B
Bill_in_fl
Guest
Hello.
My name is Bill Akins. I am the director of the Warbird Recovery Team (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Warbird_Recovery_Team) which is a sunken wreck recovery division of the Florida Aviation Historical Society (F.A.H.S.).
Although our main thrust is recovery and museum preservation of sunken warbirds I am also interested in submarine wrecks.
The below e mail correspondence I include seeks questions to be answered by Cpt. Bill and anyone else who has knowledge about these submarine wrecks in Florida waters.
If you have any information regarding this german midget submarine off Egmont Key in Florida please contact me at [email protected]
I had originally answered a post to Treasure net at it's old site that is no longer existing. It was a post by Cpt. Bill about sunken submarines in Florida. I e mailed Cpt Bill but
my e mail was returned to me as undeliverable. Here it is below.
Hello Cpt Bill.
My name is Bill Akins. I live in Hudson Florida and am a diver whose father was a submariner during WW2. I saw your posting concerning a sunken submarine
online but the forum you were posting at is no longer in service.
Could you please tell me any information you have on this sunken submarine you spoke of in Gulf coast waters?
Any coordinates you have would be greatly appreciated since I would love to dive on this submarine wreck.
Drop me an e mail or better yet phone me. Thanks.
Kindest Regards,
Bill Akins. [email protected] Ph. (727) 819-8352
These next below e mails were sent by me questioning about the sunken german midget sub.
Dear Sir.
Several weeks ago I was reading about U166 as being the only german submarine sunk in the Gulf of mexico.
I am a diver and it has come to my attention that we have a german two man midget sub sunken very close
to where I live near Tampa Florida U.S.A.. I am planning a dive trip to it to access it. My information is the sub is sunk in 18 feet of water
about a mile east of Egmont key. My dive partner has a book where it tells of the coast guard taking the captured
sub out in 1945 and using it as a target for gunnery practice and sinking it. I also had some diver acquaintances
tell me they were diving on a small submarine just off Egmont key and the U.S. Coast Guard came over to their
boat and told them that they had to leave because there were military exercises in the area. This was not true and
there were no ships or exercises in that area. It would seem that the coast guard does not want people to dive this sub
for some reason and the very existance of this sub is almost unknown by people here. I was planning to contact the coast
guard and try to find out more but I am afraid they might be less than helpful considering them running the other divers away
without legal cause. If this sub is in Florida waters it belongs to the state of florida and the coast guard would have no authority
over it and thus could not legally run divers away from it. I am assuming since it was captured and used for gunnery practice that
there would not be unexploded munitions aboard and any munitions would have been taken off before being towed out and sunk.
But when a coast guard boat with armed men tell you to leave legally or not, it is hard to argue.
Do you have any idea who I might contact that could aid me in bringing the existance of this sub to public knowledge or any U boat
organization who might be able to help me cut thru government or coast guard red tape so that we can dive this sub and record if it is
a biber of another type? Ideally if I could interest the state of Florida in the project we could raise the sub and preserve it for static museum display
instead of letting it rust away to nothing in another 60 years.
Any information you have that could help would be greatly appreciated.
Kindest Regards,
Bill Akins.
[email protected] Telephone (727) 819-8352
Here are several below responses to my above e mail.
Bill,
This sounds interesting. Please tell me the name of the book, and if possible scan and e-mail the pages to me that talk about the sub.
I grew up in Bradenton and my maternal grandfather (Al Robson) was a Florida Maritime Historian. My other grandfather was the publisher of the Bradenton Herald,so I grew up hearing a lot of things.
I have heard for many decades about a possible German W.W. II U-Boat off of Tampa Bay, specifically Sarasota. The St. Petersburg Times did a couple of stories about this in the early to mid 1960's. We also have a friend of the family (Gene Cloud) of Bradenton who swears he found and dove on a submarine in the early 1960's. He found it by accident though and was not able to find it again. (He has not looked for it for years.) In addition to that, I remember someone telling my grandfather that a German W.W. I sub was scuttled off of Egmont after W.W. I.
