bridge structure is gone, but the bridge telegraph remains in situ. Virginia's bow stands approximately 12 m proud of the seafloor. The vessel's stern exhibited approximately 8 m of relief above the ambient seafloor and is badly damaged. The aft deckhouse is a collapsed tangle of bent and broken metal. Several nets are ensnared over this section of the vessel, particularly on the port side, making it difficult to assess. The fish and invertebrate count at this site was incomplete because of the poor visibility, but many species were documented. (...)"

[14] Analysis of Deepwater Shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico Six Artificial Reef Effect of World War II shipwrecks. Robert A. Church is Senior Marine Archaeologist, C&C Technologies Inc., Lafayette, LA, USA. Daniel J. Warren is Senior Marine Archaeologist, C&C Technologies Inc., Houston, TX, USA. Jack B. Irion is Supervisor, Social Sciences Unit, Minerals Management Service, New Orleans, LA, USA.

After reading a bit of this material I immediately comes the idea that mentioned only 56 ships sunk in the Gulf of Mexico when they were known to have been hundreds, even though the same document says: "The Deep Wrecks Project was one of the most comprehensive deepwater shipwreck investigations to date. The multidisciplinary approach allowed the research team to maximize expensive ship time and draw on a wide range of expertise for a holistic approach to studying the wreck sites."

It seems to me that perhaps we see a continuity of cover-up by denying the rest of the shipwrecks and, with it, the actual number of subsidence.

### Manufacturing reefs or what hiding a war sinking an aircraft carrier?

The government of USA sunk in the year 2006 the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany (CV / CVA-34), nicknamed Mighty O, which had been one of the few Essex class aircraft carrier that was completed after the Second World War to the United States Navy. The boat was appointed by the Battle of Oriskany of revolutionary war.

The official statement behind this collapse was the desire to generate an artificial reef in the Gulf of Mexico.

This sinking is not necessary -and quite expensive-, makes me wonder : why take so much trouble with a boat that was supposed to be ready to be scrapped? And, therefore, recycling, and why sink in the Gulf of Mexico? Where there are hundreds of sunken ships that are hundreds of artificial reefs, but outside for the public will repair in the news that vessels are in the bottom of the Gulf or the Caribbean have been sunk on purpose to generate dive sites, and in that way to view pictures or documentaries recalled that those ships were sunk to coral reefs and in recent times, discarding any reference to the second war or acts of war close to the continent.

Then as "cherry dessert", - as they say - of this sinking in particular is very striking that the USS Oriskany is called also "O-boat", that is, let us remember that the other "artificial reefs" were sunk by the U-boot as they called him the Germans or U-boat called Americans to German submarines, and this reef would be that of the "O-boat"¿!!!?? What an O-boat American? Let us say that for coincidence is too much. More than coincidence makes me think that blend the sinkings to coral reefs, with the O-boat, and then the U-boat would not be German submarines but American aircraft carrier??... says the illusionist: "nothing around here nothing around there..." and the herd of elephants with the music - to which I referred Vincent Gaddis - continues playing and nobody notices it.

#### The Kraken

Another sunken ship to make more "artificial reefs", o chance, coincidence of the coincidences, is an oil tanker... as if there are no longer any sunken vessels peroleros enough. The Program of Artificial Reefs of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department sent it to the bottom of the sea to the cargo ship 371 feet, called The Kraken, in early January 2017. The boat was nicknamed the Kraken on the mythical monster in the shape of a squid immortalized in film and literature, and of course in the public imagination of the Bermuda Triangle. The boat sank to 67 miles off the coast of Galveston to create a new artificial reef (located in the GPS coordinates 28 N, 94 26,634 17,168 W). The Kraken was born in May 2016 in tow from Trinidad to Brownsville to be reused as an artificial reef to 140 feet (42m) below the surface. The contractors were Cahaba Disaster Recovery LLC who worked with the Program of artificial reefs for their preparation and cleaning before the sinking.

Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean (Miami Military Museum)

Detail of the previous map of some of the sinkings in the Gulf

Http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/blog/teslaproject/wreck-sites/world-war-ii/

### Gulfstate

Also the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of USA has recently released news about sinkings of World War II. In their reports consist that 13 merchant ships of the navy sunk by the German navy in the battle of the Atlantic threaten to release oil from their graves underwater. One of them, the Gulfstate, ranks as the number 1 priority for the Coast Guard to evaluate and, potentially, attempt to rescue or delete their oil, according to the classification system of the NOAA. This is due to the fact that could still contain almost 84,000 barrels (approximately 3.5 million gallons) of oil, and in part due to its location close to coral reefs in Florida.

Chapter 11

## Pilots of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP)

By DAVID T. ZABECKI 8/10/2018 o JOURNAL OF AVIATION HISTORY (Excerpt from the article) [17]

On July 11, 1942, Civil Air Patrol crewmen Wynant Farr and John Haggins drop a depth charge from their Grumman Widgeon on a surfacing German U-boat off the New Jersey coast, in "A Dangerous Game".

During the early stages of World War II, the Civil Air Patrol played a vital role in helping defend American merchant ships from marauding U-boats. (...)

The Civil Air Patrol came into being during the dark days immediately preceding America's entry into World War II. In 1941 there were more than 128,000 licensed private pilots in the U.S., operating some 25,000 light aircraft from 2,500 airfields. Many of those pilots, including aviation writer Gill Robb Wilson, worried that when America was finally drawn into the war, all civil aviation would be grounded for the duration, as had happened in Germany. They also thought that if properly organized, private aviation could be a valuable national asset, relieving military fliers of some of the burden of liaison, light transportation and coastal and border reconnaissance work. With the backing of U.S. Army Air Corps chief General Henry "Hap" Arnold and the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA), Wilson was instrumental in establishing the New Jersey Civil Air Defense Services, the forerunner of CAP.

Other states established similar organizations on the New Jersey model, which in turn led to the initiative to form a national-level organization. On May 20, 1941, the federal government established the Office of Civil Defense, with former New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as its first director. Advocates for a national civilian air organization, including Wilson and publishers Thomas Beck and Guy Gannet, lost no time in petitioning LaGuardia with a plan for a Civil Air Patrol organized into 48 state wings as part of the Civil Defense office. LaGuardia, a former World War I bomber pilot himself, enthusiastically endorsed the plan, but he also knew that the support of the Air Corps (soon to be redesignated the U.S. Army Air Forces) was critical to its success. Arnold, in turn, established a board headed by Brig. Gen. George Stratemeyer to evaluate the proposal. The board quickly recommended that the Army Air Forces provide a team of officers to help set up and administer the new organization. LaGuardia signed the order creating the Civil Air Patrol on December 1, 1941-six days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The AAF assigned Maj. Gen. John Curry as CAP's first national commander, with Wilson as his executive officer.

Immediately after Pearl Harbor, the government placed limited restrictions on private civilian flights along certain areas of the West Coast. Captain Earle Johnson, another CAP founder, was less than impressed with the aerial security measures for the country's interior, especially around airports and critical war industries. Taking off in his own private plane one night in early 1942, Johnson dropped sandbags onto the roofs of three war plants on the outskirts of Cleveland. Completely undetected, he notified the various plant managers the next morning that they had been "bombed." The CAA reacted immediately by grounding all private flights until far more comprehensive security measures could be implemented. These included background checks on all licensed pilots, guards at all airports and approved flight plans required for all flights. The new rules resulted in a huge influx into the ranks of CAP, which gave private pilots greater opportunities to fly under the auspices of an official U.S. government organization.

Although the Japanese attack initially caused federal authorities to focus on the West Coast, the first real threat emerged on the East and southeast coasts, as German U-boats started operating within a few hundred yards of the shoreline, often sinking merchantmen and tankers at the rate of two a day. The U.S. Navy was spread too thin to be everywhere at the same time along the 1,200-mile eastern sea frontier, from Halifax to the Florida Keys. Nor did the AAF have enough aircraft to screen the coast and provide adequate early warning to ships. The idea of using civilian pilots and their private aircraft for such a hazardous mission was a measure of desperation. It was a huge risk, but there was no viable alternative.

CAP was authorized to establish and conduct the Coastal Patrol Experimental Program on a 90-day trial basis. Gill Robb Wilson stepped down as CAP's national executive officer to assume the mission of organizing the Coastal Patrol. Officially established on March 5, 1942, it flew its first over-water combat patrol that same day from a base in Rehoboth, Del. The other bases in the trial program were in New Jersey and Florida. By September CAP was operating from 21 Coastal Patrol bases from Maine to the Texas-Mexico border. The bases were initially under the operational control of the Eastern Defense Command's I Bomber Command, but in October they were placed under the 25th and 26th wings of the AAF's Antisubmarine Command.

The initial flights were reconnaissance missions only, consisting of a pilot and an observer with a donated maritime radio. They operated as far as 150 miles from shore, and the crews' only overwater gear consisted of kapok life vests. The volunteer pilots received $8 a day, the ground crewmen $5. Volunteers ranged from garage mechanics to millionaire sportsmen, farm hands and even grandfathers.

Whenever a patrol spotted a U-boat, the crew broadcast its position to merchant ships in the area, as well as to the Navy and AAF. The CAP plane then stuck with the sub as long as possible to vector in any intercepting forces. The patrols also radioed in reports of tankers and merchant ships that had been hit, and the position of survivors in the water.

In May 1942, one patrol sighted a U-boat sitting on the surface. Not knowing the aircraft was unarmed, the crew executed a crash dive, but the sub hung up on a sandbar. The CAP pilot circled the sitting duck for more than half an hour, but the U-boat finally managed to work loose and get away just before land-based bombers reached the target. Shortly after that, CAP planes started carrying bombs and depth charges slung from jury-rigged external racks.

CAP claimed its first U-boat kill on July 11, 1942, when Captain Johnny Haggins and Major Wynant Farr, flying a Grumman G-44 Widgeon armed with two depth charges, bombed a sub they had been shadowing for three hours, just as it came up to periscope depth. The resulting oil slick and surface debris seemed to confirm the kill, and for many years after the war that and one later claimed kill were credited to CAP. However, no corroborating evidence has been found in the extensive records the Kriegsmarine kept on all 1,154 of its commissioned U-boats. Those records indicate no U-boats missing off the East Coast during the period that the Coastal Patrol was active. Nor do the war diaries of the Navy's Eastern Sea Frontier and the Gulf Sea Frontier record any mention of CAP aircraft sinking a U-boat.

The very legality of the Coastal Patrol was highly dubious, of course. Despite wearing semi-military uniforms and having military rank titles, the CAP crews were officially civilians. Had any of them been shot down and captured, they would not have received prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions. The CAP members knew this, yet they continued to volunteer to fly the hazardous missions.

