The U260 was scuttled on 12 March 1945 south of Ireland after being mined at 80 metres. All of the crew survived the scuttling and were interned in Ireland. The U boat was part of the North Atlantic patrol and had done 9 patrols sinking 1 ship 4,893 tons. At the time of its sinking it was under the command of Oblt. Klaus Becker was sailing with 33 Flottille operating out of Flenzburg, having sailed previously with 6 Flotille out of St Nazaire. Its current position is at 42m about 10 miles from Baltimore 4 miles south of Glandore.
After quite a trip out to the spot in a heavy swell surfing the waves all the way. We were dropped in on perfect slack and as the first divers in we went into that 40m glorious descent diwb the shot with the sea getting darker and darker. On hitting the bottom the shot was positioned right next to the conning tower which was visible without the aid of a torch. The sumbmarine is almost totally intact, lying upright on the sea bed with a slight list to port. The conning tower is a pretty magnificent sight which includes the periscope complete with intact optics as well as the low frequency arial both of which are absolutely covered with marine life. Looking into the open hatch in the tower leads you to wonder just how normal sized people can get through let alone a fully kitted diver.
We then swam to the bow of the sub along the decking that is fixed to the top of the structure. The bow is the only part of the sub to show any significant damage, though whether this is from an impact or from the supposed mine is uncertain. What is obvious are the torpedo tubes that hang out from the front and are very visible, apparently one is still loaded, but I did not see this. From this position we had just enough time to steam to the rear of the wreck to see the starboard prop clearly visible and encrusted with life again and zoom back to the shot, for the long ascent.
A short search for the shot line had to be conducted before Mr Henry found it, this was because it had been dragged by other divers hanging onto it, and after inflating the lifting bag we had to undergo significant decompression. So the A team were first in last out. I have dived this wreck previously but it still remains as good as I remember, I have also missed this wreck once when I was not the first to get in the water and some inconsiderate divers hung onto the shotline and dragged it a long way from the wreck. I would always encourage good practice of following a shot but not holding onto it unless it was fixed to a wreck.
Acknowledgements
As usual this page is cobbled together with information from other sources these are;
- U Boat .Net http://uboat.net/boats/u260.htm which contains a large amount of information covering a lot of U Boats
- Aquaventures http://www.aquaventures.ie/enindex.htm Who took us diving and allowed me to write something in this article that wasn't borrowed from elsewhere
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