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Call this the second newsletter, and I must admit, I have found further details on those 22 U-boats scuttled by their crews in their unofficial “RAINBOW” the final few days of war.  From 1946 through 1957, the allies raised just about every one of those 232 boats and scrapped them out!  Of the 22 Type II boats scuttled I find only 3 not scrapped; of the 78 Type VII boats, only 13 are left; of the 26 Type IX boats, 5 are left; the Type X we have might probably still remain  as she was scuttled on this of the ocean; the two Type XVII boats were both scapped;5 Type XXI boats, only 2 remain; none of the 27 Type XXIII remain some of the 8 Italian boats might remain…..bringing the total of scuttled boats remaining intact from 232  to 29, and I fear that upon further investigation, I will find that these too have come under the cutter torch.  What a terrible loss to history.

On a lighter note, LIFE MAGAZINE, October 3, 1939 carried a photo story and interview with Gunter Prien, upon sinking HMS ROYAL OAK.  There is a photo of Prien with his wife at his side, telephone to his ear, and the caption is: "Hello Mother, I just sunk a battleship.”  There is also a short piece o the sinking of HMS COURAGEOUS.

And on to our U-boat hunt in the Bahamas.  I have, unfortunately, tracked each and every Type X-B boat to its final resting place, and our U-boat in the Bahamas in all probability is not a Type X-B.  So she might be a Type IX-D2 as they were nearly the same length, and we are estimating ours to be around 300 feet.  And the Type IX-D2 were 287 ½  feet long, but as I have accounted for all except one of the Type IX-D1 and IX-D2 boats, there seems to be slim chance that this is one of them, either.  I will know on that missing boat soon.  There is also a possibility what we have is an American submarine, the USS DORADO, a 312 foot long GATO Class boat that was thought sunk in error by a U.S. Navy plane from Guantanamo.  We’ll see.

In the last newsletter, I suggested that this become a ‘clearing house’ for the U-boat researcher, and asked for suggestions or whatever.  To date, I’ve received only one response.  Perhaps I’ve overestimated the need for an information exchange such as this.

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