So, I grew up thinking that these subs were out there. And, as I said, we have a reliable friend of the family that swears he found a sub. But, fast forward to current day and as I said in my previous posting, all of today's experts say that there are absolutely no German U-Boats (from either war) out in the Gulf off of Tampa Bay. (There is U-166 south of the Mississippi River in deep, deep water as well as the U-2513 in 220 feet of water about 40 miles west of the Dry Tortugas.) The experts say that all of the U-boats from both wars that were sent to Gulf waters have been accounted for. I just had this discussion last month while working with the History Channel's Deep Sea Detectives off Dry Tortugas. (I work as a publicity still photographer on film and television shows.)
So, having said all of that, I am lead to believe that either there are no German subs off of Tampa Bay or that they're there and no one knows about it as there is no record of it. And that is certainly not impossible as that is exactly what the Deep Sea Detective hosts (John Chatterton and Richie Kohler) found out when they found and eventually identified the previously unknown U-Boat off of New Jersey in 240 feet of water that was not supposed to be there either! (Have you read the book, "Shadow Divers?")
So I don't know what to think really. I want to believe our family friend who says he saw it, and I would like to find it myself for that matter, and document it. However, it seems to be unlikely at this point. But, I'm not giving up hope yet.
I have never heard of any midget German sub off of Egmont, and I've been going to and familiar with Egmont my whole life. There is an area off of Egmont that has a lot of ammo and other items dumped there through the years. It's quite possible that the Coast Guard did not want people to dive there as it is dangerous. This area used to be marked on the charts and I assume they still are. Do you think that is where they were diving?
Another quick story, back in the late 1950's, my grandfather and others found an old aircraft engine on the east side of Egmont in about 12 feet of water or so. It was from a plane that had crashed there sometime during flight practice during W.W. II. (Egmont, as you probably know, was a major army base starting from the Spanish American War through W.W. II and it had, among many other things, a landing strip on the southern end of the island.)
Well, I hope some of this has been helpful. Please let me know about the book and other information you might be able to provide. I live up near Gainesville now but I come down there a handful of times a year and would love to go out and see what your friends are talking about. I shoot underwater photos too, so we could document this once and for all if indeed it is there. (After all, old pipes and other things could certainly look like a small sub.)
In recent years I have really tried to nail down some concrete information on this German sub off of Tampa Bay, and to date, I can say that there is no "official" record of it. But like I said before, that does not mean that it is not there....
I'll look forward to hearing back from you.
Gene Page
Micanopy, FL
[email protected]
Bill,
Sounds exciting. I do not have any historical info on a midget sub off the Keys. Please let me know if you find it.
Sincerely,
Capt. Dan Berg
www.aquaexplorers.com
If it is one of the three "Seehund" the US captured and send to Florida
short after the war it is useless as display. There are at least 12
remainig boats of this type all over the world in static display. One at
least in the USA. Some of them in condition like new. But if this is the
missing one-man "Delphin" that would be a great catch. No boat survifed
or is on display.
regards Carsten
> Akins schrieb:
>
> Hello everyone.
>
> Several weeks ago I was reading about WW2 German U boat U166 being
> found in 2001 in 5000 ft of water and how it is the only german sub
> sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.
>
> That might not be correct and there just might be two subs.
>
> This got me to thinking about some divers I spoke with about a year
> ago. They told me they were diving just one mile east of one of our
> islands here in Florida
>
> and found a small sunken submarine. They said the coast guard came out
> to their boat, hassled them, and then told them to leave because of
> military
>
> exercises in the area. There were no military ships in the area
> though.
>
> I didn't give this much thought and figured they were just pulling my
> chain and attributed it to another U boat legend of which there are
> many.
>
> Then yesterday, my dive buddy who is an instructor and I had told of
> the above incident called me. He told me he has a book that tells of
> the coast guard in 1945
>
> taking a captured two man german midget sub out to just one mile east
> of one of our islands and using it for gunnery practise and sinking
> it. The book
>
> even told how many shells were used to sink it. Joe (my dive buddy)
> has a chart with the possible location of the sub. This chart is
> seperate and unrelated to the above mentioned book.
>
> He is coming over tomorrow night and we are going to try and plan a
> dive trip to see if we can locate the sub. The book said it was in
> only 18 ft of water.
>
> I have heard many U boat legends about the one loaded with treasure,
> then the one loaded with mercury. Most if not all of them are just
> that. Legends.
