Talk:German submarine U-559

Skinny dipping

The article mentions the three men swimming naked to the U-boat, but I'm puzzled as to why. Warm weather? Hellbus (talk) 04:13, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

This article also notes that there is some debate about how they reached the U-boat, fully clothed or not. I have plumped for the 'travelling in the whaler' story simply because I have read GG Connell's account about Petard; and he should know what happened, he was a sub-lieutenant commanding the whaler! RASAM (talk) 19:31, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

'Citation needed'

I have removed the sentence in para 2 of the 'sinking' section that states: "The Germans were collected by British ships and sent below decks, where they would not have seen what followed.", because a) the 'citation needed' tag has been there over a year, b) I can find nothing to substaniate it and c) further on in the same paragraph we get: "Two German crew members, rescued from the sea, watched this material [code-books and so on] being loaded into Petard's whaler." This seems to make the earlier sentence irrelevant.

RASAM (talk) 19:31, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Seacocks

Were the seacocks open or closed when U-559 sank?

In the U-559 article, it says they were closed: "The German crew hurriedly scrambled overboard without destroying their codebooks or Enigma machine and, crucially, having failed to open sea-water vents to properly scuttle the U-boat."

However, on the Tommy Brown article it says they were open: "The German crew had opened the boat's seacocks before abandoning ship causing the vessel to rapidly take on water." [1]

I would tend to believe that they were open, there normally being no other way for a vessel to flood that quickly, except that the U-559 article also states: "After dark, U-559, with a cracked pressure hull, unable to maintain level trim and four of her crew dead from explosions and flooding, was forced to the surface." A cracked pressure hull could explain why a vessel with closed seacocks would sink to quickly.

Similarly, the webpage Ellsbury.com states: "In the captain's cabin Fasson found some documents printed in water-soluble ink. Despite the water pouring through the shell hole, Brown succeeded in keeping them dry as he clambered up the ladder in the conning tower and passed them to others waiting in Petard's whaler made fast alongside."

However, the webpage Shipwrecks of Egypt states: "The crew of the submarine opened seavalves and petcocks in order to scuttle the submarine before abandoning it."

Can anyone provide a definite answer? -Noha307 (talk) 01:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Original research

The Aftermath section here had a paragraph about a dive by Peter Keeble in 1942 which was presumed by the editor to have been on U-559.
This has been there for about 4 years, but appears to be entirely original. I cannot find any references to support the idea (and the sources we have say that Fasson and Glazier recovered the Enigma set from U-559, which would have made such a dive un-necessary) but it is an interesting idea (the official version could itself have been a cover story), so I’ve userfied it here, rather than simply deleting it. Xyl 54 (talk) 18:00, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I did a quick search and came up with a reference to U559 in Mallmann Showell's Enigma U-Boats which deals with the matter. On first sight the few glimpses I get in google books seem to corroborate the information in the paragraph removed. So what is the problem here? --ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 11:24, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for replying;

What references did you find? The only one I got was this one sentence from Showell; do you know what else he said? Also, I notice that Showell's publishing date was November 2009, while the material here was added in March 2008 (make of that what you will...)

The passage I took out was written as a speculation, (did you read it?) based on Keeble’s book, not as an account with a source saying he definitely went down to U-559. Also, there are a couple of discrepancies in the story, which I mentioned there.

But I userfied it in case there was some corroboration to be had; if you have something definitive we can always fix it up and put it back...Xyl 54 (talk) 17:54, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I had a chance to read the whole chapter 8 of Enigma U-boats (by the way, it seems the book was originally published in 2000) now and you are absolutely right about removing the passage. Mallmann Showell discusses the merits of the theory of U307 actually being U559 on pages 93-96. He derives to the conclusion that Keeble's U307 is more likely to be U205 as U559 is too deep to be accessible to divers. --ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 12:39, 30 January 2013 (UTC) P.S.: It may prove worthwhile to make a brief mention of this in the article since the Keeble book is still on the list and the theory may surface again at some point in the future (pun intended).

Good work on tracking that down! My local library has a couple of Showell’s books, but not that one.

What to do with it is a bit more problematic. The matter couldn’t be really be summarized in a sentence, and any more than that here would be giving it undue weight. The best place for the information (I would say) would be in a section on our (yet-to-be-written) article on Peter Keeble, in a section on his Top Secret Dive. What I would suggest is, can you draft a paragraph on it from Showell’s book and put it on that userfied page? That way, as we have already discussed the matter, and it is linked from here, if anyone does come across the theory and wants to know more, it is available; and when we have a page on Keeble it can be moved over.

As for the book list here, it seems Keeble’s book was only here to support the now-removed paragraph; it doesn't serve any other purpose. I didn’t notice it last time, but I’ll take it out now. Xyl 54 (talk) 20:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

PS: I'm also requesting a source for the statement here that Petard's crew recvered an Enigma machine. I'd thought they did, but Sebag-Montefiore's book suggests they didn't. Did Showell mention it? Xyl 54 (talk) 20:41, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

It seems Nigel West's Historical Dictionary of Naval Intelligence is the source for the Petards recovering a four-rotor enigma from U559. Alas, I was cautioned about West, who seems to be rather sloppy with sources and statements, so this might just be such a case. Neither Mallmann Showell nor Sebag-Montefiore mention an enigma machine being captured. Sebag-Montefiore quotes Lacroix on trying - and failing - to retrieve a “small apparatus”, which could or could not have been an enigma machine. However, the most important thing to capture were the code books, as the codebreakers were already familiar with the hardware and the fourth rotor.

As to U559 and Keeble I would suggest to insert a sentence in the article saying that some believe him to have dived on U559 but that most authors regard U205 to be the boat he calls U307 in his book. The rest should be discussed in the article on U205, yet to be written. I will try to write something once I recovered enough from my cold to think straight again. ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 10:42, 3 February 2013 (UTC)