Missing German U-boat found off UK coast after 82 years

A diver has revealed the moment he found a German U-boat had lain at the bottom of the English Channel after being sunk in World War Two.

The sunken U-672 was found about 20 miles off the coast of Salcombe, Devon after it was damaged by depth charges dropped by HMS Balfour in 1944.

82 years later, the U-672’s emblem was identified by divers who matched its snorkel system and radar-decoy equipment to the missing submarine known for having a pig painted on a tower.

Dominic Robinson, a diver with Plymouth’s Gasperados team who discovered the wreck, said: ‘I started seeing the individual features.

‘I saw the snorkel, I saw the conning tower, all those kind of things – I knew that we were going to get the video needed to identify it, so I was really pleased about that.’

The captain of the leaking submarine waited until the last moment before deciding to float to the surface and give his crew a last chance of surviving.

He then intentionally sunk the vessel carrying the 52-strong German crew.

The crew, who all survived, were left to bob around in lifeboats before they were captured and then returned to Germany after the war.

The diver said he had spoken to the family of the U-boat’s captain who said he lived a ‘long and happy life’.

He added: ‘They just said how proud he would have been and how pleased he would have been to know that it had been found at last.’

The co-ordinates it was sunk on were input incorrectly, so nobody could find it until this month.

Dr Axel Niestle, a historian who specialises in U-boats, said ‘due to a clerical error’ the position of the U-boat ended up being recorded ‘some 46 miles’ away.