Coastal Patrol stood down on August 31, 1943, by which time both the Navy's and the AAF's anti-submarine forces had grown large enough to handle the mission. During the almost 18-month period, CAP had flown 86,685 over-water sorties, spotted and reported 91 merchant vessels and 363 survivors in distress, reported 173 U-boat positions and dropped 82 bombs on 57 of those subs. In the process, it lost 90 aircraft and 26 crew members. After the war, 824 Coastal Patrol pilots and observers received Air Medals, and Edmond Edwards and Hugh Sharp were each awarded a second Air Medal with V Device for valor for their rescue of a CAP pilot who had ditched at sea.

(...) Search and rescue was the wartime mission that still defines CAP to this day. CAP aircrews flew more than 25,000 hours of SAR missions during the war. With their ability to fly low and slow, and their knowledge of the local terrain, they were far more efficient at such missions than military pilots. In a single week of February 1945 alone, CAP pilots located the wreckages of seven military aircraft. Once a wreck was found, CAP often sent ground rescue teams to the location to secure the crash site and search for survivors. In the Florida wing, which was commanded by Zack Mosely, creator of the classic aviation comic strip The Adventures of Smilin' Jack, ground teams pioneered the use of swamp buggies for rescue missions in the marshy Everglades.

The Civil Air Patrol was a co-ed organization from the start, and attracted a large number of women pilots. By 1945 women accounted for some 20 percent of CAP's membership. More than half the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) started out in CAP.

On October 1, 1942, the Cadet Program was instituted for boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 17. Within less than a year, there were more than 20,000 young people in the program. The CAP cadets received training in first aid, Morse code, meteorology, navigation, aircraft construction and other basic ground school subjects. Many went on to qualify for private pilot licenses. As the war progressed, the CAP Cadet Program became a screening point and an entry path for the AAF's Aviation Cadet program.

Soon after the Coastal Patrol was up and running, Earle Johnson (by then an AAF major) replaced Currey as CAP's national commander, remaining in that role until February 1947. On April 23, 1943, a presidential executive order transferred jurisdiction for the Civil Air Patrol from the Office of Civilian Defense to the War Department, and CAP became an auxiliary of the Army Air Forces. That December the AAF loaned 288 Piper L-4 Grasshoppers to CAP for use in the Aviation Cadet recruiting program. By the end of 1944, CAP had given more than 78,000 prospective recruits orientation flights and had actually recruited an oversupply of aviation cadets.

As World War II ended, it seemed to many that CAP's raison d'être ended with it. Although most of the AAF's senior officers were enthusiastic supporters, the sharp budget reductions that started in 1946 brought increasing pressure on the military's ability to fund CAP. Concerned about the organization's future, General Arnold convened a conference of the 48 wing commanders to plan a path forward. They decided to incorporate CAP as an organization dedicated to aviation education and civilian emergency services.

On July 1, 1946, Congress passed Public Law 476, incorporating CAP as a nonprofit organization "solely of a benevolent character." CAP members would never again participate in direct combat operations, and the organization intended to operate without the help of the Army Air Forces. But after the U.S. Air Force was established as a separate service in 1947, CAP and USAF officials started meeting to reevaluate their future relationship. On May 26, 1948, Congress passed Public Law 557, establishing CAP as the official civilian auxiliary of the Air Force.

(...) On May 30, 2014, Congress awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, its highest civilian honor, to the World War II members of the Civil Air Patrol. According to Public Law 113-108: "The CAP's wartime service was highly unusual and extraordinary, due to the unpaid civilian status of its members, the use of privately owned aircraft and personal funds by many of its members, the myriad humanitarian and national missions flown for the Nation, and the fact that for 18 months, during a time of great need for the United States, the CAP flew combat-related missions in support of military operations off the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts."

[17] https://www.historynet.com/civil-air-patrols-combat-pilots.htm

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David T. Zabecki is HistoryNet's chief military historian. From 1962 to 1965, he was a CAP cadet at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. Further reading: Minutemen of the Air, by Carroll V. Glines and Gene Gurney; and America's Homefront Air War, by Roger Thiel.

### The Burning Shore by Ed Offley

(Extract from the note of: New England Historical Society)

"(...) The Civil Air Patrol, one-fifth of which were women, began sorties. Pilots in small, privately owned aircraft patrolled the coast from bases stretching from Trenton, Maine, to Lantana, Fla.

Though they weren't effective at sinking U-boats, the little planes prevented attacks. The U-boats were under orders to submerge at the sight of an aircraft.

#### Hooligan Navy

Less effective than the 'Flying Minutemen' was the auxiliary patrol comprised of luxury yachts and small fishing boats known as the Hooligan Navy. Some, including Ernest Hemingway, volunteered. Some were requisitioned.

The Hooligan Navy didn't sink any U-boats. The crew of one cabin cruiser was shocked to see a U-boat coming at them off the Florida coast. A German crewman yelled at them, "Get the hell out of here, you guys! Do you want to get hurt? Now scram."

The Hooligan Navy, however, did rescue hundreds of survivors of vessels sunk by U-boat attacks. (...)"

### Some statistics of the Civil Patrol:

Source capgoldmedal.com (Civil Air Patrol) [18]

From January-March 1942, U-boats sank 52 oil tankers off the East Coast.

Led by Sun Oil Co.'s (Sunoco) donation of $10,000, seven additional oil companies donated $8,000 to fund the establishment of three bases -- Coastal Patrol Base No. 1 at Atlantic City, New Jersey; No. 2 at Rehoboth, Delaware; and No. 3 at West Palm Beach (Lantana), Florida.

The first CAP coastal patrol flight took off from Base No. 2 at Rehoboth on March 5, 1942. Base No. 1 at Atlantic City began patrol flights March 10 and Base No. 3 at Lantana on April 2.

By the end of September 1942, 21 CAP coastal patrol bases extended from Maine to the Texas-Mexico border in 13 states -- Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North and South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

The bases were initially organized under the Eastern Defense Command's I Bomber Command, but on Oct. 15, 1942, were placed under the operational control of the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command, with the bases divided between the 25th and 26th wings, Antisubmarine Command.

All planes used in coastal patrol service were privately owned, including models built by Cessna, Fairchild, Grumman, Stinson and Waco.

Coastal patrol planes were required to have at least 90-horsepower engines.

Operating in pairs, planes maintained patrols from dawn to dusk, flying up to 60 miles offshore.The aircraft lucian a roundel, which consisted of a white triangle on a blue circle with the propeller of the logo of the red cap, to distinguish the coastal patrol aircraft from other units of the CAP.

In May 1942, senior Army and Navy leaders authorized the arming of CAP coastal patrol aircraft.

Depending on capacity, aircraft typically carried one to two 100-pound AN-M30 general purpose demolition bombs; larger planes sported one 325-pound Mk 17 depth bomb.

The CAP coastal patrol operation ceased Aug. 31, 1942, in accordance with an Army agreement to transfer all antisubmarine operations to the Navy.

CAP reported the following to the U.S. military regarding the 18 months of coastal patrol operations:

57 attacks on enemy submarines.

82 bombs dropped against submarines.

173 radio reports of submarine positions.

17 floating mines spotted.

36 dead bodies spotted.

91 vessels in distress spotted.

363 survivors in distress spotted.

836 irregularities noted.

1,036 special investigations at sea or along the coast.

5,684 convoy missions as aerial escorts for Navy ships.

86,685 missions flown.

244,600 flight hours logged.

Over 24 million miles flown.

Over 500,000 hours flown on other missions.

26 fatalities, seven serious injuries and 90 aircraft lost.

With only 26 deaths?!¡ Remember that these pilots only wore a life jacket to stay in the sea.

[18] http://www.capgoldmedal.com/history/fact-sheet/#.XMuLjRbQhR0

Once again we must be attentive to the figures and possible concealment and misrepresentation of information by the organizations involved.

Chapter 12

## Sunken ships in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean

Below is a short list of wrecked or damaged ships, which is not complete, but is intended to serve as a reference only in terms of sizing the conflict.

  * 11 Feb 1942 US forces arrived at the Dutch islands of Curaçao, Bonaire, and Aruba in the Caribbean Sea.

  * 13 Feb 1942 Axis submarines arrived in waters near Aruba.

  * 16 Feb 1942 Operation Neuland: German submarine U-156 sank two ships and bombarded shore facilities at Aruba, U-502 sank three small tankers in the Gulf of Venezuela, while other German and Italian submarines conducted similar attacks on Allied shipping in the region.

  * 17 Feb 1942 Dutch Marines attempted to disarm an unexploded torpedo at Aruba, launched by German submarine U-156 during the prior day's attack. The torpedo detonated unexpectedly, killing 4.

  * 20 Feb 1942 German submarine U-156 damaged US ship Delplata with 3 torpedoes 60 miles west of Martinique at 1131 hours; all 53 survived and abandoned ship. Meanwhile, four Italian submarines operating in the Caribbean Sea commenced an operation that would see the sinking of fourteen merchant vessels over a four day period.

  * 21 Feb 1942 German submarine U-67 sank Norwegian tanker Kongsgaard 7 miles off Curaçao in the Caribbean Sea at 1532 hours; 38 were killed, 8 survived. 20 miles west of Trinidad, U-161 sank British tanker Circe Shell at 2313 hours; 1 was killed, 57 survived.

  * 22 Feb 1942 German submarine U-67 sank US tanker J. N. Pew 225 miles west of Aruba in the Caribbean Sea, killing 33; of the 12 survivors, 10 would die before being rescued.

  * 23 Feb 1942 German submarine U-129 sank US freighter Lihue east of Martinique while German submarine U-502 sank Panamanian tanker Thalia and damaged another tanker off Aruba.

  * 25 Feb 1942 German submarine U-156 sank British tanker La Carriere 70 miles south of Puerto Rico; 15 were killed, 26 survived.

  * 3 Mar 1942 Unsubstantiated reports were made, mentioning the shelling of Mona island near Puerto Rico by a submarine.

  * 7 Mar 1942 German submarine U-126 sank US freighters Barbara and Cardonia between Cuba and Haiti.

  * 10 Mar 1942 German submarine U-161 sank Canadian passenger ship Lady Nelson (25 were killed, 204 survived) and British freighter Umtata (4 were killed, 169 survived) off Port Castries, Saint Lucia at 0449 hours.

