Rick Stanley’s afternoon talks at the show detail the wrecks and their remarkable history according to relatives of a key personality involved in the action in 1942.
Before WWII, Germany had acquired iron mined from Newfoundland’s Bell Island. Once war was declared, this relationship ceased and the Bell Island ore started to be shipped to Britain.
Germany’s response was to attack shipping taking on iron ore in Bell Island’s Conception Bay. Four Allied carriers moored there were torpedoed by German U-Boats over a two-month period in 1942.
In September, U-513 torpedoed the Canadian Lord Strathconca and the British Saganaga. In November, U-518 sunk the Rose Castle and PLM-27.
Today these wrecks sit upright and intact at depths ranging from 18m to 48m, in clear water and covered in starfish, anemones, sea urchins, mussels and crabs.
In the mid 2000s Marita, the daughter of Captain Rolf Rüggeberg of U-513, was clearing out her mother’s house when she discovered a small box.
Inside were military documents, slide photos of icebergs and two Iron Crosses that Rüggeberg had received for sinking the Lord Strathconca and the Saganaga.
Her husband Barry started researching and managed to obtain a copy of the logbook detailing the U-boat’s action.
The story then took on a new twist when Barry attended one of the Dive Shows here in the UK.
After meeting representatives of Ocean Quest Newfoundland, which runs trips to dive the wrecks that Rüggeberg torpedoed, Marita and Barry visited Bell Island in July last year.
As a result of their experience, they decided to donate Rüggeberg’s possessions related to the sinkings, including the two Iron Crosses, to the Bell Island Museum.
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