RALEIGH, N.C. — In the aptly named Graveyard of the Atlantic off the North Carolina coast, researchers have found the wrecks of a Nazi U-boat and the ship it sank during a World War II convoy.
“That whole battlefield scene is there,” said Joe Hoyt of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, chief scientist for the expedition. “Both sides of the story are represented as a memorial to history.”
A research team using sonar found the wrecks of U-boat 576 and the freighter Bluefields on Aug. 30 in waters off Cape Hatteras, just 240 yards apart. The U-boat had attacked the Bluefields, which was operating under the flag of Nicaragua and was part of a convoy of 19 merchant ships.
The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard were escorting the ships from Norfolk, Va., to Key West, Fla., when the U-boat attacked on July 15, 1942, sinking the Bluefields and damaging two other ships. A U.S. aircraft bombed the U-boat, and a merchant ship attacked with a deck gun.
All 45 men aboard the U-boat died and are believed entombed in the shipwreck; no one on the Bluefields was killed, Hoyt said.
The U.S. agency delayed releasing information until Tuesday to give the Germans time to track down and notify any survivors of the 45 men, Hoyt said.
The German Foreign Office said that it’s not interested in recovering the remains but asked the U.S. to view the wreck as a war grave.