SUB SEA STORY PAGE
Story #1
artist Mark Postlethwaite
THE HUNT FOR A GERMAN U-BOAT
"OPERATION CA-35" is a joint project of discovery conducted by Trident Research & Recovery, Inc. of Framingham, Massachusetts and Sub-Sea Research, Inc. of Portland, Maine. It is much more than just a marine salvage operation. Indeed, it is an attempt to discover the facts surrounding the sinking of a legendary German U-Boat off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in August of 1944, and to uncover the reasons for its secrecy for over fifty-four years.
The name assigned to this project is derived from the wartime German Naval marine quadrant location of the U-Boat wreckage initially located in 1993. The term 'CA' refers directly to the German navigational box coordinate designated for the area immediately off the eastern shore of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with the numbers '35' referring to the location within that designated box.
The process of discovery is a very time consuming matter. The reader must keep in mind that this brief is preliminary and therefore, incomplete. As information is received and assessed by Trident and Sub Sea it will be duly posted within updated and revised versions of this briefing.
II. H I S T O R I C A L O V E R V I E W
The availability of recently declassified military, political and intelligence documents are slowly assisting the professional researcher in filling in the gaps of World War Two history. Instead of seeing what appears to be a convoluted series of events we are now starting to
understand just how the geopolitical strategies of the various governments involved in the conflict actually dictated the outcome of the battlefield scenario.
With this in mind, we will relate here a general status of World War Two as it stood during the summer and fall of 1944, and then lay in the minute details that actually affected the important events unfolding during this time frame.
During the summer of 1944 the United States and her Allies, namely Great Britain and the Soviet Union, had commenced the final push to victory over Germany's Third Reich in Europe. The now famous "D-Day" landings on the French Normandy coast were successfully accomplished on 6 June and the German battle lines gradually gave way under the Allied onslaught. The German High Command knew well that it was the beginning of
a long retreat and would ultimately end in a total defeat..
In fact, a little over a year earlier in the month of February, 1943 the German military and civilian populace witnessed the disastrous events unfolding on the Russian Front. With the loss of the city of Stalingrad to the Soviet forces those individuals inside Germany with any insight at all could see very well what the inevitable outcome would be. As a result of these German military losses the several Nazi-Opposition groups, already in place within Germany since 1939, now began to increase their activity. These particular individuals and organizations firmly believed that Hitler's plans of domination were a direct threat to their country's best interests. The groups incorporated many of the German social and political elite who had actually assisted Hitler's Fascist machine in the first place, most notably Germany's "Technocrats" of political leaders, industrialists, bankers and highly placed military officers. By February of 1943 these opportun ists became increasingly disillusioned with the Hitlerite agendas and commenced making their own arrangements for their post-war futures, both as individuals and as corporate entities.
Highly placed military leaders such as Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Chief of Germany's leading intelligence agency the 'Abwehr', and Field Marshals' Walter von Kluge and Erwin Rommel, as well as several high-ranking staff officers within the Kriegsmarine and Wehrmacht, actively conspired in the failed attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler on the 20th. of July, 1944.
While the German military was attempting to eliminate the problem at its source, (Adolph Hitler), the conservative civilian opposition groups were attempting to alter the inevitable outcome of the war by initiating contacts with the "Western Allies", Great Britain and the United States. These various contacts were an effort to end the war for Germany under favorable terms for an armistice. The Nazi Opposition groups were literally fighting the clock, as every day that passed without an end to the war meant the further loss of German life and the wholesale destruction of property and post-war industrial capability. In fact, these specific concerns of a post-war German industrial survival were the prime motives of the Nazi-Opposition.
The Western Intelligence agencies and military commands were well aware of just what was going on inside Germany at this time and actually conducted numerous secret meetings with the German military and civilian leaders in an effort to end the war. However, the Western Allies possessed a vastly different agenda. Upon review of the available declassified political documents it appears that the American parties negotiating certain details with the German representatives had several separate agendas - all of which seem geared more at personal gain rather than the American public's best interest.
The President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had publicly stated as early as 1943 that no terms except "Unconditional Surrender" would be accepted from Germany by the three Allied powers; the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Roosevelt was to maintain this stand throughout the war. However, many of the hard-line political capitalists within the United States Department of State, the Office of Strategic Services and the military intelligence services had a vastly different idea of just how to end the war - all of which were to run contrary to the Presidential administration's policy decisions.
