Unterseeboot 869
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| Career | |
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| Laid down: | 5 April 1943 |
| Commissioned: | 26 January 1944 |
| Fate: | sunk by circular-run torpedo |
| General Characteristics | |
Unterseeboot 869 (U-869) was a Type IXC/40 U-boat of the Kriegsmarine whose wreck was discovered off the coast of New Jersey in 1991.
Her keel was laid down April 5, 1943 by AG Weser of Bremen. She was commissioned on January 26, 1944 with Kapitänleutnant Hellmut Neuerburg in command. Neuerburg went down with his boat.
U-869 conducted one war patrol without success. She suffered no casualties to her crew until she was lost in February 1945, with all 56 crew members dead.
On February 28, 1945 the American destroyer escort USS Fowler and the French submarine chaser L'Indiscret conducted a depth charge attack on a submerged contact in the mid-Atlantic near Rabat and reported a kill. U-869 had been previously ordered by Karl Dönitz to move her area of operations from the North American coast to the Gibraltar area, and for many years this attack was assumed to have been her end.
However, on September 2, 1991, an unidentified U-boat wreck was discovered 73 meters deep (a hazardous depth for standard scuba diving) off the coast of New Jersey. Nicknamed the U-Who, the exact identity of the wreck was a matter of frequent debate, and initially the wreck was thought to be either the U-550 or the U-521. The discoverers continued to dive the wreck for the next several years, taking considerable risks (three divers died exploring the U-869) to recover a knife inscribed with a crew member's name, part of the UZO torpedo aiming device, and spare parts from the motor room engraved with serial and other identifying numbers. On August 31, 1997 they concluded that the boat they found is the U-869. What, if anything, the destroyers actually attacked off Rabat is unknown.
There was an episode of NOVA which documented the divers' attempt to find the U-Boat's number. A transcript of this program can be found at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2712lostsub.html
The cause of U-869's loss is unknown, but it is quite possible she was hit by a circular torpedo run. At least two other U-boats are known to have been lost to their own torpedoes: U-377 in 1944 and U-972 in late 1943.
See Also: List of U-boats and Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson ISBN 0375508589