Divers To Try To Reach Sub.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31168, 19 September 1966, Page 17

Divers To Try To Reach Sub.

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright)

LONDON, September 17. Divers will try today to reach the sunken German submarine Hai, which went down in 120 feet of water in the North Sea on Wednesday night.

Only one survivor was found after the Hai, which carried a crew of 20, developed a leak and sank about 200 miles off England’s northeast coast on a voyage from Germany to Scotland. A British Defence Minister spokesman said that sea and weather conditions were suitable today. Gales hampered operations yesterday. Little hope is held that any of the crew could have survived in an air pocket in the submarine. Salvage experts on the German vessel Magnus Three hope to lift the submarine to within 50 feet of the surface today, and divers will then go down to make an inspection. In Plensburg, naval officers quoted the’ sole survivor of the crew, Peter Silbernagel, aged 23, as reporting that the crew had just sat down for supper when a man shouted from the engine room that water was crashing in. The submarine’s commander, Lieutentant JoachimPeter Wiedershein, ran to the engine room and then ordered the men to abandon ship. Seven or eight men, including the captain, scrambled to the bridge from where they

were swept into the water by a giant wave. They had tied themselves together with lines but were later torn apart in the raging seas. As they were struggling in the water the captain had tried to boost morale by assuring them: “We’ll manage all right. The Lech is certain to pick us up soon.” Last night the SchleswigHolstein Prosecutor-General, Mr Ernst Nehm, opened inquiries to determine whether negligence was involved in the submarine disaster, the first in the Navy’s post-war history.