Operationally, the German U-Boat force still managed to keep its U-Boat fleet somewhat active during the summer and fall of 1944. The official records indicate that most of the available U-Boats were operationally concentrated within the North Sea and around the British Isles in its continuing attempt to strangle the Allied supply lines. Occasionally an independent U-Boat patrol would be deployed into the North Atlantic to sink ships, report on weather or both. There were two "Special Missions" deployed against the American coast in 1944, only one of which was to succeed off the Maine coast near the end of the year. In that particular case, the U-1230 successfully landed two agents at Winter Harbor. The success was minimal however, since both men were eventually picked up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
During the first week of July, 1944 an incident involving a U-Boat and the U.S. Naval Airship "K-14" occurred off Bar Harbor, Maine. As is made so painfully clear in the official Inquiry records, the U-Boat in question brought down the "K-14" with 20mm Anti-Aircraft fire resulting in the loss of six Airship crewmen out of a total compliment of ten men. The Inquiry and related intelligence reports also show that the "K-14" was somewhat successful in at least severely damaging the enemy vessel. Unfortunately, this incident was also kept secret for over 54 years.
Another situation occurred on 20 August of this year. The U-1229 was intercepted on the surface off the eastern edge of the Grand Banks by an American "Hunter-Killer" Naval Task Force as it was proceeding to the American coast on a 'spy-insertion' operation. The U-1229 went down with about one-third of her crew, but 41 survivors of this sinking wererescued as prisoners of war by the American destroyers on the scene.
What was not known by most military men at this time, however, was the fact that the Type XI U-Boat was also proceeding to the American coast - at that time located only 20 nautical miles distant from the U-1229 at the time of the latter's demise.
III. T H E "B L A C K K N I G H T"
According to the official design drafts laid out for the German Type XI-B U-Cruiser in 1939, the specifications for this vessel were as follows:
Length Overall:
115 meters (377 ft.)
Breadth:
9.5 meters (31.3 ft.)
Depth:
6.2 meters (20.3 ft.)
Extreme Displacement:
3,630 tons
Deadweight:
6,800 tons +
Propulsion Machinery:
2-shaft diesel/electric motors,(eight 12cyl. diesel engines in two separate engine rooms), plus two high-grade electric motors in third compartment
Armament:
4 torpedo tubes in the bow
2 torpedo tubes in the stern
6 torpedoes in ready-fire with
6 spare torpedoes carried below internal storage plates.
Above-Deck Armament:
4 127mm Guns in two twin armored turrets.
2 37mm AA mounted on deck amidships.
2 20mm AA mounted in after Wintergarten.
Ammunition Carried:
940 rounds total of 127mm.
4,000 rounds total of 37mm.
2,000 rounds total of 20mm.
(all carried in 3 separate magazines)
Crew:
110 men, with capability to carry an additional compliment of two company's' of "Special Coastal Troops", ('Brandenburgers')
Cargo Capacity:
600 cubic tons above provisions.
Accessories:
1 One-Man "Arado/Argus 231" reconnaissance seaplane stowed in forward vertical storage tube.
As detailed within the Kriegsmarine "K" Design Office, there were to be a total of four of these monstrous vessels laid down, with the possibility of constructing an additional four vessels should time and resources permit. However, it is known that only four keels were laid and that one was actually launched, the others eventually being scrapped prior to the end of the war before completion. The U-Boat Command intentions were to assign the numbers U-112 through U-115 to the first four vessels of the class. However, Kriegsmarine commissioning records reflect no such assignment of numbers and for all practical purposes the Type XI was never officially commissioned.
Very little is known about the Type XI-B U-Boat. All official histories state that the vessel type was never built and numerous publications indicate that the Type XI-B submarine design went only as far as a preliminary 'keel laying' at the building yards of Deschimag -A.G. Weser in Bremen, Germany. However, there is a subtle hint that at least one vessel of this type was indeed launched from the Deschimag yards. Contained within the records of the Military archive at Freiburgim-Breisgau, Germany is a brief mention of the "actual" yard trials in the Weser River of the Type XI U-Cruiser having attained a surface speed of 26 knots. This is supported to some degree by Eberhard Roessler's impressive publication "The U-Boat", in which this trial record is partly quoted. The details contained in the records of the Military archive in Germany make it very clear that the above speed trials were not obtained from 'tank' tests of models. Therefore, there certainly is s ome proof of the actual existence of a working and operational model of the legendary Type XI.
