Unterseeboot 869

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Career
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Laid down:	5 April 1943
Commissioned:	26 January 1944
Fate:	Sunk by unknown causes
General Characteristics

Unterseeboot 869 (U-869) was a Type IXC/40 U-boat of the Kriegsmarine whose wreck was discovered off the coast of New Jersey in 1991.

Her keel was laid down April 5, 1943 by AG Weser of Bremen. She was commissioned on January 26, 1944 with Kapitänleutnant Hellmut Neuerburg in command. Neuerburg went down with his boat.

U-869 conducted one war patrol without success. She suffered no casualties to her crew until she was lost in February 1945, with all 56 crew members dead.

On February 28, 1945 the American destroyer escort USS Fowler and the French submarine chaser L'Indiscret conducted a depth charge attack on a submerged contact in the Atlantic near Rabat and reported a kill, although little visible evidence was presented to confirm the kill. Based on the information provided, US Naval Intelligence rated the attacks "G - No Damage." U-869 had been previously ordered by Karl Dönitz to move her area of operations from the North American coast to the Gibraltar area, and for many years this attack was assumed to have been her end. Following the end of World War II, post war investigators upgraded the rating from "G - No Damage" to " B - Probably Sunk" leading to a historical record that U-869 was sunk near Gibraltar.

However, on September 2, 1991, an unidentified U-boat wreck was discovered 73 meters deep (a hazardous depth for standard scuba diving) off the coast of New Jersey. Nicknamed the U-Who, the exact identity of the wreck was a matter of frequent debate, and initially the wreck was thought to be either the U-550 or the U-521. The discoverers of U-Who, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, continued to dive the wreck for the next several years, taking considerable risks (three divers, Steve Feldman, Chris Rouse and Chris Rouse, Jr., died exploring the U-869) to recover a knife inscribed with Horenburg, a crew member's name, part of the UZO torpedo aiming device, and spare parts from the motor room engraved with serial and other identifying numbers. On August 31, 1997 they concluded that the boat they found is the U-869. What, if anything, the destroyers actually attacked off Rabat is unknown.

In the underwater search for answers, some of the divers began using a then unproven and experimental breathing gas mix called "trimix" for underwater breathing instead of the standard compressed air.

There was an episode of NOVA, "Hitler's Lost Sub", which documented the divers' attempt to find the U-Boat's number. A transcript of this program can be found at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2712lostsub.html

The men who found U-869 believed that it was a victim of its own torpedo, which may have become a "circle-runner" if a defective steering mechanism caused it to change direction in the water and head for origination point. At least two other U-boats are known to have been lost to their own torpedoes: U-377 in 1944 and U-972 in late 1943.

However, the U.S. Coast Guard, in its official evaluation of the evidence, discarded this theory. Among other problems, there are two holes in the wreck of U-869 though an errant torpedo would have made only one. They believe that the boat was destroyed on February 11, 1945 by two U.S. destroyer escorts, the Howard D. Crow and the Koiner.<ref>Harold Moyers, "The Sinking of the U-869"</ref>

Only one crew member survived. Second Radio Officer Herbert Guschewski came down with pneumonia shortly before the boat's departure. Like the families of the crew, Guschewski did not know what happened to his fellow sailors until he saw the NOVA episode "Hitler's Lost Sub".

See Also: List of U-boats, Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson ISBN 0375508589 and The Last Dive by Bernie Chowdhury ISBN 0060932597

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