>
> But this one seems to have recurring evidence and since it is so close
> I would love to check it out. If the coast guard towed it out for
> gunnery practise you would
>
> think any munitions would not be aboard and thus the coast guard would
> not care to run people away from it. Puzzling.
>
> Since the sub would be in Florida waters I would think the state would
> have authority over the sub and not the coast guard. I asked the
> divers of the previous year about
>
> that and they said they didn't argue the law with men with guns but
> left as ordered. Any ideas here of who I could contact to determine
> who owns the sub, if it can legally be dove upon,
>
> and if the coast guard has authority to run me away. Any knowledge on
> this would be helpful. If it IS there, being a midget it could be
> raised and preserved for static museum display.
>
> Some might say leave it alone. But if we leave them there another 60
> years will there be anything left but a mound of iron oxide? What do
> we leave for future generations by doing that?
>
> Thanks.
> Kindest Regards,
> Bill Akins.
This is an e mail from me and the response I received from the Coast Guard historical office in Wash D.C.
The following inquiry was submitted on 02/25/05. The topic, question, and our response is below. Thank you for your interest and/or concern.
Topic: Location of captured German WW2 sub off Egmont Key Florida
Comment/Question:
I am a diver who has information that says..."A two man german submarine lies in about 18 feet of water approximately one mile east of Egmont Key near the mouth of Tampa bay. In 1945 a Coast Guard commander had been given orders to sink the captured baby U boat. The choice of a site was left up to him. Since the commander's crew needed target practice, he had the sub anchored fore and aft at low tide of Egmont Key Florida where they sank it with 12 six inch shells"
I would like to find out the exact location of this sunken midget sub so that I may dive on it.
Any information you have concerning this would be greatly appreciated. You may reach me by e mail at [email protected] or by phone at (727) 819-8352 Bill Akins.
Response:
Hello:
I've never heard of this story; any surviving documentation will be in the National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/research_room/obtain_copies/textual_archives_services.html
If you have further questions or would like more information, feel free to contact us at the link below. Please submit replies using the 'Submit Inquiry' link to ensure we receive your inquiry.
USCG Headquarters Public Affairs
HQ News Site
My name is Bill Akins. I am the director of the Warbird Recovery Team (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Warbird_Recovery_Team) which is a sunken wreck recovery division of the Florida Aviation Historical Society (F.A.H.S.).
Although our main thrust is recovery and museum preservation of sunken warbirds I am also interested in submarine wrecks.
The below e mail correspondence I include seeks questions to be answered by Cpt. Bill and anyone else who has knowledge about these submarine wrecks in Florida waters.
If you have any information regarding this german midget submarine off Egmont Key in Florida please contact me at [email protected]
I had originally answered a post to Treasure net at it's old site that is no longer existing. It was a post by Cpt. Bill about sunken submarines in Florida. I e mailed Cpt Bill but
my e mail was returned to me as undeliverable. Here it is below.
Hello Cpt Bill.
My name is Bill Akins. I live in Hudson Florida and am a diver whose father was a submariner during WW2. I saw your posting concerning a sunken submarine
online but the forum you were posting at is no longer in service.
Could you please tell me any information you have on this sunken submarine you spoke of in Gulf coast waters?
Any coordinates you have would be greatly appreciated since I would love to dive on this submarine wreck.
Drop me an e mail or better yet phone me. Thanks.
Kindest Regards,
Bill Akins. [email protected] Ph. (727) 819-8352
These next below e mails were sent by me questioning about the sunken german midget sub.
Dear Sir.
Several weeks ago I was reading about U166 as being the only german submarine sunk in the Gulf of mexico.
I am a diver and it has come to my attention that we have a german two man midget sub sunken very close
to where I live near Tampa Florida U.S.A.. I am planning a dive trip to it to access it. My information is the sub is sunk in 18 feet of water
about a mile east of Egmont key. My dive partner has a book where it tells of the coast guard taking the captured
sub out in 1945 and using it as a target for gunnery practice and sinking it. I also had some diver acquaintances
tell me they were diving on a small submarine just off Egmont key and the U.S. Coast Guard came over to their
boat and told them that they had to leave because there were military exercises in the area. This was not true and
there were no ships or exercises in that area. It would seem that the coast guard does not want people to dive this sub
for some reason and the very existance of this sub is almost unknown by people here. I was planning to contact the coast
guard and try to find out more but I am afraid they might be less than helpful considering them running the other divers away
without legal cause. If this sub is in Florida waters it belongs to the state of florida and the coast guard would have no authority
over it and thus could not legally run divers away from it. I am assuming since it was captured and used for gunnery practice that
there would not be unexploded munitions aboard and any munitions would have been taken off before being towed out and sunk.