  * 13 Mar 1942 At 0458 hours German submarine U-68 attacked the convoy GAT-49 about 200 miles northwest of Curaçao, torpedoed the 7,506-ton American tanker Cities Service Missouri. 30 minutes later, she struck the 2,680-ton Dutch steam merchant ship Ceres with two torpedoes, the first hitting under the bridge and the second under the No. 5 hatch. All eight officers, 35 crewmen and 11 armed guards left the American tanker in three lifeboats and one raft. At 0740 hours the ship plunged stern first with her bow straight in the air. Three hours later, destroyer USS Biddle (DD 151) picked up the American survivors. A boatswain drowned trying to get on the destroyer and a machinist died of wounds and burns on board. The survivors were later brought to Curaçao. Meanwhile, the two torpedoes caused heavy flooding, causing her to sink quickly. The Dutch crew and the passengers immediately abandoned ship and were picked up by an escort vessel.

  * 14 Mar 1942 German submarine U-67 sank Panamanian tanker Penelope 200 miles west of Dominica at 0200 hours; 2 were killed, 47 survived. In the same general area, U-67 sank Canadian ship Sarniadoc, killing the entire crew of 21.

  * 15 Mar 1942 German submarine U-161 sank US Coast Guard lighthouse tender Acacia with her surface guns south of Haiti; all 36 aboard survived.

  * 13 Apr 1942 German submarine U-154 sank British ship Empire Amethyst 40 miles south of Haiti at 0552 hours; all 47 aboard were killed.

  * 16 Apr 1942 German submarine U-66 sank Dutch tanker Amsterdam 60 miles west of Grenada at 1745 hours; 2 were killed, 38 survived.

  * 17 Apr 1942 German submarine U-66 sank Panamanian tanker Heinrich von Riedemann 100 miles west of Grenada at 0523 hours; all 44 aboard survived.

  * 19 Apr 1942 German submarine U-130 attempted to bombard oil storage tanks near Willemstad on the island of Curaçao but was driven away by coastal defense guns before any damage was done.

  * 26 Apr 1942 German submarine U-66 sank US ship Alcoa Partner 80 miles north of Bonaire in the Caribbean Sea at 0830 hours; 10 were killed, 25 survived.

  * 29 Apr 1942 German submarine U-66 sank Panamanian tanker Harry G. Seidel 50 miles west of Grenada; 2 were killed, 48 survived.

  * 3 May 1942 German submarine U-506 sank Nicaraguan ship Sama 60 miles southwest of Miami, Florida, United States at 0812 hours; all 14 aboard survived. German submarine U-125 sank Dominican ship San Rafael with 1 torpedo and 32 rounds from the deck gun 50 miles west of Jamaica at 1723 hours; 1 was killed, 37 survived.

  * 4 May 1942 In the late afternoon, German submarine U-507 sank US tankers Norlindo (killing 5 of 28 aboard), Munger T. Ball (killing 30 of 34 aboard), and Joseph M. Cudahy (killing 27 of 37 aboard) off the Florida Keys archipelago about 100 kilometers west of the tip of Florida, United States. At 2220 hours, U-125 sank US ship Tuscaloosa City 200 miles west of Jamaica; all 34 aboard survived.

  * 5 May 1942 German submarine U-125 sank US ship Green Island and British ship Empire Buffalo off the Cayman Islands.

  * 6 May 1942 German submarine U-507 sank US freighter Alcoa Puritan 60 kilometers south of Mobile, Alabama, United States.

  * 7 May 1942 German submarine U-507 sank Honduran ship Ontario with the deck gun 100 miles south of Mobile, Alabama, United States at 0335 hours; all 45 aboard survived.

  * 8 May 1942 German submarine U-507 sank Norwegian ship Torny in the Gulf of Mexico.

  * 9 May 1942 German submarine U-125 sank Canadian tanker Calgarolite 50 miles west of Grand Cayman island; all 45 aboard survived.

  * 10 May 1942 German submarine U-506 damaged US tanker Aurora 50 kilometers south of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, killing 1 of 50 aboard; Aurora was later towed to Algiers, Louisiana for repairs.

  * 12 May 1942 German submarine U-507 sank US tanker Virginia immediately off the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 27 of 41 aboard. To the south, U-69 sank Norwegian tanker Lise with torpedoes and the deck gun 90 miles north of Bonaire island; 12 were killed, 21 survived.

  * 13 May 1942 German submarine U-69 damaged American cargo ship Norlantic with two torpedoes at 0338 hours and deck gun at 0347 hours en route between Pensacola, Florida, United States and Venezuela; Norlantic's crew signaled for a ceasefire so the crew could board lifeboats, but U-69 continued to fire sinking the ship at 0411 hours; 12 men were killed during this attack. South of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, U-507 damaged US tanker Gulfprince while U-506 sank US tanker Gulfpenn (killing 13 of 38 aboard).

  * 14 May 1942 German submarine U-564 sank Mexican tanker Potrero del Llano off Florida, United States; 13 were killed, 22 survived. South of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, U-506 seriously damaged US tanker David McKelvy, killing 17 of 36 aboard; she would later be written off. 50 miles west of Grenada, U-155 sank Belgian ship Brabant. 14 miles southwest by of Grand Cayman island, U-125 sank Honduran ship Comayagua.

  * 16 May 1942 German submarine U-507 sank Honduran ship Amapala in the Gulf of Mexico at 0000 hours; 1 was killed, 56 survived. German submarine U-506 damaged US tankers Sun and William C. McTarnahan (killing 18 of 38 aboard) and sank US tanker Gulfoil (killing 21 of 40 aboard) 50 kilometers south of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.

  * 17 May 1942 German submarine U-103 sank US ship Ruth Lykes with her deck gun 200 miles south of the Grand Cayman island at 0044 hours; 6 were killed, 26 survived. Off Grenada, U-155 sank British tanker San Victorio at 0217 hours; 52 were killed, 1 survived). 75 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River in southern United States, U-506 sank US tanker Gulfoil at 0534 hours; 21 were killed, 19 survived. At 0952 hours, U-155 struck again, sinking US ship Challenger; 8 were killed, 56 survived.

  * 18 May 1942 German submarine U-125 sank US tanker Mercury Sun in the Caribbean Sea at 0606 hours. At 2150 hours, U-125 struck again, sinking US ship William J. Salman.

  * 19 May 1942 German submarine U-506 sank US freighter Heredia 100 kilometers southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States at 0856 hours, killing 36 of 62 aboard. Between Jamaica and Haiti at 1040 hours, U-751 sank US ship Isabela, killing 3 of 36 aboard. 200 kilometers southeast of New Orleans and 200 kilometers west of Havana, Cuba, U-103 sank US freighter Ogontz, killing 19 of 41 aboard.

  * 20 May 1942 German submarine U-155 damaged Panamanian freighter Sylvan Arrow (of the Standard Oil and Transportation Company) 40 miles southwest of Grenada, killing 1 of 44 aboard; there would be an attempt to tow her back to port, but she would ultimately sink before she reached port. 60 kilometers west of Havana, Cuba, German submarine U-753 sank American liberty ship George Calvert with three torpedoes; 10 of 61 aboard were killed during the attack, and 3 survivors were killed while being captured by the Germans; the survivors of George Calvert were freed after interrogation and sent to Cuba on lifeboats. Also on this date in the Gulf of Mexico, U-506 sank US tanker Halo 50 kilometers south of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, killing 21 of 42 aboard; all but 3 of the survivors would not live before being rescued.

  * 21 May 1942 German submarine U-103 sank US ships Clare at 0348 hours (all 40 aboard survived) and Elizabeth at 0415 hours (6 were killed, 36 survived) 40 miles west of Cuba. A few minutes later, at 0421 hours, U-106 sank Mexican tanker Faja de Oro to the north; 10 were killed, 27 survived. German submarine U-69 sank Canadian ship Torondoc 60 miles northwest of Martinique at 0753 hours; all 21 aboard survived as observed by the Germans, but none would be seen again. 40 miles northwest of Jamaica, U-558 sank Canadian ship Troisdoc by the deck gun at 1917 hours; all 18 aboard survived. U-156 sank Dominican ship Presidente Trujillo off Fort de France, Martinique at 1829 hours; 24 were killed, 15 survived.

  * 22 May 1942 German submarine U-753 stopped British schooner E. P. Theriault with the deck gun 90 miles north of Cuba at 0730 hours and damaged her with depth charges during a failed scuttling attempt; the wreck would float and beach at Cuba, where she would later be repaired and pressed into Cuban service.

  * 23 May 1942 German submarine U-103 sank US tanker Samuel Q. Brown 100 miles east of Cozumel, Mexico at 0926 hours; 2 were killed, 53 survived. U-155 sank Panamanian ship Watsonville just off Saint Vincent island in the Lesser Antilles islands.

  * 24 May 1942 German submarine U-502 sank Brazilian ship Gonçalves Dias 100 miles south of Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic; 6 were killed, 39 survived. U-103 sank Dutch ship Hetor 60 miles northwest of Grand Cayman island at 1640 hours; 2 were killed, 29 survived.

  * 25 May 1942 1942-05-25 German submarine-558 sank US ship Beatrice 50 miles southwest of Kingston, Jamaica at 0134 hours; 1 was killed, 30 survived. At 1552 hours, U-156 damaged destroyer USS Blakeley off Martinique, blowing away 60 feet of bow with a torpedo (6 were killed, 116 survived); Blakeley would be able to make it to Port de France, Martinique for temporary repairs.

  * 26 May 1942 German submarine U-103 sank US tanker Alcoa Carrier between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands at 0416 hours; all 35 aboard survived. At 1100 hours, U-106 sank US tanker Carrabulle 150 miles south of Louisiana, United States; 22 were killed, 18 survived. Beginning at 2000 hours, U-106 pursued US ship Atenas on the surface in the Gulf of Mexico, exchanging gunfire; Atenas would ultimately be able to escape, though suffering some damage.

  * 27 May 1942 German submarine U-558 sank US Army transport Jack 100 miles southwest of Port Salut, Haiti at 1051 hours; 37 were killed, 23 survived. German submarine U-753 sank Norwegian tanker Hamlet in the Gulf of Mexico at 1103 hours; all 36 aboard survived.

  * 28 May 1942 American freighter Sylvan Arrow (of the Standard Oil and Transportation Company), damaged by German submarine U-155 on 20 May 1942, sank in the Caribbean Sea while under tow. On the same day, U-103 sank US tanker New Jersey 90 miles southwest of Grand Cayman island (41 survived) in the Caribbean Sea, U-502 sank US ship Alcoa Pilgrim (31 were killed, 9 survived) in the Caribbean Sea, and U-106 sank British ship Mentor (4 were killed, 82 survived) in the Gulf of Mexico.

