31 Aug 1997

United States
  • Off New Jersey, United States, John Chatterton dove the wreck of U-869 and sledgehammered away an oxygen tank (risking explosion) in order to retrieve a spare parts box in the electric motor room, which he handed to fellow diver Richie Kohler waiting outside the room. On his way out, he was entangled in loose wires and nearly ran out of air while trying to free himself. Meanwhile, on the surface, fellow divers already began to examine the spare parts box, finding a tag that conclusively identified the submarine, debunking the previous hypothesis that U-869 had been sunk off Gibraltar. ww2dbase [U-869 | New Jersey | CPC]

Timeline Section Founder: Thomas Houlihan
Contributors: Alan Chanter, C. Peter Chen, Thomas Houlihan, Hugh Martyr, David Stubblebine
Special Thanks: Rory Curtis




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