![]() Nazi Germany's most high-tech submarine found 73 years after it was blown up Related: Lake Mead dwindles, and a WWII-era 'swamp boat' emerges "It's really remarkable that they survived," Petkovic said. SUBMARINE FOUND HOW TOcrew didn't know how to operate the vessel's gyro-compass, and had to navigate with a magnetic compass and a plug in an open valve made of a "hard, gummy substance," secretly installed by German saboteurs, dissolved in the seawater four nights into the voyage, flooding and almost sinking the vessel. In addition, the submarine had only German signage, so the U.S. To save time, the commander chose the shortest - and most dangerous - northern route across the Atlantic, which was strewn with icebergs and had claimed the R.M.S. sailors - 17 of whom had never been aboard a submarine before, Petkovic said. Navy and in April 1919 it set out for the U.S. "Importantly for the Allies, had it not been for the experience gained in 19 in particular, the campaign against the U-boats in World War II would have proven more of a challenge," he said.Īfter Germany agreed to the armistice in November 1918, the SM U-111 was surrendered to the British and then given to the U.S. McCartney was not involved in the rediscovery of the SM U-111, but he's discovered other World War I U-boat wrecks. "But it is important to recognize that in comparison to World War II, the U-boats of the Kaiserliche Marine sunk twice the number of ships and sustained only 20 percent of the losses." "The first U-boat war from 1914 to 1918 often gets overlooked," Innes McCartney, a nautical archaeologist at Bangor University in the United Kingdom, told Live Science in an email. The submarine made three raids on commercial shipping vessels in the Irish Sea and the English Channel, and sank at least three Allied merchant ships. Germany built the SM U-111 in the northern port city of Kiel in 1916 and it joined the war at sea in early 1918. (Image credit: Photograph by Benjamin Lowy for National Geographic) Submarine menace Indonesia had five submarines before the incident: two German-built Type 209s including Nanggala, and three newer South Korean vessels.The discoverers revisited the site in September this year in a research vessel equipped with a remotely-operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to examine the rake with video cameras. South-east Asia’s most populous country has sought to revamp its military capability, yet some equipment is still old and there have been fatal accidents in recent years. “This can be a learning point for the government to advance its military technology and be careful in how it uses its technology because its people’s lives are at stake,” said Hein Ferdy Sentoso, a 29-year-old resident. Residents of the East Java town of Banyuwangi, which hosts the naval base from where search and rescue operations are being conducted, joined nationwide calls to accelerate the modernisation of Indonesia’s defence forces. More than a dozen helicopters and ships are searching the area where contact was lost, with the US, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and India providing assistance. Margono said on Saturday that a sonar scan had detected a submarine-like object at 850 metres (2,790ft), beyond the Nanggala’s diving range. Photograph: Indonesia military/AFP/Getty Images The wreckage was found more than 800 metres down. Search teams said on Saturday they had found objects including prayer mat fragments and a bottle of periscope lubricant near the submarine’s last known location, leading the navy to believe the vessel had cracked. “All of us Indonesians express our deep sorrow over this tragedy, especially to the families of the submarine crew.” The president, Joko Widodo, earlier confirmed the discovery in the Bali Sea and sent the families of the victims his condolences. “The KRI Nanggala is divided into three parts, the hull of the ship, the stern of the ship, and the main parts are all separated, with the main part found cracked,” he said. The navy chief of staff, Yudo Margono, said the crew was not to blame for the sinking. Rescuers found new objects, including a life vest, that they believe belong to those who were onboard the 44-year-old vessel, which lost contact on Wednesday as it prepared to conduct a torpedo drill. The main part of KRI Nanggala was cracked, the Indonesian military said. ![]()
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