But when a coast guard boat with armed men tell you to leave legally or not, it is hard to argue.
Do you have any idea who I might contact that could aid me in bringing the existance of this sub to public knowledge or any U boat
organization who might be able to help me cut thru government or coast guard red tape so that we can dive this sub and record if it is
a biber of another type? Ideally if I could interest the state of Florida in the project we could raise the sub and preserve it for static museum display
instead of letting it rust away to nothing in another 60 years.
Any information you have that could help would be greatly appreciated.
Kindest Regards,
Bill Akins.
[email protected] Telephone (727) 819-8352
Here are several below responses to my above e mail.
Bill,
This sounds interesting. Please tell me the name of the book, and if possible scan and e-mail the pages to me that talk about the sub.
I grew up in Bradenton and my maternal grandfather (Al Robson) was a Florida Maritime Historian. My other grandfather was the publisher of the Bradenton Herald,so I grew up hearing a lot of things.
I have heard for many decades about a possible German W.W. II U-Boat off of Tampa Bay, specifically Sarasota. The St. Petersburg Times did a couple of stories about this in the early to mid 1960's. We also have a friend of the family (Gene Cloud) of Bradenton who swears he found and dove on a submarine in the early 1960's. He found it by accident though and was not able to find it again. (He has not looked for it for years.) In addition to that, I remember someone telling my grandfather that a German W.W. I sub was scuttled off of Egmont after W.W. I.
So, I grew up thinking that these subs were out there. And, as I said, we have a reliable friend of the family that swears he found a sub. But, fast forward to current day and as I said in my previous posting, all of today's experts say that there are absolutely no German U-Boats (from either war) out in the Gulf off of Tampa Bay. (There is U-166 south of the Mississippi River in deep, deep water as well as the U-2513 in 220 feet of water about 40 miles west of the Dry Tortugas.) The experts say that all of the U-boats from both wars that were sent to Gulf waters have been accounted for. I just had this discussion last month while working with the History Channel's Deep Sea Detectives off Dry Tortugas. (I work as a publicity still photographer on film and television shows.)
So, having said all of that, I am lead to believe that either there are no German subs off of Tampa Bay or that they're there and no one knows about it as there is no record of it. And that is certainly not impossible as that is exactly what the Deep Sea Detective hosts (John Chatterton and Richie Kohler) found out when they found and eventually identified the previously unknown U-Boat off of New Jersey in 240 feet of water that was not supposed to be there either! (Have you read the book, "Shadow Divers?")
So I don't know what to think really. I want to believe our family friend who says he saw it, and I would like to find it myself for that matter, and document it. However, it seems to be unlikely at this point. But, I'm not giving up hope yet.
I have never heard of any midget German sub off of Egmont, and I've been going to and familiar with Egmont my whole life. There is an area off of Egmont that has a lot of ammo and other items dumped there through the years. It's quite possible that the Coast Guard did not want people to dive there as it is dangerous. This area used to be marked on the charts and I assume they still are. Do you think that is where they were diving?
Another quick story, back in the late 1950's, my grandfather and others found an old aircraft engine on the east side of Egmont in about 12 feet of water or so. It was from a plane that had crashed there sometime during flight practice during W.W. II. (Egmont, as you probably know, was a major army base starting from the Spanish American War through W.W. II and it had, among many other things, a landing strip on the southern end of the island.)
Well, I hope some of this has been helpful. Please let me know about the book and other information you might be able to provide. I live up near Gainesville now but I come down there a handful of times a year and would love to go out and see what your friends are talking about. I shoot underwater photos too, so we could document this once and for all if indeed it is there. (After all, old pipes and other things could certainly look like a small sub.)
In recent years I have really tried to nail down some concrete information on this German sub off of Tampa Bay, and to date, I can say that there is no "official" record of it. But like I said before, that does not mean that it is not there....
