FOURTEEN YEARS!

Our SHARKHUNTERS has endured for a very long time. In fact, in February 1997 we will begin our 14th YEAR! 14 Years of bringing the honest history of the U-Bootwaffe and other submarine services of World War II is an impressive accomplishment - but it is you, our Members, who have made our SHARKHUNTERS grow into the absolute undisputed place to go for this history. Many thanks to you - to each and every one of our Members; and I know we will continue to grow strongly for another 14 years. I hope YOU will still be on board at that time. We are growing - keep growing with us.

ATTENTION VETERANS

We hope that you are enjoying your KTB Magazine because it is YOUR STORY that we tell. PLEASE! PLEASE! If you served in ANY branch of any military in any country; tell your story. Your story is important to the overall fabric that weaves the story of World War II. Please send your story to us - put it on audiotape, type it out, write it by hand - but please do not take your story of World War II with you when you depart on your ‘ETERNAL PATROL’. Send it here so we may preserve it for all who study this history in the future. Thanks.

5,000 SHARKHUNTERS!

That’s right - there are MORE THAN 5,000 Members of SHARKHUNTERS. Actually, there are about 5,100 Members. Who could have foretold this great growth at the end of our first year when there were only 22 Members. Thanks to all who have joined, to all who have remained, and to all who have contributed with articles, stories and money.

62 COUNTRIES!

I am pleased to report that there are SHARKHUNTERS Members in 62 countries. There are 157 countries in the world which means that there are SHARKHUNTERS Members in more than 39% of all the countries of the world!

YESTERDAY’S ENEMIES are TODAY’S FRIENDS

This is our motto; this is the meaning of SHARKHUNTERS and the history of the submarine services which we gather and report in our KTB Magazine. It was K.K. REINHARD HARDEGEN (102-LIFE-1985) who gave us this motto, and we have tried very hard to maintain this high standard.

We have always enjoyed a very good cooperation and friendship with the German Submariner’s Association, and with the U-Boot veterans groups in cities across Germany and in other countries.

A few years ago, a member of the veteran’s group in Köln had a lay-over at Tampa International Airport and he called here, so I drove down to meet with him. We have a nice time together, and he gave us a beautiful brass emblem of their group, which is on the wall above my desk.

In October, U-Boat veteran Robert Herzog came to visit his son in the USA, but across the country, so it was impossible for me to meet Herr Herzog. But CAPTAIN PETER CHELEMEDOS (3619-1994) lives in that same city, so I called him and put the two former enemies in contact with each other. PETER was a merchant Skipper and had one ship sunk out from under him by the Japanese in the Pacific and another in the Atlantic by the Germans. The two former enemies have became good friends.

Thanks to PETER for being the good will Ambassador for SHARKHUNTERS, and thanks to CAPTAIN HARDEGEN for this great standard at which SHARKHUNTERS will always aim.