  * 29 May 1942 German submarine U-156 sank British ship Norman Prince 60 miles west of Saint Lucia, Lesser Antilles islands at 0103 hours; 16 were killed, 32 survived. At 0217 hours, U-107 sank British ship Western Head 10 miles south of Rio Seco, Cuba; 24 were killed, 6 survived. Finally, U-50 sank British ship Allister 54 miles south of Grand Cayman island at 2337 hours; 15 were killed, 8 survived.

  * 1 Jun 1942 German submarine U-107 sank Panamanian ship Bushranger west of Cuba at 0354 hours; 17 were killed, 26 survived. At 1140 hours, U-106 sank US freighter Hampton Roads 150 kilometers west of Havana, Cuba; 7 were killed, 23 survived. At the end of the day at 2351 hours, U-156 sank Brazilian ship Alegrete between Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent in the Antilles islands; all 64 aboard survived.

  * 2 Jun 1942 German submarine U-158 sank US ship Knoxville west of Cuba at 0257 hours; 2 were killed, 55 survived.

  * 3 Jun 1942 German submarine U-156 sank British schooner Lillian with her deck gun; 3 were killed, 22 survived.

  * 4 Jun 1942 German submarine U-159 sank Norwegian ship Nidarnes 20 miles west of Cuba at 0400 hours; 13 were killed, 11 survived. 150 miles northwest of Trinidad, U-502 sank US tanker MF Elliott at 2156 hours; 13 were killed, 29 survived.

  * 5 Jun 1942 German submarine U-158 sank US ship Velma Lykes 15 miles off Cancún, Mexico at 0332 hours; 15 were killed, 17 survived. 85 miles south of the Dominican Republic, U-159 sank Brazilian sail Paracury with her deck gun at 0527 hours. At 2010 hours, U-159 attacked again in the same area, sinking Honduran sailing vessel Sally with her deck. At 2049 hours, U-68 sank US tanker LJ Drake with 3 torpedoes off the Dominican Republic; all 40 aboard were killed.

  * 6 Jun 1942 German submarine U-68 sank Panamanian tanker C. O. Stillman 60 miles southwest of Puerto Rico at 0307 hours; 3 were killed, 55 survived.

  * 7 Jun 1942 German submarine U-107 sank Honduran ship Castilla 75 miles south of the western tip of Cuba at 0408 hours; 24 were killed, 35 survived. 50 miles north of the western tip of Cuba, U-158 sank Panamanian ship Hermis; 1 was killed, 46 survived. At 2224 hours, U-159 sank US ship Edith 200 miles southeast of Jamaica; 2 were killed, 29 survived.

  * 8 Jun 1942 German submarine U-107 sank US ship Suwied 100 miles east of Cozumel, Mexico at 0119 hours; 6 were killed, 27 survived. At 0500 hours, U-172 sank US ship Sicilien 10 miles south of Cape Beata, Dominican Republic; 44 were killed, 31 survived. At 0700 hours, U-504 sank Huondran ship Tela with two torpedoes 100 miles southeast of Cozumel; 11 were killed, 43 survived. At 1800 hours, U-504 struck again, sinking British ship Rosenborg with her deck gun; 4 were killed, 23 survived.

  * 9 Jun 1942 German submarine U-502 attacked Allied convoy TO-5 35 miles northeast of Cape Blanco, Venezuela, sinking Belgian ship Bruxelles and US tanker Franklin K Lane (4 were killed, 37 survived).

  * 10 Jun 1942 German submarine U-107 sank US ship Merrimack 60 miles south of Cozumel, Mexico at about 0520 hours; 43 were killed, 10 survived. In the Caribbean Sea, U-68 sank British ship Ardenvohr at 0520 hours (1 was killed, 70 survived), British ship Surrey also at about 0520 hours (12 were killed, 55 survived), and British ship port Montreal shortly before 2359 hours (all 88 aboard survived, but 2 would die before being rescued).

  * 11 Jun 1942 German submarine U-159 attacked a small Allied convoy off Panama in the Caribbean Sea, sinking British ship Fort Good Hope; 2 were killed, 45 survived. U-504 sank Norwegian passenger liner Crijnssen (1 was killed, 92 survived) and US ship American (4 were killed, 34 survived) 50 miles southwest of Grand Cayman Island. To the north, in the Gulf of Mexico, U-158 sank Panamanian tanker Sheherazade south of Louisiana, United States; 1 was killed, 58 survived.

  * 12 Jun 1942 German submarine U-158 sank US tanker Cities Service Toledo 40 kilometers south of Abbeville, Louisiana, United States, killing 15 of 45 aboard.

  * 13 Jun 1942 United States Coast Guard Cutter Thetis attacked German submarine U-157 southwest of Key West, Florida, United States on the surface; after U-157 dove, Thetis dropped depth charge attack, and after several minutes reported debris and oil on floating to the surface from the destroyed U-157. Off Panama, in the Caribbean Sea, U-159 sank US passenger linker Sixaola at 0412 hours; 29 were killed, 201 survived. At 1938 hours, U-159 struck again, sinking US ship Solon; all 53 aboard survived.

  * 14 Jun 1942 German submarine U-172 sank US ship Lebore in the Caribbean Sea at 0854 hours; 1 was killed, 94 survived. At 1912 hours, U-504 sank Latvian ship Regent 200 miles southwest of the Cayman Islands; 11 were killed, 14 survived.

  * 15 Jun 1942 German submarine U-502 sank 2 US ships and 1 Panamanian ship 90 miles west of Grenada. On the same day, U-172 sank Norwegian ship Bennestvet 50 miles off Costa Rica. 20 miles off Colombia, U-68 sank Vichy French tanker Frimaire in a case of mis-identification; all 60 aboard were killed.

  * 16 Jun 1942 German submarine U-126 sank US ship Arkansan at 0230 hours (4 were killed, 36 survived) and US ship Kahuku at 0320 hours (17 were killed, 46 survived) 70 miles west of Grenada. At 0400 hours, U-67 sank Nicaraguan ship Managua 50 miles north of Matanzas, Cuba; all 25 aboard survived. Elsewhere in the Caribbean Sea, U-161 stopped Dominican sailing boat Nueva Altagracia at 1410 hours, capturing her crew of 8 and her cargo of fruit, and scuttled the boat with charges.

  * 17 Jun 1942 German submarine U-161 stopped Dominican sailing boat Ciudad Trujillo in the Caribbean Sea, capturing her cargo of fruit, and released the boat along with 8 prisoners captured from sailing boat Nueva Altagracia on the previous day. In the Gulf of Mexico, 280 miles south of Galveston, Texas, United States, U-158 sank Panamanian ship San Blas at 0450 hours (30 were killed, 14 survived) and Norwegian tanker Moira at 1300 hours (1 was killed, 18 survived). At 2300 hours, U-129 sank US ship Millinocket 10 miles north of Cuba; 11 were killed, 24 survived.

  * 18 Jun 1942 German submarine U-159 sank Dutch ship Flora 12 miles off Colombia at 0245 hours; all 37 aboard survived, but one of them would die before reaching land. At 0500 hours, U-172 sank British tanker Motorex with gunfire 80 miles off Panama in the Caribbean Sea; 1 was killed, 20 survived.

  * 19 Jun 1942 German submarine U-107 attacked US sailing vessel Cheerio with gunfire 20 miles west of Puerto Rico at 1102 hours; she was driven off by a US patrol aircraft, but Cheerio would soon sink from the damage; all 9 aboard survived. At 1730 hours, U-159 sank Yugoslavian ship Ante Matkovic with gunfire 20 miles north of Colombia; 6 were killed, 23 survived.

  * 20 Jun 1942 German submarine U-67 damaged Norwegian tanker Nortind with a torpedo 90 miles south of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States at 1125 hours, killing 1.

  * 22 Jun 1942 Norwegian tanker Nortind, damaged by German submarine U-67 in the Gulf of Mexico two days prior, arrived at New Orleans, Louisiana, United States for repairs. German submarine U-159 disabled US tanker E. J. Sadler with gunfire 175 miles south of Puerto Rico at 2035 hours; all 36 aboard escaped via 4 lifeboats.

  * 23 Jun 1942 German submarine U-159 sent a boarding to US tanker E. J. Sadler 175 miles south of Puerto Rico just after 0000 hours to scuttle the tanker which she had disabled at 2035 hours on the previous day. German submarine U-158 sank US Army transport Major General Henry Gibbins 400 miles west of Key West, Florida, United States; the entire crew of 47 and all 21 gunners survived, to be rescued on the following day. 40 miles south of South Pass, Louisiana, United States, U-67 sank US tanker Rawleigh Warner, killing all 33 aboard. In the Caribbean Sea, U-68 sank Panamanian tanker Arriaga 100 miles west of Aruba; 1 was killed, 24 survived. 200 miles east of Nicaragua, U-172 sank Colombian sailing boat Resolute with gunfire and hand grenades; 6 were killed, 4 survived.

  * 27 Jun 1942 German submarine U-129 sank Mexican tanker Tuxpam with torpedoes (1 of 2 hit) and her deck gun 50 miles north of Veracruz, Mexico; 8 were killed, 31 survived. 20 miles west of Barbados, U-126 sank Norwegian tanker Leiv Eiriksson at 1055 hours; 4 were killed, 40 survived (2 of the survivors would die of their wounds at a hospital at Barbados). At 1525 hours, U-129 struck again, sinking Mexican tanker Las Choapas with a torpedo also about 50 miles north of Veracruz, Mexico; 4 were killed, 28 survived.

  * 28 Jun 1942 German submarine U-154 sank US ship Tillie Lykes 100 miles south of the Dominican Republic at 0350 hours; all 33 aboard were killed.

  * 29 Jun 1942 German submarine U-67 sank British tanker Empire Mica southwest of Cape St. George, Florida, United States at 0750 hours; 33 were killed, 14 survived.

  * 1 Jul 1942 The small 1,855-ton Norwegian merchant steamer Cadmus was en route from Honduras to Galveston, Texas, United States with a cargo of bananas when at 1744 hours she was hit by a single torpedo fired from German submarine U-129, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Hans-Ludwig Witt. The torpedo struck the Cadmus between the No. 4 hatch and the poop deck, killing two of the crew and immediately the vessel started to sink by the stern. The remaining crew abandoned ship and were questioned by the Germans who had surfaced and were taking bunches of bananas from the sea before moving off. The crew split into two lifeboats, 1st Mate Tellefsen was in severe pain and had difficulties breathing, having injured his back, as well as broken his arm at the wrist. The chief engineer had also injured his back. The 2nd mate was ordered to the port boat to replace the 1st mate in command (10 in each boat).

