5 Years Ago in our KTB

KTB #66 was the first of our 'modern' KTB Magazines with a cover photo and for this, out first photo cover, we chose the 'Father of the Submarine Navy' GrossAdmiral Karl Dönitz.

We were promoting our SHARKHUNTERS trip to South Africa (where we had a SUPERB time!). We were seeking Gerhard Soppa of U-805, as one of our Members had saved his wallet when the USN cleaned out U-805. Our Members was a young USN Torpedoman and he wanted to give the wallet to Soppa but his Skipper told him to just toss it in the garbage. JIM did not, and held onto the wallet all those years looking for Soppa.

We gave the story that HMS ROYAL OAK nearly was sunk by OTTO KRETSCHMER (122-LIFE-1985) in U-23 rather than Günther Prien with U-47. We announced another one of our SHARKHUNTERS 'COFFEE MEETINGS', this one in Baltimore. We announced that USCGC INGHAM arrived at her Memorial site, PATRIOT'S POINT in Charleston. There was the sad announcement that LARRY DAUPHEMIA (423-1988) and his friend were diving the wreck of U-853, and his friend drowned.

We announced that the NATIONAL ARCHIVES of the United States was keeping all our KTB Magazines in permanent file.

KTB #66 had grown a bit - it was 24 pages long, but would require only about 6 pages of today's computer-set KTB Magazine; and we did not yet use any kind of envelope to ship our KTB Magazine. It was mailed flat, which sometimes resulted in damage.

10 Years Ago in our KTB

In KTB #20 we continued in our quest to design our emblem for SHARKHUNTERS. There was a short report on U-573 and what happened to her after she was interned in Spain - but keep your eyes on our 'INTELLIGENCE PAGE' to learn a LOT more about this TYPE VII-C boat AFTER the War!

We announced the publishing of the book JAPAN'S SECRET WAR by BOB WILCOX (25-1984) in which he described how Japan was racing to perfect their own atomic bomb and it talks about the uranium brought from Germany by U-234 which never got to Japan, but surrendered in the USA instead. This was really a good book and packed with never before told facts.

VICTOR TURON (28-1984) was the first to report that the Spanish submarine C-3 was actually sunk by a German U-Boat well before the beginning of World War II. C-3 was sunk off Malaga on 12 December, 1936 by U-34. This entire story was later told in great detail when we ran the story by PETER HANSEN (251-LIFE-1987) about OPERATION 'URSULA' which was named for the daughter of (then) Kapitän Karl Dönitz - URSULA DöNITZ HESSLER (1339-1990).