20 Years Ago in our KTB

Roger Miklos! We read about him way back in KTB #4 when we predicted that this guy was a fraud when he claimed that he found a secret U-Boat, full of gold and art treasures (naturally) sunk in 80 feet of water in the Turks & Caicos Islands. And now in KTB #14, his name pops up again. Colonel John Blashford-Snell (6-1983) informed us that Thames Broadcasting swallowed the bait. They gave him a "living allowance" and they funded an expedition to find this "lost U-Boat" in the islands. Even after many experts told them that they would find NO U-Boat then went blindly forward anyway, spending a lot of money. It was really amusing to read the foolish excuses he gave as to why there was no U-Boat but the main reason was that Thames Television had been suckered!

Again we said that rumors of German U-Boaters coming ashore in rubber boats to buy bread, go to theater etc. were all nothing more than wartime rumors with absolutely no truth. We also reported that the rumor of a German U-Boat setting up a remote weather reporting station on the Canadian coast were in fact, true.

KTB #14 was a mere 6 pages in length and done on that old manual typewriter. Too bad we don't still have that typewriter. It would look good in our museum

15 YEARS AGO in our KTB

KTB #45 was the first to be published out of our new (at the time) office in Ft. Myers. We were really getting used to the Florida life. KTB #45 had information about the Type I U-Boat, which was on the order of the Turkish CUR. Two of these were built for the Kriegsmarine and from what we are told, they were not well liked by their crews. They were U-25 and U-26 and the problems, we are told, is that these boats did not handle properly - they would dive when they were not supposed to, and they would bob to the surface at inconvenient times.

There was more on the French submarine SURCOUF, whose loss is still a mystery. We reprinted an official document in which the wife of the Skipper of SURCOUF, Madame Drogou, was making speeches to dispel the rumors that a US Navy task force hunted down this submarine and sank it in secret because SURCOUF was going to help the Axis in the Pacific. She said this was not true. One of our Members put forth the possibility that SURCOUF was sunk in error by a particular German U-Boat in the Caribbean who thought, because of the odd shape of SURCOUF, that she was a small tanker, and he sank her. He sank many ships on that patrol and all were confirmed by B-Dienst all EXCEPT this "tanker". Did he sink an unconfirmed tanker - or did he sink SURCOUF in error? The answer to that is still not known.

10 Years Ago

KTB #85 had more wartime memories from HORST DEGEN (116-+-1985) and we learned about the F.S.B.O.I. (Forgotten Submarine Bastards Of Ireland). CHARLES GI NDERSEN (205-C-1986) gave us more insights into the diesel engines for the USN submarines his technical articles are excellent! PETER HANSEN (251-LIFE-1987) continued to give us fantastic history of World War II, known but to a handful- There were the short histories of the US Navy's submarines SS-17 throuch SS 23 None of these were combat boats, and their history was pretty sterile There was an intense hisiorv of U-66 and there was more on the allegations that Standard Oil was selling fuel to all sides in W1\ li

IAN McDERMOTT (603-1988) gave us some historti on which RAF squadrons did what against the U-Boats It. KEITH THOMPSON (9471--1989) was an officer on the Admiral 13yrd expedition to Antarctica known as Operation DEEP FREEZE which was listed as a mapping operation, people still wonder why they needed an entire feet of ships, including a submarine. and 5000 people to make maps -- in an area long thought to be a German stronghold before the war.

We published more of the work by Grossadmiral Karl Donitz titled "The Conduct of the War at Sea" LCDR A. S. MELVILLEROSS (1930-+-1991) told us about the old S-Boat given to the Royal Navy as P-556, his first submarine command. The boat was named the "Rehictartt Dragon" and blew up dockside!

KTB #85 was 28 pages in length and done on a newer, more modern typewriter - not like the computer typeset KTB of today. The photographs are not as nice either, inasmuch as the day of the `desktop' publishing computer was still off in the future -- but it sure contained a lot of information.

5 YEARS AGO

Our friend & long time Member ERICH TOPP (118-LIFE-1985) is the subject of the front page of KTB #131. There was a nice piece by OTTO KRETSCHMER (122-+-1985) including why he knew that his radio would get him in trouble. We published the Action Report from U.SS BLOCK ISLAND and her taking on the prisoners from U-66. We reported that U-864 was found, and that she had indeed, been carrying uranium oxide and heavy water bound for Japan. Several U-Boats were to make the dangerous journey to Japan with uranium for the Japanese atomic bomb and other exotic weaponry with which Germany hoped that Japan would use to defeat the Allies and thus, save Germany. We had more information on Admiral Kimmel and General Short and the Pearl Harbor debacle that was hung around their necks.

A book was written by the radioman of U-764 in which he hurled many accusations against the Skipper and other officers. In this KTB, we ran more of the letter by an officer of that boat. It seems that the radioman was at odds with everyone else, and could not get along with anyone so, according to this letter, he took it out on them in his book, which is refuted as false in this letter.

Naturally, there was PETER's PAGE and we gave a brief history of American submarines &S 154 and SS 155. And we continued the column on the Royal Navy submarines written by VICTOR HAWKINS (1364-+-1990) even though he had begun his "Eternal Patrol' some time prior. We had a lot of his article still in hand.

KTB #131 was 40 pages long and done on the new computers.