Our Members will remember that, perhaps a year or so ago, a group of US NAVY destroyer crewmen announced that they had sunk a German U-Boat off San Francisco harbor and they never got credit for this sinking. Now they say that this boat was full of gold... what German U-Boat DIDN'T have a belly full of gold, if you believe all these wild stories; but they were trying to raise money for a dive. They needed a LOT of money but if you sent them something like $20,000 then you got a share of all this gold.

I contacted the leader of this group at that time and told him that U-Boats did not float around with tons of gold on board and further, that there were never any German U-Boats off the American west coast during WW II .... NEVER! But he insisted that his group were honorable and were not trying to milk money from people falsely. I told him that he should give up this crazy idea and stop trying to raise this money or they would all wind up in jail for fraud. They continued onwards.

I spoke with the leader of this group on 28 February this year and asked if they finally gave up on this goofy idea. On the contrary, they are more convinced than ever that a German U-Boat, full of gold, is sunk in shallow water off San Francisco bay. When I asked why nobody had dived the boat, if it is in shallow water, he said that the US NAVY chases divers away. I told him that was an old story that divers on the Florida coasts use when someone does not believe that they found U-Boats in Florida waters, and told him that the US NAVY couldn't give two hoots about keeping divers off sunken submarines. He didn't care, he just said they were sure this was a German U-Boat and that it was full of gold and they were going to get rich when they salvaged it.

No matter how much I told him there was NO German U-Boat on the west coast, he came back with "MAYBE" and "WHAT IF" and all the other weak arguments meant only to bolster one's confidence and not much more. We will keep you advised if this group finally admits they are chasing their tails - or when the F.B.I. nabs them for fraud. Keep tuned.