This U-Boat Spent 61 Years Lost Beneath The Waves – Until Divers Unearthed Its Harrowing Secrets

There’s a boat setting out from the Italian village of Santa Margarita Ligure, despite high waves making the journey unpleasant. It takes 60 or so minutes to reach its destination, where a party of divers enter the water and begin fighting their way through the angry sea. It’s all worth it, though, for the astonishing sight of a WWII submarine – one with an extraordinary but somewhat upsetting history.

Santa Margarita Ligure is close to Portofino, which is a popular diving spot. The dark waters are full of extensive reefs and fascinating wrecks suitable for both beginner and experienced divers. There’s even a statue called “Christ of the Abyss” that was deliberately sunk as a memorial to people who’ve perished beneath the waves.

Divers have been visiting Christ of the Abyss for more than half a century, but this particular submarine had been undisturbed for even longer. The journey to find it would take the searchers nearly 300 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea. Well, finding the top of the sub would take them 300 feet down – but it would be another 100 before they reached the bottom.

The submarine in question was the German U-455, which dated back to WWII. During its brief time in service, the sub saw battle and was sunk within half a decade. The long vessel, formed from 800 tons of steel, fell so that one end was buried in the sediment of the seabed, but the other rose up at a dramatic 45-degree angle.

Despite the damage that must have occurred to send the U-455 to the bottom of the Mediterranean, it still seems to be in fairly good condition. You can make out details of a hatch, anchor, gun placement and the bridge. Divers have been joined by numerous fish as well as eels and lobsters that have made the wreck their home.

It seems astonishing that such a large, powerful vessel could’ve lain undisturbed for so long. And just look at the history of the U-455, which took on British tankers in the Atlantic and French ships in the Mediterranean. It was part of what was vividly described as a “wolf pack” of dangerous German subs.

The U-boat was a central part of German strategy during WWII. Short for Unterseeboot, or undersea ship, these submarines saw their first action in WWI, when they were used to sink Allied vessels. Germany was meant to give up all its subs after the war, but during the 1930s they began constructing them again.

By the time WWII began in 1939 Germany had 57 U-boats and Britain was unprepared for submarine warfare. To begin with the U-boats would prowl the waters alone, where they soon saw some high profile successes. Liners and aircraft carriers were targeted across the Atlantic and in one case even at the British naval base at Scapa Flow, near the coast of Scotland.

During these first rounds of U-boat attacks, the sub of choice was the VII B – but the Germans didn’t stop there. The highly reliable VII C would soon arrive with improved engines and weapons. That includes the U-455, which was ordered in 1940 and would see its launch in 1941.

The U-455 was originally laid down in Kiel, the capital of the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany. The original commander was Kptlt. Hans-Henrich Giessler, though he’d soon move to the Torpedo Inspectorate in the fall of 1942 and be replaced by Kptlt. Hans-Martin Scheibe.

U-455 was and remains an impressive-looking vessel, 200 feet long, 31 feet high and 52 feet wide. Even while above water it would displace 769 tons of seawater, which would increase by a further 100 tons once it’d dived into the oceans’ depths. It could travel more than 750 feet below the surface and move at close to 18 knots.

When it was on the surface, U-455 had two ferocious diesel engines capable of generating more than 3,000 horsepower. Then there was a pair of electric motors alongside the propellers to help push the sub through its underwater journeys. And, of course, this was a vessel of war, so it came well-stocked with weapons.

These weapons included 14 torpedoes that could be fired from one of five torpedo tubes, as well as both a naval gun and an anti-aircraft gun. There could’ve been anywhere between 40 and 60 people to man these weapons and pilot the sub, and the crew on its final mission stood at 51 in total.

Not only was it well-armed, but the U-455 also didn’t travel alone. Belonging to a wolf pack, it was one of many U-boats prowling the Mediterranean. This meant that the subs could surround Allied vessels on all sides, which would make them all that much more effective at causing destruction.

The U-455 spent less than two years at sea and over the course of 468 days it took part in just ten patrols. One of these lasted only ten days, though the longest spanned more than two months. Of the six patrols it took as part of a wolf pack there were five with official titles. They were Hech, Pfadfinder, Draufgänger, Ungestüm and Schlieffen.

For its first patrol the U-455 left its dock at Kiel and set out for Bergen, Norway, where it landed in February of 1942. Just a month later it traveled on to St. Nazaire on the west coast of France, which would remain its base for the next 18 months. Five times it set out from French harbor on patrol before returning again, but only twice did those patrols lead to destroyed enemies.

Between April and June of 1942 the U-455 sank two ships weighing a total of almost 14,000 tons between them. It added one more 3,500-ton Allied vessel in the spring of 1943. One of the ships was French and the other two British.

The first ship was the British Workman, which part of a convoy. All 7,000 tons sank on May 3, 1942, after a torpedo strike from the U-455 that killed seven crew members. It was followed on June 11 by the sinking of the Geo H. Jones cargo vessel, which weighed a little under 7,00 tons. These would be the only sinkings overseen by Kapitänleutnant Giessler before he handed over to Scheibe.

There would be only one Allied ship sunk by the U-455 under Scheibe’s command, which was the French cargo vessel the Rouennais. This time it wasn’t a torpedo that was responsible, but rather a mine laid by the sub near the shores of Morocco. Then, in September of 1943, the U-455 left St. Nazaire to dock at nearby Lorient, where it would stay until January 1944. That was when it left for its final home in the southern French city of Toulon.

Toulon is in the southwest of France and sits on the Mediterranean coast, so it was a good place to launch the U-455. It’s where it would set off on its last ever patrol in February 1944. Scheibe was 25 at the time but already an experienced submariner. In 1936 he’d been part of a crew that produced no less than 140 future U-boat commanders.

