Here is the report from PAUL, taken directly off the e-mail he sent us recently. We appreciate our Members keeping us up on current events in the submarine world as they happen.

Note: U-215 is about 110 miles NNE of P-Town in about 250 feet according to research done a number of years ago. The wreck was tentatively located by John Fish and Andy Carr in the mid-80's or thereabout.

The following is from the DECO-Stop web site:

" I just got word that the U-215 was recently located and dived. The U-215 is a Type VIID U-boat, a rare boat that was modified specifically to lay mines. It's unique feature were large mine tubes aft of the conning tower. The U-215 was sunk just after sinking the liberty ship ALEXANDER MACOMB.

There has been a lot of discussion for several years in the technical wreck diving community to put an expedition together to dive this wreck, but nothing has ever materialized due to the crazy logistics of the dive. It is 150 miles offshore, in deep water, with crazy currents due to its location between George's and Grand Banks (in an area called "The River" due to the ripping tide).

Congrats to Richie Kohler for the first successful dive on U-215! Here is an account of the first dive to the wreck:

"The descent took 6 minutes. The hooks had grabbed and held into the aftermost of the mine tubes. The boat lays listed to port, bow facing NW. The water is XXX' deep on the starboard side due to a scour, and is XXX' on the port where it is protect by the hull. The outer hull is gone and the last mine tube is ripped open, exposing the mine inside. The coning tower is stripped bare and the attack periscope has the head ripped off. There is very little debris next to the wreck, and there is quite a bit of torn netting here and there. I believe the wintergarden, guns, etc have all been dragged away over the years. The conning tower hatch is closed. I did not see the forward deck gun but I must say I didn't look that way at all. Visibility was only 20 feet but easily stirred up. My dive went from the hook at the last mine tube, up to the conning tower and back. We did a XX minute bottom time and left. Although I had would have liked to do a XX minute dive, prudence dictates an extremely cautious diving profile this far from shore. As there are no other type VII D. U-boats lost on this side of the Atlantic, I feel confident in saying the U-215 has been found and identified.

Surface water temp was 47º; bottom temp was also 47º."

There were only 6 Type VIID boats commissioned during WWII.

EDITOR NOTE – the Type VII-D boats were as follows:

U-Boat	Launched	Sunk	Where
U-213	24 July 1941	31 July 1942	off Punta Delgada
U-214	18 Sept. 1941	26 July 1944	SSE of Start Point
U-215	9 Oct 1941	3 July 1942	off Nantucket
U-216	23 Oct 1941	20 Oct 1942	WSW of Ireland
U-217	15 Nov 1941	5 June 1943	North Atlantic
U-218	5 Dec 1941	1945/1946	Op. DEADLIGHT

The discovery of the U-215 will be featured in an ECONOVA program "Sea Hunters." Also on the discovery dive were Mike and Warren Fletcher, a father and son team who star in the program.

Here is additional info from Richie.    

"Two months ago I contacted a commercial diver (whose name came from a mutual friend) in Nova Scotia in an effort to procure a boat to search the George's Banks for the MACOMB and U-215. Long story short that phone call turned into a documentary for a Canadian Cable TV program hosted by Clive Cussler and called "The Sea Hunters." John Davis, the producer of ECONOVA (the production company who paid for the entire project) combined my historical and archival research, as well as the AWOIS and other collected targets info with his own research. That research included multibeam sonar surveys done by the Bedford Institute for the scallop and fisheries concerns and detailed nine real (read scanned) targets in the search area.

Two weeks ago they chartered a 65 foot boat, went out and sidescanned all nine targets and one came back looking just like a submarine. A trip to dive the site was formed. No target fitting the size of the MACOMB was found

This past Tuesday I boarded a 140 foot offshore lobster boat with the following team: Mike & Warren Fletcher, a father and son team and the divers who star in the program, James Delgado curator for the Vancouver Maritime Museum, a Canadian Customs official who would fly the ROV, a Benthos ROV tech, a safety diver, a two man topside camera crew, and the six man crew of the boat. After steaming all night we passed a HUGE target when we where just two miles away from the sub target.

This target came up sixty feet from the bottom in water XXX feet deep. It’s in two pieces and I feel it’s the MACOMB. No other (known) targets of that size are reported lost in the area. We scanned the target from all sides and went to the sub target. We then p@$$&d away one whole day trying to get the Benthos ROV to negotiate the 2- 6 knot tide to no avail. The following day we were getting ready to dive when the hook pulled and we missed that tide window. We spent the afternoon trying to get the ROV to work on the larger (MACOMB?) target but all we found was a debris field with pipes and wires as well as non descript steel. The next day we rehooked the sub target and made our first dive only to find the hook had pulled and we did a 20 minute sand sweep.

The next day we doubled the anchors with a six foot section of chain and dropped it as the tide dropped. Mike, Warren and I quickly got into the water and still had to fight the tide the whole way down. They both were shooting video and I shot stills. Mike’s camera and one light took a dump and my Aquaitica housing locked up after the first picture! Dive of a lifetime and the cameras shutter button will not pop up!! The descent took 6 minutes. The hooks had grabbed and held into the aftermost of the mine tubes. The boat lays listed to port, bow facing NW...."

This is where the report ends. Our guess is that the divers did not want to give away too much of their information, for fear they would have hundreds of divers anchored over the boat. More will be available as it comes in to us.