20 YEARS AGO in our KTB

KTB #9 was again in the new format, using the legal size paper. More information could be put on each page – but it was difficult to work with, hard to put into a file…..but we continued.

Former Member DAVID SIMPSON (15-1983) sent a huge box, full of SKIN DIVER Magazines for our archive. We were looking into the rumors of German U-Boats carrying cargoes of uranium to Japan in the closing months of the war. It was in 1983 when KTB #9 was published, and the rumors of U-Boats carrying uranium to Japan were just that – mere rumors. Even the highly respected Chicago TRIBUNE said this never happened. Sharkhunters eventually proved that it did indeed happen and even spoke to the Skipper and some others on one such U-Boat.

KTB #9 was just 3 pages in length.

Let’s do a quick comparison.

Issue	KTB Magazine	Annual Dues
KTB #9	3 pages long	$25
KTB #175	44 pages long	$50

Okay, the dues have doubled – but the KTB Magazine, being computer set and compressed a bit, carries about twenty times more information than KTB #9 just twenty years ago. Therefore, if you bought a small four-room house for $15,000 in 1983 – could you today buy a huge forty-room mansion for $30,000? Probably not, but this gives a good comparison how the staff at Sharkhunters works really hard to keep the annual Membership dues low despite constantly rising costs.

Actually, the only times we have been forced to raise the dues has been directly tied to rising postal rates. The cost to mail your KTB to you in the USA has risen nearly 400% in these years. To send the KTB overseas, the cost has risen more than 400% just in the last three years, and that did force us to substantially raise the dues to Members outside the US and Canada. We had no choice and actually Sharkhunters did not raise the rates – it was the Post Office that raised the rates and we were forced to pass them on.

Also, I believe that our photo quality has improved greatly over the past year or so – and we will continue to improve.

15 YEARS AGO in our KTB

A lot was reported in KTB #40, including the report of our first ever Sharkhunters Convention in the Florida Keys, MASON LOGIE (208-1986) was going to dive U-853, and we reported on a few fake U-Boat heroes.

ERNST SCHMIDT (10-+-1983) sent us some words to the famed wartime song ‘Lili Marlen’, who was every soldier’s girlfriend. BILL REED (13-1983) attended a crew reunion of U-505 which was held in Austria. BILL was close friends with OTTO DIETZ (209-+-1986), who was a Pharmacist Mate aboard that famous boat. ELLSWORTH BOYD (17-1983) had written a really nice piece about Sharkhunters for his “Wreck Facts” column in SKIN DIVER Magazine. We learned that the modern-day concept of SCUBA diving was not invented by French diver JACQUES COUSTEAU (4389-+-1985) during WW II as most think, but actually by JIM LOCKWOOD (31-+-1984). We found an article in the Rockford REGISTER-REPUBLIC of 9 December 1938 showing JIM in the pool with his “underwater lung” which allowed him to remain submerged for twenty minutes.

Probably one of the biggest news items in KTB #40 was the finding of U-16, which herself was a real mystery. This Type II-B was attacked on 23 October 1939 by the sloop HMS PUFFIN and the trawler HMS CAYTON WYKE and while withdrawing on the 24th, U-16 struck a mine off the sands of Goodwin. According to a British report at the time of the sinking, a Royal Army officer went to the wreck of the U-Boat, still sticking up out of the sands at low tide. The report makes no mention of any bodies – so the question remains, what happened to the crew of U-16? Did they perish with their boat? Or did they manage to escape? To where?

According to JAK MALLMANN SHOWELL (73-1984), a diver named John Chamberlain was in the area and as he watched, the sands were shifting with the current and U-16 became visible to him. While U-16 was out of the water at low tide back in 1939, the wreck has now settled to 80 feet or more.

ROSCOE THOMPSON (113-1985) was a diver in the Bahamas, and he had found the wreck of an American Civil War ship there. It was ROSCOE who recovered a famed silver bar from the famed Gorda Cay wreck that every diver knows about – but nobody can find. Perhaps someday……….

We informed Captain HORST DEGEN (116-+-1985) that several researchers and divers were attempting to locate his U-701, sunk off the American east coast.

KTB #40 was a huge 12 pages in length, a lot back in those days.

10 YEARS AGO in our KTB

In KTB #80, we were going to profile ERICH TOPP (118-LIFE-1985) and so the cover was all TOPP; we read more of the memories of HORST DEGEN (116-+-1985) when he laid mines off the US Navy Base at Norfolk; there was more of the story by JIM VERDOLINI (480-2003), a 17 year old kid in the US Navy…..who was radioman on USS GUADALCANAL when they captured U-505. There was more on a fake U-Boat officer calling himself Erich Maas or Bill Rose, as the situation demanded.

We said goodbye to Kplt. GÜNTHER PULST (330-1987) who began his “Eternal Patrol”. He was with us in Hamburg in 1988.

The Intelligence Page was filled with great stuff on General Motors and their involvement in WW II – on both sides; and a story about a fellow in British Honduras (now called Belize) who had been arrested for assisting German U-Boats with his island trading fleet. And there was information about Leicester Hemingway, brother of the famous writer, and his involvement.

There was also an in-depth article about Wewelsburg Castle. We read an article on ‘Huff-Duff’ (High Frequency Direction Finder) and we began a long article by Großadmiral Dönitz on “The Conduct of the War at Sea”.

KTB #80 was only 28 pages long.

5 YEARS AGO in our KTB

As we see in the headlines of KTB #126, our Intelligence Page is back as a regular feature. There were memories of the war from Captain HARDEGEN (102-LIFE-1985), new insights into the New England war concerning the U-Boats by Lt. Col. JIM ROSE (78-1984), and we read the history of U-151, U-152 and U-153. There was a great comment on our book “U-BOAT!” by RICHARD HENRICK (2568-1992) and if you don’t recognize his name, he wrote about two dozen submarine books – including CRIMSON TIDE that was made into a movie.

This outstanding book “U-BOAT!” is still available from Sharkhunters at only $15 (plus $5 shipping).

The Intelligence Page returned with comments by various Intel people including our own Captain BOB THEW (333-+-1987) who served with the US Navy’s ONI and later with the NSA. These well-placed and highly respected agents said flatly that Adolf Hitler did NOT die in the bunker as popular history tells. THEW said that the world’s Intel agencies were looking for him well into the mid-1950’s.

We still published the report on the Royal Navy subs by VICTOR HAWKINS (1364-+-1990), even though he had begun his “Eternal Patrol”. He made sure we had a lot in file before he went.

KTB #126 was 40 pages long, computer typeset.