I'll look forward to hearing back from you.
Gene Page
Micanopy, FL
[email protected]
Bill,
Sounds exciting. I do not have any historical info on a midget sub off the Keys. Please let me know if you find it.
Sincerely,
Capt. Dan Berg
www.aquaexplorers.com
If it is one of the three "Seehund" the US captured and send to Florida
short after the war it is useless as display. There are at least 12
remainig boats of this type all over the world in static display. One at
least in the USA. Some of them in condition like new. But if this is the
missing one-man "Delphin" that would be a great catch. No boat survifed
or is on display.
regards Carsten
> Akins schrieb:
>
> Hello everyone.
>
> Several weeks ago I was reading about WW2 German U boat U166 being
> found in 2001 in 5000 ft of water and how it is the only german sub
> sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.
>
> That might not be correct and there just might be two subs.
>
> This got me to thinking about some divers I spoke with about a year
> ago. They told me they were diving just one mile east of one of our
> islands here in Florida
>
> and found a small sunken submarine. They said the coast guard came out
> to their boat, hassled them, and then told them to leave because of
> military
>
> exercises in the area. There were no military ships in the area
> though.
>
> I didn't give this much thought and figured they were just pulling my
> chain and attributed it to another U boat legend of which there are
> many.
>
> Then yesterday, my dive buddy who is an instructor and I had told of
> the above incident called me. He told me he has a book that tells of
> the coast guard in 1945
>
> taking a captured two man german midget sub out to just one mile east
> of one of our islands and using it for gunnery practise and sinking
> it. The book
>
> even told how many shells were used to sink it. Joe (my dive buddy)
> has a chart with the possible location of the sub. This chart is
> seperate and unrelated to the above mentioned book.
>
> He is coming over tomorrow night and we are going to try and plan a
> dive trip to see if we can locate the sub. The book said it was in
> only 18 ft of water.
>
> I have heard many U boat legends about the one loaded with treasure,
> then the one loaded with mercury. Most if not all of them are just
> that. Legends.
>
> But this one seems to have recurring evidence and since it is so close
> I would love to check it out. If the coast guard towed it out for
> gunnery practise you would
>
> think any munitions would not be aboard and thus the coast guard would
> not care to run people away from it. Puzzling.
>
> Since the sub would be in Florida waters I would think the state would
> have authority over the sub and not the coast guard. I asked the
> divers of the previous year about
>
> that and they said they didn't argue the law with men with guns but
> left as ordered. Any ideas here of who I could contact to determine
> who owns the sub, if it can legally be dove upon,
>
> and if the coast guard has authority to run me away. Any knowledge on
> this would be helpful. If it IS there, being a midget it could be
> raised and preserved for static museum display.
>
> Some might say leave it alone. But if we leave them there another 60
> years will there be anything left but a mound of iron oxide? What do
> we leave for future generations by doing that?
>
> Thanks.
> Kindest Regards,
> Bill Akins.
This is an e mail from me and the response I received from the Coast Guard historical office in Wash D.C.
The following inquiry was submitted on 02/25/05. The topic, question, and our response is below. Thank you for your interest and/or concern.
Topic: Location of captured German WW2 sub off Egmont Key Florida
Comment/Question:
I am a diver who has information that says..."A two man german submarine lies in about 18 feet of water approximately one mile east of Egmont Key near the mouth of Tampa bay. In 1945 a Coast Guard commander had been given orders to sink the captured baby U boat. The choice of a site was left up to him. Since the commander's crew needed target practice, he had the sub anchored fore and aft at low tide of Egmont Key Florida where they sank it with 12 six inch shells"
I would like to find out the exact location of this sunken midget sub so that I may dive on it.
Any information you have concerning this would be greatly appreciated. You may reach me by e mail at [email protected] or by phone at (727) 819-8352 Bill Akins.
Response:
Hello:
I've never heard of this story; any surviving documentation will be in the National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/research_room/obtain_copies/textual_archives_services.html
If you have further questions or would like more information, feel free to contact us at the link below. Please submit replies using the 'Submit Inquiry' link to ensure we receive your inquiry.
USCG Headquarters Public Affairs
HQ News Site