  * 1 Jul 1942 US merchant ship Edward Luckenbach mistakenly entered a US minefield and struck two mines; she sank 20 miles north of the Florida Keys, Florida, United States; lost with the ship was a very large supply of tungsten, prompting the Americans to later launch an operation to salvage it.

  * 2 Jul 1942 German submarine U-129 (Kapitänleutnant Hans-Ludwig Witt) fired two G7a torpedoes at 1,841-ton Norwegian merchant ship Gundersen in the Gulf of Mexico at 0616 hours, scoring one hit on the port side at 0617 hours, killing one. The 25 surviving crew boarded three lifeboats, but one of them was quickly wrecked by the propeller of the slowly sinking ship. At about 0630 hours the submarine surfaced, firing her deck guns at the ship. She finally sank at 0759 hours. The survivors were picked up by Norwegian merchant ship Dea within hours.

  * 2 Jul 1942 German submarine U-129 sank Norwegian ship Gundersen in the Gulf of Mexico at 0617 hours; 1 was killed, 25 survived.

  * 3 Jul 1942 German submarine U-161 sank Panamanian ship San Pablo in the harbor of Puerto Limón, Costa Rica at 0400 hours, killing most aboard and killing 23 stevedores. 50 miles north of Trinidad, U-126 damaged US tanker Gulfbelle, killing 2.

  * 3 Jul 1942 Norwegian merchant ship Dea disembarked the 25 survivors of Norwegian merchant ship Gundersen, sunken by German submarine U-129 on the previous day, at Progreso, Yucatán, Mexico.

  * 4 Jul 1942 German submarine U-129 sank Soviet tanker Tuapse in the Caribbean Sea; 8 were killed, 36 survived. On the same day, U-575 sank US ship Norlandia also in the Caribbean Sea; 9 were killed, 21 survived.

  * 6 Jul 1942 20 survivors from the Norwegian merchant steamer Cadmus, torpedoed by German submarine U-129 five days prior, made landfall near Túxpam, Mexico in two lifeboats.

  * 6 Jul 1942 German submarine U-154 sank Panamanian fishing boat Lalita with shellfire 20 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico at 1837 hours. U-67 sank Norwegian ship Bayard 45 miles south of Pascagoula, Mississippi, United States at 1857 hours; 11 were killed, 21 survived.

  * 8 Jul 1942 German submarine U-571 damaged US tanker J. A. Moffett, Jr. 4 miles off of the Florida Keys, Florida, United States at 0616 hours, killing 1 of 42 aboard; the tanker ran aground to prevent sinking, but she would later be declared a total loss.

  * 9 Jul 1942 U-575 sank British ship Empire Explorer 100 kilometers east of Grenada at 0247 hours; 3 were killed, 75 survived. U-571 sank Honduran ship Nicholas Cuneo with her deck gun 50 miles north of Havana, Cuba at 1601 hours; 1 was killed, 19 survived. Again 100 kilometers east of Grenada, at 2305 hours, U-203 sank British ship Cape Verde; 2 were killed, 40 survived.

  * 10 Jul 1942 German submarine U-67 heavily destroyed US tanker Benjamin Brewster 60 miles south of Louisiana, United States at 0619 hours; 25 were killed, 15 survived; the wreck would burn for 9 days, melting much of the ship.

  * 11 Jul 1942 German submarine U-166 sank Dominican sailing vessel Carmen with the deck gun 8 miles off the northern coast of the Dominican Republic at 1900 hours; 1 was killed, 7 survived.

  * 12 Jul 1942 German submarine U-129 sank US ship Tachirá 50 miles southwest of Grand Cayman island; 5 were killed, 33 survived.

  * 13 Jul 1942 Destroyer USS Landsdowne sank German submarine U-153 in the Caribbean Sea 50 kilometers northwest of the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal; all 52 aboard were killed. 20 miles north of Cárdenas, Cuba, German submarine U-84 sank US ship Andrew Jackson; 3 were killed, 46 survived. 2 miles east of Cuba, U-166 sank US ship Oneida; 6 were killed, 23 survived. 80 miles south of Mississippi, United States, U-67 sank US tanker R. W. Gallagher; 10 were killed, 42 survived.

  * 15 Jul 1942 German submarine U-571 disabled tanker Pennsylvania Sun 200 kilometers west of Key West, Florida, United States at 0749 hours; 2 were killed, 59 survived on 3 lifeboats. The tanker would later be repaired and would return to service.

  * 16 Jul 1942 German submarine U-160 fatally damaged tanker Beaconlight with 2 torpedoes 10 miles northwest of Galera Point, Trinidad at 0934 hours; 1 was killed, 40 survived in 3 lifeboats; British tug HMS Roode Zee sank the wreck to prevent it from becoming a hazard. German submarine U-166 stopped small trawler Gertrude 30 miles northeast of Havana, Cuba; Gertrude was sunk by gunfire after the crew of 3 abandoned ship as ordered.

  * 19 Jul 1942 German submarine U-84 sank Honduran ship Baja California off the Florida Keys archipelago; 3 were killed, 34 survived. In the same area at 1912 hours, U-129 sank Norwegian ship Port Antonio; 13 were killed, 11 survived.

  * 21 Jul 1942 German submarine U-84 damaged US Liberty Ship William Cullen Bryant of Allied convoy TAW-4J 40 miles southwest of Key West archipelago, Florida, United States at 0908 hours; all 54 aboard survived.

  * 22 Jul 1942 German submarine U-505 sank Colombian sail boat Urious with her deck gun 100 miles east of Nicaragua at 1335 hours; 13 were killed.

  * 23 Jul 1942 German submarine U-129 sank US ship Onondaga 5 miles north of Cayo Guillermo, Cuba at 2222 hours; 20 were killed, 14 survived.

  * 26 Jul 1942 German submarine U-66 sank Brazilian ship Tamandaré 12 miles east of Tobago at 0815 hours; 4 were killed, 50 survived. At 0945 hours, U-171 sank Mexican ship Oaxaca off Corpus Christi, Texas, United States; 6 were killed, 39 survived.

  * 30 Jul 1942 German submarine U-166 sank American freighter Robert E. Lee 50 kilometers southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States at 2230 hours; 25 were killed, 379 survived. Escorting patrol chaser USS PC-556 counterattacked with depth charges and sank the German submarine, although the sinking was not confirmed until after the war; all 52 aboard U-166 were lost.

  * 12 Aug 1942 German submarine U-508 sank Cuban freighters Santiago de Cuba (10 were killed, 19 survived) and Manzanillo (23 were killed) 10 miles south of Key West, Florida, United States at 1355 hours.

  * 13 Aug 1942 German submarine U-658 sank Dutch ship Medea of Allied convoy WAT-13 between Cuba and Haiti at 0507 hours; 5 were killed, 23 survived. German submarine U-171 sank US tanker R. M. Parker, Jr. with two torpedoes and her deck gun 25 miles off Louisiana, United States at 0750 hours; all 44 aboard survived. At 0948 hours, U-600 attacked Allied convoy TAW-12 between Cuba and Haiti, sinking Latvian ship Everlza (23 were killed, 14 survived) and US passenger-cargo ship Delmundo (8 were killed, 50 survived).

  * 17 Aug 1942 German submarine U-658 attacked Allied convoy PG-6 between Cuba and Haiti at 0619 hours, sinking Egyptian ship Samir, sinking British ship Fort la Reine (3 were killed, 41 survived), and damaging British merchant ship Laguna (all aboard survived).

  * 18 Aug 1942 German submarine U-553 attacked Allied convoy TAW-13 close to the coast of southeastern Cuba, sinking British merchant ship Emipre Bede at 0559 hours (2 were killed, 43 survived), US merchant ship John Hancock at 0913 hours (all 49 aboard survived), and Swedish merchant ship Blankaholm at 0913 hours (5 were killed, 23 survived).

  * 19 Aug 1942 German submarine U-162 attacked an Allied convoy 40 miles west of Grenada, sinking US ship West Celina at 0437 hours (1 was killed, 43 survived); at 1007 hours, U-564 joined in on the attack, sinking British ship Empire Cloud (3 were killed, 51 survived) and British tanker British Consul (2 were killed, 40 survived). German submarine U-217 sank British sailing vessel Sea Gull D. 75 miles southeast of Bonaire island in the southern Caribbean Sea at 2112 hours; 3 were killed, 71 survived.

  * 22 Aug 1942 A Panama Canal Zone-based B-18 Bolo bomber of US 45th Bombardment Squadron sank German submarine U-654 with depth charges 185 miles north of the Panama Canal in the afternoon, killing all 44 aboard.

  * 25 Aug 1942 German submarines U-164 and U-558 attacked Allied convoy WAT-15 between Jamaica and Haiti, sinking Dutch ship Stad Amsterdam (3 were killed, 35 survived) and British ship Amakura (13 were killed, 31 survived).

  * 27 Aug 1942 German submarine U-511 attacked Allied convoy TAW-15 with two torpedoes 15 miles east of Haiti at 0629 hours, sinking British tanker San Fabian (26 were killed, 33 survived), sinking Dutch tanker Rotterdam (10 were killed, 37 survived), and damaging US tanker Esso Aruba; Esso Aruba was beached at Guantanamo Bay to prevent sinking but she would later be repaired.

  * 28 Aug 1942 German submarine U-94 attacked Allied convoy TAW-15 off Haiti. American PBY Catalina aircraft, Canadian corvette HMCS Halifax, Canadian corvette HMCS Snowberry, and Canadian corvette HMCS Oakville counterattacked, forcing the submarine to the surface. HMCS Oakville then rammed U-94 twice, leaving it dead in the water. A Canadian boarding party captured the submarine, killing two in the process. It was soon realized that the Germans had already scuttled the ship, and the boarding party successful returned to HMCS Oakville. U-94 sank with 19 of her crew; 26 survived.

  * 30 Aug 1942 German submarine U-564 sank Norwegian tanker Vardaas 10 miles north of Tobago island at 0612 hours; all 41 aboard survived. 50 miles to the northeast, U-162 sank US ship Star of Oregon at 0828 hours; 1 was killed, 52 survived.

  * 3 Sep 1942 British destroyers HMS Vimy, HMS Pathfinder, and HMS Quentin sank German submarine U-162 northeast of Trinidad with depth charges, killing 2 in the process. 49 survivors were captured and sent to the United States as prisoners of war.

  * 4 Sep 1942 German submarine U-171 sank empty Mexican tanker Amatlan 15 miles off of the coast of Northern Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico at 0430 hours; 10 were killed, 24 survived; 10 torpedoes were expended on this attack.