The sub continued to communicate successfully with the command center back on-shore until March 28. It carried on towards the North African coast to patrol near Algeria and was sighted on April 2. Then, though, came silence. Desperate attempts to reach the sub by radio proved futile. She was lost.

It was on April 6 that the U-455 was officially declared missing, but where and why were still a mystery. There was no sign that the sub had engaged in combat, so it seemed unlikely it’d been destroyed by an enemy vessel. The most popular theory at the time was that an accident had befallen the sub, but there was no proof.

And such proof wouldn’t be found until more than half a century later, when the submarine was finally rediscovered off the Italian coast. A professional diver by the name of Lorenzo Del Veneziano was the man responsible for the find. He’s an expert in marine archaeology, and in 2005 he was able to put his skills to good use.

We now know that when the U-455 was sunk on April 6, 1994, it was traveling through a minefield known as Fuss-Ball-Klub. This minefield had actually been laid by German forces, but incredibly Scheibe hadn’t been given an accurate map to allow him to avoid it. The sub may have been trying to turn when it steered straight into a mine.

There would’ve been a mighty explosion, and we can see from the U-boat wreck that it ripped through the stern. With a 33 feet expanse now missing from the sub’s hull, the crew had no chance. They probably weren’t that deep, as the observation deck for the periscope was in place. Nobody aboard survived.

So what happens now that we know the last resting place of this U-boat and its crew? Should it be explored further and treated like an archaeological site? Should any remains be removed and repatriated, or should everything be left exactly where it was found? Well, the fact it’s the final resting place of military personnel means it’s a war grave – and that means there are rules.

There are variations in how war graves are managed between countries. The U.K. has a specific piece of legislation, the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, which designates military shipwrecks and crashed aircraft that end up underwater as protected sites. In some cases you’re allowed to dive to see these sites but not touch them, while in others diving is altogether prohibited.

On the other hand, there was controversy in the Netherlands when it came to light that some Dutch underwater war graves were being salvaged for scrap metal. This would’ve been illegal if it involved graves on land, but there was no specific protection for sunken vessels. So the guarding of these wrecks has been dependent on the attitudes of the countries that control the waters where they’re located.

So in 2014 the International Community of Submariners Associations issued a memorandum condemning the plundering of underwater war graves and calling for stronger legal protections. At the same time, the traditional individual salvage diver had been superseded by modern technology that could snatch tons of sunken metal in a single crane claw, regardless of whether doing so disturbed human remains.

Some salvage operations in Indonesia have led to the bones of dead sailors being unceremoniously scattered and dumped without any consideration for the lives they once lived and the sacrifices they made. The Battle of Java saw close to 1,000 Dutch seamen perish. Many of their bodies are now either in mass graves or adrift at sea.

One of the most significant American underwater finds of the 21st century was the wreck of the USS Indianapolis, which sank in 1945 but wasn’t rediscovered until 2017. It’d been the single greatest maritime loss of life in the history of the U.S. Navy. The tragedy was only compounded by how near to the conclusion of the conflict that it occurred.

The Indianapolis had a distinguished service history. It played a part in the taking of Iwo Jima in 1945. And later that year the hip helped transport parts of the nuclear weapon that would be used on Japan, before being hit by enemy torpedoes en route to the Philippines.

It only took the Indianapolis a little over ten minutes to sink, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Close to 1,000 seamen were left above the water on pieces of floating wreckage, only to have their distress messages ignored because the U.S. suspected a trap. More than half of the men perished in the days before they were spotted by a pilot flying overhead. Many of the survivors had been attacked by sharks.

That particular part of the Pacific Ocean is very deep and has an entire sub-aquatic mountain range on its floor. This made any attempt to locate the Indianapolis extremely difficult, but eventually a special research vessel with advanced sub-sea equipment found it. The location remains secret, though, so it’s easier to protect as a war grave.

Protection of U.S. military vessels is covered by the Sunken Military Craft Act of 2004, which makes it clear that any ship of the U.S. Navy remains the property of the U.S. even if it’s at the bottom of the ocean. Diving may be allowed for educational or archaeological reasons, but only with permission from the navy. The act also protects foreign military vessels wrecked in U.S. waters from being disturbed.

The U-455 remains at the bottom of the Mediterranean, where local diving facilities can organize visits. It’s not too far from other WWII craft including the Uj2216 and Uj2210 submarine chasers that both sank in 1944. There are steamships as well, some of which come from the world wars and one that dates right back to 1891.

While you can still swim around the body of the U-455, you can’t disturb it. That’s not just because of its sacred status as a war grave but also the danger the sites poses. The collapsed parts of the sub where it hit the mine have become covered in fishing nets that could trap people as well as sea creatures. It’s also quite a technical dive that’s not for the unskilled.

Someone who’s dived to the U-455 is Vic Verlinden. His first attempt involved bad weather, poor visibility and cramp when he tried to return to the surface. He thought it was worth it, though, and tried again the next day. He and his diving companions later “agreed that we had two exceptional dives on a wreck that is unique in the whole world.”

Florent M. Locatelli is another diver who was awed by his visit to the U-455. He and his companions left from Arenzano rather than Santa Margarita Ligure and had the advantage of GPS to help locate the right spot. They didn’t even reach the bottom of the seabed because they were so “truly fascinated” by what they saw and the “incredible” size and presence of the sub.

Locatelli described how difficulties and wait times were worth it because “we have filled our heads and eyes with images and memories.” It shows the kind of impact an old and damaged wreck can have when you become aware of its history. The 51 men who died on the U-455 can now be remembered in their final resting place.