
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 24, 1993                   TAG: 9308240007
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK                                LENGTH: Medium

SALVAGERS, WARTIME FOES SEEK TREASURE IN NAZI U-BOAT

Salvagers hoping for Nazi documents and treasure hoisted a German U-boat "in fantastic shape" out of a muddy seabed Monday where it sank in an Allied attack 48 years ago.

German survivors from the vessel and airmen from the British plane that bombed it gathered on the Danish island of Anholt for the recovery, singing war songs together and swapping stories.

Historians have speculated that the U-534, like some other German submarines seized near the end of the war, carried microfilms and paintings sent out of Germany in the last days of the Hitler regime. The vessel's good condition increased chances to recover such items if any were aboard.

"It's in fantastic shape, much better than we could have expected," said Jonathan Wardlow, a spokesman for the salvagers. The U-boat's tower had been damaged by fishing trawls, but the rest of the 255-foot submarine, which had sunk stern-first 220 feet deep into the mud, was nearly intact.

Wardlow said Capt. Finn Linnemann, a Danish Navy explosives specialist and the first man to board the submarine, found shells in deck lockers "in excellent condition." The hull was only slightly corroded and retained its original gray-brown color.

Salvagers had feared that the ammunition might have deteriorated and become dangerously unstable.

The 1,100-ton vessel was hoisted from the water by two giant cranes. Dutch crewmen from the Smit Tak crane company used hand tools to pry open deck hatches.

Three-quarters of the vessel was filled with water, but officers' quarters and the radio room were dry, behind watertight hatches closed by German sailors before they abandoned ship, salvagers said.

Eight German survivors and four airmen from the Liberator bomber that sank the submarine viewed the hoisting of the wreck.

"I guess I will have a little bit of excitement," the bomber's navigator, Neville Baker of Lakewood, Ohio, said before the recovery. "I was told that I would be the first [American] man ever who sank a German warship and saw it brought up again in my lifetime," said Baker, a native Briton who took U.S. citizenship.

The U-534 will be towed to Hirtshals, on the west coast of Denmark's Jutland peninsula, and turned into a museum.

by CNB