  * 6 Sep 1942 German submarine U-164 sank Canadian ship John A. Holloway 150 miles northwest of Aruba at 2227 hours; 1 was killed, 23 survived.

  * 11 Sep 1942 German submarine U-514 sank Canadian ship Cornwallis off Bridgetown, Barbados at 2237 hours in shallow waters. She would later be raised, put back into service, and lost again to another German submarine.

  * 13 Sep 1942 German submarine U-515 sank British ship Ocean Vanguard at 0227 hours (11 were killed, 40 survived) and Panamanian ship Nimba at 0634 hours (20 were killed, 12 survived) 45 miles east of Trinidad. At 0622 hours, U-558 fired 3 torpedoes at Allied convoy TAG-5, sinking Dutch ship Suriname (13 were killed, 69 survived) and British ship Empire Lugard (all 47 aboard survived) 100 miles west of Grenada.

  * 14 Sep 1942 German submarine U-515 sank British ship Harborough 40 miles east of Trinidad at 1410 hours; 5 were killed, 45 survived.

  * 15 Sep 1942 German submarine U-514 sank British ship Kioto near the coast of Tobago island at 1517 hours; 20 were killed, 54 survived.

  * 27 Sep 1942 German auxiliary cruiser Stier sank American liberty ship Stephen Hopkins in the Caribbean Sea at about 1000 hours, but sustained damage in the engagement. Later on the same day, dead in the water, Stier's crew scuttled the ship just before noon.

  * 11 Mar 1943 At 0752 hours the 2,493-ton Honduran steam merchant Olancho was hit by a torpedo from German submarine U-183 about 30 miles west of Cape San Antonio, Cuba. The torpedo struck on the starboard side ripping open the hull and demolishing the wheelhouse and starboard engine wing. The engine room flooded immediately and the port engine could not be stopped thus the ship kept going at full speed in circles until the screw was clear of the water due to the settling by the bow. After another torpedo hit, the ship sank. The 41 crew members and five armed guards abandoned ship after the second torpedo hit in one lifeboat, on one raft and by jumping overboard. Two men went under with the suction of the sinking ship after they jumped from the stern and one was hit by the turning screw and later died after being picked up by the raft. Seven more survivors clung to a hatch cover. The occupants of the lifeboat and the nine men on the raft were picked up at 1255 hours by the Honduran steam merchant Choluteca.

  * 15 May 1943 An American reconnaissance aircraft detected German submarine U-176 off Havana, Cuba. Nearby Cuban submarine chaser CS-13, escorting two freighters, was notified and closed in, attacking with depth charges and sinking U-176, killing the entire crew.

  * 5 Jul 1943 German submarine U-759 sank American ship Maltran of Allied convoy GTMO-134 70 miles west of Port Salut, Haiti. The entire crew survived.

  * 7 Jul 1943 German submarine U-759 sank Dutch cargo ship Poelau Roebiah of Allied convoy TAG-70 east of Jamaica; 2 were killed and 68 survived.

  * 8 Jul 1943 German submarine U-759 was reportedly to be lost, though later records show she might had not been destroyed until 23 Jul 1943.

  * 15 Jul 1943 US Navy Patrol Squadron 32 PBM-3C Mariner aircraft sank German submarine U-759 in the Caribbean Sea south of Haiti with depth charges (all 47 killed).

  * 18 Jul 1943 US Navy airship K-74 detected an enemy submarine in the Straits of Florida between the United States and Cuba at 2340 hours by radar and commenced the attack on German submarine U-134 10 minutes later. The anti-aircraft guns of U-134 hit the airship, and she crashed at 2355 hours. K-74 was the only American blimp to be shot down during the war.

  * 23 Jul 1943 US Navy PBM Mariner aircraft attacked a German submarine in the Caribbean Sea, possibly U-759.

  * 23 Nov 1943 German submarine U-516 hit the unescorted American steam tanker Elizabeth Kellogg with a torpedo 150 miles north of Cristóbal, Panama in the Caribbean Sea at 0935 hours. 10 were killed; the 38 survivors were picked up by tanker USAT Y-10 and submarine chaser USS SC-1017.

  * 7 Mar 1944 At 0140 hours, the unescorted 3,401-ton tanker Valera, owned by "Lago Petroleum Co, Panama", en route from San Nicolas, Aruba to Cristobal, Panama, with a cargo of 35,000 barrels of heavy boiler navy fuel oil, was hit by a torpedo from German submarine U-518 (Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Werner Offermanand) and sank after breaking in two, about 120 miles west-northwest of Barranquilla, Columbia. Master William Marshall Russell was killed; the remaining 34 men survivors were found aboard rafts by a US Coast Guard vessel, and were taken to Panama.

Chapter 13

## Making a myt

Let's make a brief foray into some of the iconic stories that helped generate the myth:

#### SEABIRD

Myth: This merchant brig was found in the fall of 1760 stranded on the shores of Rhode Island (USA). Although their staterooms were intact, even with the breakfast coffee still smoldering, their crew had mysteriously vanished. Only one dog and one cat were found. Fact: The Seabird is one of those many "sea legends", probably inspired by a short story published in the American weekly The Sunday Moorning Star, in 1885.

#### ROSALIE

Myth: Found adrift in 1840, and in perfect condition with no trace of its crew. Inexplicably, only one living canary was found inside its cage. Fact: There is no evidence that this boat existed.

#### BELLA

Myth: British schooner disappeared in April 1854, without apparent cause, in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle. Reality: As a result of an excess load, the ship was shipwrecked during a storm not far from the coast after setting sail from Cabo de San Roque (Brazil).

#### ROYAL NAVY HMS ATALANTA

Myth: Ship School - with a crew of nearly three hundred men who comprised 250 cadets - disappeared in the waters of the triangle after sailing at the end of January 1880 from the Bermuda Islands towards England. Reality: The Chronicle of the London newspapers of the time, which followed the case with notable interest, concluded that the frigate sank as a result of a storm, probably several miles from the famous triangle.

#### FREYA

Myth: This German ship, which departed from Manzanillo (Cuba) to Chile, was found in October 1902, sailing adrift and without its crew in the seas of the Bermuda Triangle. Reality: The boat departed from Manzanillo, a port located in Mexico (homonym of another one located on the island of Cuba). An article published in Nature, in 1907, attributed to an earthquake in that area that caused the Freya disaster, which was, in any case, found in the Pacific and not in the waters of the triangle.

#### CYCLOPS

Myth: This ship of the American Navy disappeared in March of 1918 without leaving a trace. Reality: A storm and the cracking reported in his machinery - which forced him to do a previous scale - could be the detonators of his disappearance.

#### CARROLL A. DEERING

Myth: It was found stranded on the coasts of North Carolina (United States), in 1921, without a trace of its crew. Reality: Probably his crew was evicted as a result of a piracy assault.

#### RAIFUKU MARU

Myth: Japanese cargo ship with a crew of 38 people, who carried out a route from the United States to Germany, sunk in April 1925, in Bermuda. Charles Berlitz and other authors claim that the ship radiated a last message communicating that it was "abducted" by a dagger-shaped UFO. Reality: The ship sank, in the presence of witnesses who spotted it from the deck of the British ship Homeric, as a result of a storm, without these could approach to help their crew.

#### COTOPAXI

Myth: This American merchant ship, missing in December 1925, is one of the most emblematic "ghost ships" in literature on the Bermuda Triangle; To the extent that Steven Spielberg himself rescues him resting on the sands of the desert in one of the scenes summit of meetings in the third phase (1977). Reality: This ship sank on its route to Cuba when a gale was interposed.

#### SUDUFFCO

Myth: disappeared without explanation in March 1926 in Bermuda. Reality: Witnesses spotted how the ship was shipwrecked as a result of a turbulent storm accompanied by cyclones.

#### COPENHAGEN

Myth: The Danish School ship - which was the world's largest vessel at the time with five masts - disappeared with a crew of 45 cadets and 26 men in December 1928, in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle. His disappearance generated such an impact that, for years, witnesses claimed to have contemplated the silhouette of a five-masted phantom ship sailing in the waters. Reality: The frigate sank, probably in the waters of the South Atlantic - far from the triangle - when it carried out a route from Argentina to Australia, after colliding with an iceberg. In 2012 in the vicinity of the British archipelago Tristan de Acuña were found the remains of a ship that are being identified by the Danish Maritime Museum, in case they belonged to the mythical Copenhagen.

#### STAVENGER

Myth: Norwegian freighter with a crew of 43 people who in 1931 disappeared in the Bahamas. Fact: In the archives of the Norwegian Maritime Museum there is no ship with that name.

#### JOHN & MARY

Myth: This American two-masted ship was found adrift and without crew, following its inexplicable disappearance in April 1932, in the Bermuda Triangle. Reality: The ship suffered a fire in the engines that forced its crew to jump into the water.

#### LA DAHAMA

Myth: Sighted in August 1935, by the boat the Aztec, sailing adrift in Bermuda without its crew. Reality: Bermuda Triangle enthusiasts omit a "detail": days before this sighting, the Dahama had been found shipwrecked towards the Azores. His five crewmen could be rescued by Rex, an Italian ship.

#### ANGLO AUSTRALIAN

Myth: On its route from Singapore to Australia, this correspondence service freighter disappeared, with 39 men aboard, in March 1938. Reality: Storms and hurricanes sunk Anglo Australian.

#### EL SANDRA

Myth: Twenty-eight men embarked on this steamer en route from the United States to Venezuela to disappear mysteriously in April 1950, in a sea in absolute calm. Reality: Many of the data of wingspan and crew (were eleven its crew) do not correspond with the reality. Nor the climatology: the "disappearance" of El Sandra coincided with a sea invaded by hurricane winds.

#### CONNEMARA IV

Myth: The Connemara IV Yacht appeared in September 1955 several miles southwest of Bermuda. Nothing is known about its occupants... Reality: Three tornadoes that reached the 300 km per hour were able to "evict" the ship, making it shipwrecked.

#### MARINE SULPHUR QUEEN

Myth: This oil tanker that departed from Texas to Virginia with a load of 15,000 tonnes of molten sulphur disappeared, despite the good weather, in February 1963. Reality: The technician elaborated by the Coast Guard attributed the sinking of the ship to a possible explosion of its cargo.

Other vessels, whose disappearance has been attributed to the anomalous phenomenology unleashed in the Bermuda Triangle, but who have found a natural explanation are: Witchcraft (1967) - A Storm -, Anita and Norse (1972) - a survivor testified A hurricane -, Sylvia L. Ossa (1976) - A hurricane outside the triangle -, Hawarden Bridge (1978) - his crew was killed and the author detained -.

Poet (1980) - A Hurricane -...

One of the last vessels missing in the triangle is the American ship El Faro - with a crew of Thirty-three people - who sank in October 2015 as a result of Hurricane Joaquin.

#### FLIGHT 19

On December 5, 1945 Flight 19 consisting of a group of five destroyers Bombers Grumman TBM Avenger of the United States Navy would perform a training flight. After a while developing the exercise, the squadron stopped communicating with the naval base, when they were flying precisely over the Bermuda Triangle. The official notifications referred-in 1991-, that the remainders of five Avengers had been discovered off the coasts of Florida, but that the serial numbers of the engines revealed that they were not of the flight 19?. The records further revealed that these uncovered aircraft had been declared obsolete-unfit for maintenance or repair-and had been simply eliminated at sea, have they been eliminated at sea??! Show me... Is it necessary to eliminate the Navy planes in the sea?, or fell to the sea for another reason? Bearing in mind that the submarines had anti-aircraft weapons and that in the middle of the conflict Germany had developed specially prepared submarines for air war it may be more feasible to think that they were simply shot down.

Official Records also showed training accidents between 1942 and 1945 that accounted for the loss of 95 elements of NAS [19] aviation personnel in Fort Lauderdale. ¿!! Training accidents?! 95!!, According to this data it would seem more dangerous to train than to go to combat... Comments strike...

[19] "95 young americans lost their lives at the NAS Fort Lauderdale base during 1942-1945". Air Station Fort Lauderdale Historical Association. Consultado el 13 de diciembre de 2010.

As we can see in this quick review of the most well-known cases, there seems to be a notorious attempt to keep the press and observers out of the U-Boot conflict zone, as well as any reference to war-like clashes.

It may be interesting that in recent times (2015) in which the cover-up has begun to be glimpsed, the publication of a (fake) news about one of the freighters allegedly missing in the triangle has appeared. The published article was titled "After 90 years, a stray boat reappears in the Bermuda Triangle". The news comes from the satirical site World News Daily report, which on May 18, 2015 published this note (false, like all others) in the mystery section. The amazing thing is that it was republished by many "serious" media around the planet. Of course replicated by the history on your website

And... As is to be expected also have appeared the typical studies of the "universities" that try to close the myth with supposed analyses of the waves of the area.

A note from the Sputnik newspaper said:

"A team of scientists from the University of Southampton claims to have solved the mystery of the enigmatic" Devil's Triangle ", which has already claimed the lives of more than a thousand people in the last century. According to researchers in the new documentary Channel 5 "The Bermuda Triangle Enigma" (The Enigma of the Bermuda Triangle, in Spanish), the main reason for this phenomenon are the giant waves, also known as "monster Waves", which They form in the area and can reach up to 30 meters high. During the experiment, British scientists used simulators to recreate the formation of these waves - which only last a few minutes and are capable of eliminating large ships and aircraft - and the sinking of the ship USS Cyclops, with 300 people at Board, which had vanished into the area in 1918. As explained in the middle the study manager, oceanographer Simon Boxall, in this area of the Atlantic can take place up to three massive storms arriving from different directions, which leads to the formation of giant waves. "There are storms coming from the north and from the south and then they unite," he stressed. Boxall added that these dangerous waves are capable of sinking a ship in just two or three minutes without leaving a trace."

We read waves that Swallow ships and aircraft (airplanes!) of great size...

It says also the excelsior.com of Mexico:

"If you can imagine a giant wave with spikes at each end, there is nothing under the boat, so it breaks in two. If it happens, it can sink in two or three minutes , "explained Dr. Simon Boxall. The famous Australian scientist Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki seems to agree that the giant waves explain the so-called mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. In 2017, he wrote a book titled The Author in which he applied science to the popular mysteries. He claimed that there was a simple explanation for the missing aircraft and boats in the Bermuda Triangle and wrote about the various captains and pilots: "There was [only] one guy with experience, the rest had no experience. There was bad weather, there were 15-foot waves. " In addition, he noted that the Bermuda Triangle, which is one of the most trafficked parts of any ocean, does not actually see a statistically unlikely disappearances rate. "According to Lloyds of London and the United States Coast Guard, the number of planes that disappear in the Bermuda Triangle is the same as in any part of the world in percentages," said Dr. Karl to News.com.

It seems the time has come to end the myth. Perhaps the research of the universities and the experts in waves are the chosen path. Whatever it is rather than telling the truth to the public.

Chapter 14

## Cuba and the German submarines

( mundo.sputniknews.com Note Extract)

"Cuba's strategic position, considered the key to the Gulf of Mexico, made the Cuban Navy immediately join the fight against the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis. But how are these powers so far away and in the battlefields of Europe and Asia triggered conflicts in the Caribbean?

Cuba had an important strategic alliance with the United States and in December 1941 when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, the island quickly intervened in the war, told Sputnik Alina Bárbara López, Cuban historian and doctor of Philosophical Sciences.

On December 8, Cuba declared war on Japan, and three days later, Germany and Italy. By the end of ' 41, the island was at war with the powers of the axis.

"However, we cannot claim that there was direct involvement in the battlefields, although a call was made to military service and the role of Cubans was vital in the region", said López.

Since the United States became involved in the war began a very interesting harassment of this side of the Atlantic of German submarines that begin to sink a large number of merchant ships.

About the German-sunk ships said: "All ships and tankers laden with merchandise, sugar, and strategic materials. Even, the Germans enter some important oil naval areas such as Curaçao and Maracaibo and attempt a more direct destruction within the Territory", said the specialist.

According to the history of Cuba, in waters close to the Greater Antilles, the Honduran merchant ship "Nicolás Cúneo" was sunk, the Cuban fishing vessel "Lita" and the Cuban merchant ships "Manzanillo " and "Santiago de Cuba".

The last two collapses took place on August 12, 1942 in front of the Florida keys, and killed 31 Cuban Marines. Only eight of the corpses were rescued and veiled at the National Capitol with a heartfelt manifestation of the Cuban labor movement.

Before entering the war, the Cuban Navy had few boats, all obsolete and ancient. The United States government signed agreements with a number of Latin American and Caribbean countries to strengthen their military potential, in exchange for raw materials for the American military machinery.

It was then that the Cuban naval arsenal was restated to the interest of the United States and the Marines went on to play a vital role in the livelihood of the Allies: guarding ships on the Guantanamo-New York route and hunting for German submarines.

"Since then began a strategic activity of the Navy of Cuba that participated in the securing of ships, given its geographical position", said the historian.

The submarins-hunting fleet began operating in April 1943. He was assigned the mission of escorting merchant ships moving between Cuban ports. For three years in a row, Cuba sold the entire sugar crop to the United States and the boats were constantly leaving from the port of Havana to Florida.

"Sugar was very important to make the war rations, the condensed milk that was vital energy sustenance for soldiers who were in combat at the front," commented the specialist.

In addition, Cuba had the world's most important nickel reserve, a strategic mineral for the production of machinery and military armament. This also provoked a strong harassment by German submarines throughout the area.

On May 15, 1943, a squadron of Cuban submarins-hunting sailing from Isabela de Sagua to Havana escorting two sugar-laden merchants received information from a submarine sighting north of Matanzas, right in the middle of the scheduled route.

An American plane gave the warning and dropped a smoke bomb to fix the precise location and that's how the Cuban squadron increased its speed and began the attack. They were thrown deep bombs and in the fourth explosion was reported a bubbling sound and a few minutes later the water was spotted oil, according to years later the commander of the squadron Mario Ramirez.

For unknown reasons the collapse of the German U-176 remained secret for Cuban public opinion until after the end of the war. In total, some 79 Cuban Marines lost their lives in defending and escorting Allied merchants.

According to notes by Gustavo Placer, Navy frigate captain and renowned Cuban historian, navy ships sailed 134,206 miles performing escort missions to convoys and patrols. The cruiser Cuba, the largest of the ships of the island, sailed during the war 27,974 Miles and escorted 89 Allied merchants who displaced, as a whole, 712,000 tonnes of goods."

Chapter 15

## The Cuba Navy and the Anti-submarine war in the Caribbean

(Note excerpt) Circulonaval.com Material

"With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into the conflict, the submarine war knew a new phase; On December 8, 1941, in Kal Döenitz's report to his staff, he pointed out: "... Japan has initiated hostilities against England and the United States, an event of great importance that in a short period of time will affect the restrictions of U-boats in the Atlantic... "[20].

The following day, 9 December, the Admiral himself pointed out in another report: "... Lifting the restrictions on U.S. ships and the so-called pan-American security zone has been lifted by the Führer. Therefore, the entire zone of the coasts of America will become an open space for the operations of the U-boat: "All attempts must be made to use as quickly as possible those advantages, which will soon be able to disappear, to achieve a" success Spectacular "on the American coast..."[21].

Indeed, the restrictions had been lifted in terms of bringing the submarine war to the East coast of the United States, beginning the operation called Paukenschlag (Drumbeat). The first victim of this escalation was the British freighter Cyclops sunk by the U-123 under the command of Captain Hardenguen. In the following days, other submarines were sent to the maritime sector and by 12 January 38 ships were sunk between tankers and merchants of different types; Shortly thereafter, on February 14, 1942 began the operation "Nueland" (New Earth) with the attack of the U-502 against 5 tankers who sailed in the waters of the Gulf of Venezuela to Aruba, thus began systematic operations in Caribbean waters and Gulf of Mexico. The US naval and air forces were in the dilemma of not having sufficient resources at these first moments to deal with the protection of their shores and even less that of neighbouring countries.

"On 31 December 1941, a Coast guard had reported a periscope sighting on the Portland Canal, and on 7 January an army aircraft sighteded the presence of a submarine off the coast of new Jersey. On the same day that the American Navy had reported the presence of a U-boat fleet in waters south of Newfoundland, the SS Cyclops ship was sunk in front of Nova Scotia and three days later was the same fate, the oil tanker Norness at Nontauk Point, southeast of Long Island. The general situation became increasingly difficult and required immediate decision-making; In the 76 days following the collapse of the Norness, the annihilation of another 53 vessels was reported, representing the loss of 300,000 tonnes of gross tonnage"[22].

The command of the North Atlantic Naval Coastal Frontier, which later became the Eastern Sea Frontier Command, took the responsibility of facing the task of fighting antisubmarine in a 1,200-mile coastal strip between Maine and Key West. Meanwhile the German submarine operations continued to rise in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico area, so the "American Naval Command aware of the danger that this new escalation represented, decided to make available to the Gulf Sea Frontier Command (Gulf Border command) several B-18; Days later, the commander-in-chief of the first Air Force took over the creation of the Gulf Task Force, which would take over all aircraft acting under the orders of the Gulf Sea Frontier. The situation created in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea was of such gravity that it was requested to the Third Air Force, the use of some of its ships in the anti-submarine patrol"[23].

Several treaties and agreements were signed between the United States and some Latin American nations, in order to improve the composition and technique of their navies and aviation, as well as to establish a joint strategy of confrontation in this escalation. Cuba was a signatory of several of these military agreements, among them the one subscribed in the middle of 1942, becoming a nation more committed to the situation of the state of war prevailing in that geographical area. The US Caribbean Sea Frontier, created then, was in charge of linking the points established between Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Guantánamo in Cuba. It opened thus one of the most important episodes of the conflict that of the confrontation with the German submarine fleet in the waters close to Cuba. Very close to the Cuban coasts operated unless this author knows with total accuracy, 84 U-boats. In order to have an idea of the distance in which these boats approached in some cases, it is enough to mention one of the numerous reports collected by these ships.

On August 7, 1942, the U-508 in the report of its operational situation, he said: "Nothing is observed outside the port of Havana since the 5th of August when 4 ships and 3 planes were seen"-and having penetrated the Havana Bay-"were observed Through the 20-craft periscope. "The spying networks established by the Abwehr in Cuban territory had structured plans for in the necessary cases to provide assistance to underwater vessels, mainly in the supply of food, water, medicines and in a Exceptional fuel. Edwards Ennis, Director of the Alien Enemy Control Unit, said: "... Since the beginning of 42, the German submarines had many successes on the Atlantic coast... We have information that they are being fueled by Germans in Cuba..." . The young Cuban Navy had to assume the difficult task of guarding one of the areas most beleaguered by the German submarines and for this task had a reduced number of forces composed of 32 warships, including 23 transport vessels and 7 auxiliary ships; however, as a result of the signing of the Naval and Air agreement signed between Cuba and the United States on September 7, 1942, 16 new units, consisting of 12 submarine fighters and 4 patrol vessels, were transferred to Cuba, which strengthened considerably the fighting capacity of the Cuban Navy. One of these submarines-hunting, the CS-13 commanded by Ensign Mario Ramírez Delgado, put out of combat the powerful U-176 in waters of the Canal de San Nicolás, on May 15, 1943. These forces played a deterrent, so German submarines began operating in increasingly remote areas of the coasts and their incursions were no longer carried out with the same level of impunity. "

[20] NARA, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington. "Guides to the Microfilmed Records of the German Navy, 1850-1945. Records Relating to U-boat Warfare, 1939-1945": BUp Diario de Guerra. 8 de diciembre de 1941. VI Generales; número PG-30301ª, número de Rodillo 4063.

[21]NARA, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington. "Guides to the Microfilmed Records of the German Navy, 1850-1945. Records Relating to U-boat Warfare, 1939-1945": BUp Diario de Guerra. 10 de diciembre de 1941. IV Generales; número PG-30301ª, número de Rodillo 4063.

[22] Maximino Gómez Álvarez; "El Incidente 3208: hundimiento del U-176 en el Canal de San Nicolás", 2010. Pág. 32. Inédito.

[23] Idem.

Chapter 16

## Non-observance of war treaties

Never did any of the sides, neither the Allies nor the axis, comply with the laws of the sea set by international law. For example since that September 1939 the Germans jumped the rules to torpedo solitary freighters because previously the law forced them to board the ship, investigate, capture the crew and then proceed to sinking (except that was escorted by warships); Something that certainly exposed the submarine to the danger of surface destroyers or enemy aircraft. With regard to the British their attitude did not help to lower the aggression of the Germans because they usually violated the legality arming the merchants or instalándoles radars to facilitate the interception of submarines. The English even planted 5,000 submarine mines in neutral waters of the Pas de Calais and to requisition the transatlantics of Freetown in Sierra Leone, Kingston in Jamaica and Halifax in Canada to use them as military transports. In addition the same naval blockade decreed by the Royal Navy to prevent trade to the German ports of the North Sea, was already considered a crime of war according to the clauses of the international law, which showed that the Battle of the Atlantic was going to become From their very beginnings in a fight without a quarter.

### The "U-Boot" beginnings

To understand the "Battle of the Atlantic" it is necessary to go back in time until 1919, when Germany, defeated in the First World War, had to kneel before the victorious powers and sign the "Treaty of Versailles", a pact that marked it as the Chief culprit in initiating the war. But moral responsibility was not the only one that weighed on the German country, but was forced to pay the allies the so-called "war reparations", a considerable amount of money in compensation for the damage suffered.

In turn, among the more than 400 articles of the Treaty, there were several dedicated to the German Navy, one of the largest during the First World War and whose reduction could avoid blows to the allies in case of initiating a contest. "By the Treaty of Versailles, he was condemned to have nothing else but a fleet as small as it was useless. Only a maximum of 15,000 men were authorized. The floating material could only be made up of six old and small battleships, other so many cruisers, twelve destroyers and some auxiliary ships. Not a single submarine!" explains the Spanish historian Luis de Sierra in his work "The Naval warfare in the Atlantic". And that is, the German submersibles had destroyed almost 7,000 ships since 1915 obtaining a great reputation.

On the contrary, Germany soon put aside what was signed at Versailles. Thus, in 1922 began a secret program to develop new submarines and, shortly thereafter, created the "School of War antisubmarine"-whose purpose was to train discreetly the German crews to dominate the seas and oceans if any Conflict. The arrival of Hitler in 1935 put the definitive stone for the creation of a large fleet of submersibles, because it managed that the "Kriegsmarine" (the "navy" of the country) received the "Yes" international to build a greater armada. A huge mistake on the part of the United Kingdom, for, unwittingly, it gave free rein to the manufacture of submarines by the Nazis, some machines that were going to provoke in the not too distant future more than a headache to England. After obtaining the green light, Hitler initiated the construction of the so-called "U-boot" (the abbreviation of "Unterseeboot" or, in English, "Submarine ship"), because it knew that, in case of entering into war, it would be vital to drown the economy of potential enemies like England Cutting supplies across the sea. Subsequently, these ships were put under the command of Karl Dönitz, a former submarine captain who,-during the First World War-, had actively participated against the Allied armies.

Chapter 17

## Annex

### Maps of German submarine campaigns in the Caribbean

#### Killing areas

The "US/Caribbean Sea Frontier" was organized around the three main centers, Panama, Puerto Rico and Trinidad; Guantánamo was later added. In Trinidad were created -in the autumn of 1941- the great bases Fort Reid and Waller; At the beginning of 1942, the combined base of Chaguaramas's navy and seaplanes was expanded near Port of Spain and shortly thereafter military airports were followed in Aruba ("Dakota") and Curaçao ("Hato"). The main object was the fight against the expected attacks and landings of the long-distance bombardments, which corresponded to the American orientation in the primary threat of a German invasion with the help of the German settlers in Latin America, of tone opposed to the British vision.

[img] Gaylord Kelshall - The U-Boat War in the Caribbean (1994)- Imágenes de su libro

The first German attack within the framework of the "Operation New Earth" had the effect of a shock, as the American military was initially convinced that, due to the scope of the German submarines, there should be secret bases in the area of Caribbean or a supply by neutral ships.

#### First wave 1942

Just three days after the first submarine attack, the Trinidad Guardian asked in an article: "U-boats operating from base in Caribbean?" (February 19, 1942). A few days later, the same newspaper said: "Spain denies U-boat using Canary Islands" (February 26, 1942). Although little by little it was found that the scope of the submarines did allow actions in the Caribbean Sea repeatedly arose during the war rumors on secret bases.

Parsons mentions corresponding reports from San Andrés, Providencia and the Corn Islands off the coast of Nicaragua (see Parsons 1985, p. 148, where two publications of the year 1940 are quoted, which seems doubtful).

In this context belonged the "Martinique case" that already at the beginning of the submarine war led to an intensification of the stronger tensions between the Allies and the administration of the French Antilles, faithful to the mode of Vichy.

#### Second wave, first stage 1942

In the early hours of 16 February 1942 the U-156 German submarine under the command of von Hartenstein sank three oil tankers at the San Nicolás oil port in Aruba and bombed the refinery.

The attack provoked an explosion of the cannon aboard, killing a sailor and leaving a severely wounded officer.

Among the consequences of the first wave of attacks was a shift in the British-American dispute over the system of convoys, in favor of the British position, which preferred the convoys accompanied. Although until the autumn of 1942 only less than a quarter of the necessary accompanying ships were available, improvised convoys were carried out since March 1942. For this reason, in the months following considerable losses of vessels in the Caribbean space were presented.

#### Second Ola, second stage 1942

A few weeks after the "Operation New Earth" was completed, a series of waves of attacks lasted until the end of the year, marking the first and most intensive phase of the submarine war in the Caribbean.

Until the end of 1942, 36% of all commercial ship collapses in the world were carried out in the Caribbean space, taking into account that, according to the German point of view, the Gulf of Mexico was considered as part of the Caribbean Operation area. Then there was a complicated interweaving of attack strategies (use of submarines in waves, although here without herd technique) and defense measures (convoy routes and their displacement, reconnaissance coupling, navy and Air Force missions) . At the same time, a spiral of technical innovations was unleashed on the German side: Since April 1942, the use of submarine oil vessels, then mining and anti-aircraft submarines; On the part of the Allies: new types of submarines, new detection techniques and fixed-location detector loops.

#### Third Wave

The fourth wave of the maritime War on the American coast was developed in front of Brazil, with prolongation towards the "bauxite route" off the coast of the Guianas.

The real victims were the sailors of the commercial ships, from the giant oil tanker to the small coastal fishing boat.

#### Fourth wave 1942

#### Fifth wave 1942-1943

Chapter 18

## Epilogue

As we have seen in this compilation of some of the many tests of the tremendous war that was fought on the shores of the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and the cover-up that made the American censorship, -in my opinion one of the largest last times- which also had the aggravating factor of -perhaps- creating the myth of the "Bermuda Triangle". A myth that abused the intelligence of the population and its naivety, there is no doubt that there was never any "mysterious" force operating in Bermuda.

Perhaps one can say that the myth was not the creation of the power of the turn, but always will remain the doubt. The only hiding of the Caribbean war and the massacres carried out by the German submarines even after the end of the war have no justification but is to keep alive the myth, diverting the attention of the population of a subject that looking at the distance can also be embarrassing for everyone. Both deceivers and deceivers.

I guess it would be time for an official statement. We'll see if one day arrives. In the meantime, we'll put the Bermuda triangles on the "cover-up" shelf.

Chapter 19

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Gaylord Kelshall - The U-Boat War in the Caribbean (1994)

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