Amplified reports obtained from interviewed veterans of both the Allied and Axis intelligence services indicate very strongly that at some point during its existence, most probably in early 1944, the Type XI was berthed at the supposedly neutral ports of Vigo, Spain and Lisbon, Portugal on the Iberian Peninsula. These same sources have stated that the unofficial reference to the Type XI was "Die Schwarz Ritter", ("The Black Knight"). There is no official documentation of this but, considering the sources we must at least consider the high probability of these facts. It is certainly already well established that most of the clandestine activity directed by the Germans toward the Americas originated from the Iberian Peninsula, primarily through a German Industrial-Intelligence organization referred to as "www.archives.gov/publications/finding_aids/holocaust_era_assets/milit
ary_agency_records_part_2.html+sofindus&hl=en>Sofindus".
Of primary importance in connection with this area of course are the German series of Special Operations known as "JOLLE", (translated as "Happy Boat") and "AKTION FEUERLAND", (meaning "Action Land-of-Fire", referring to the southern geographical area of Argentina). These two operations were intended to pave the way for German post-war survival. Noted Nazi leaders and war criminals were in the process of laying the financial foundation for a "Fourth Reich" within the borders of such countries as Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and, most importantly for reasons of easy access, Argentina.
IV. C O N T R O L L E D P A N I C
As previously outlined within the 'Overview', the German Opposition groups were becoming increasingly bolder in their attempts at contacting the Western Allies through the various intelligence agencies. Those Opposition Group members associated with German Industrial concerns were the boldest, and possessed all the right connections to persuenegotiations for an acceptable armistice. The sole motive for the German Industrialists was obvious. They wished to maintain their corporate identity AND their financial assets for the post-war period. There were also many American Industrial concerns who wished to see this as well since a large percentage of ownership in these German companies were held by large American corporations - a blatant violation of the 'Trading With The Enemy Act'.
The accessed research documents show that by June of 1944 there were no less than eight separate meetings between German Industrialists and agents of the Office of Strategic Se rvices. The most active American in these efforts was Allen W. Dulles, the OSS Chief of Station head quartered in the neutral city of Berne, Switzerland.
The professional background of Allen Dulles and his brother, John Foster Dulles, are most interesting. It seems that both men were heavily involved in pre-war dealings between American and German Corporations through their law firm of 'Sullivan & Cromwell' in New York City. It was these same pre-war German connections with which Allen Dulles wasnegotiating throughout the winter of 1943 and the summer/fall of 1944. All official documentation points to the fact that the Dulles brothers were not operating in the best interests of United States foreign policy, but were actually motivated through personal reasons to help in creating an acceptable form of armistice which would benefit most the German Industrialists directly. This also involved the safe guarding of certain German securities, which both John Foster and Allen Dulles actively assisted with - regardless of its direct violation of accepted U.S. Treasury and Presidential administration policy. In shor t the Dulles brothers, along with a handful of U.S. diplomats and intelligence operatives, helped Nazis and Anti-Nazis alike to hide negotiable securities from Allied confiscators and at the same time assisted in negotiating an end to the war along lines which were contrary to the "Unconditional Surrender" guidelines as set forth jointly by the three major Allies.
While all of these manipulations were going on within the Allied camp, Germany was desperately trying to protect what she had left of her industrial and monetary systems. Every day that passed without a negotiated armistice meant the further loss of property and post-war capability. It is well documented that major German corporations began making plans for the safeguarding of its resources in supposedly "neutral" countries while continuing to pursue diplomatic agendas.
Of particular note are the individual operations of German corporations. Firms such as I.G.Farben and Krupp Industries were known to have liquidated their stock holdings into either gold coin or bars by June of 1944 in anticipation of secreting these hard assets into the neutral countries of Switzerland, Lichenstein, Portugal and, most importantly - Argentina. Indeed, the Krupp concerns alone possessed vast estate holdings in Argentina and post-war records confirm that many millions worth of negotiable securities did make it to these estates via U-Boat transport for eventual deposit in the German controlled banks of Banco Aleman Transatlantico and Banco Tornquist.
What helped to speed up both the safe guarding of Germancorporate assets and attempts at armistice negotiations were thedecisions of the Breton Woods International Monetary Conference held at Breton Woods, New Hampshire between 1 - 20 July, 1944. Most of the Allied Nations represented at this conference voted for the dissolution of the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland, a major money-launderer for the Nazis. With the loss of this particular bank the German corporations would find it much more difficult to move their ill-gotten profits out of Germany. On 9 July the Breton Woods Conference passed what is referred to as 'Resolution No. 6', which called for the dissolution of the Bank for International Settlements and the monitoring of the German movement of corporate wealth into neutral countries. Combined with a desperate need to negotiate an armistice this created a "Controlled Panic" situation within the German Industrial community.
When one studies the known movements of wealth and the options then open to both the German Anti-Nazi diplomats and Industrialists, it becomes obvious that drastic measures are indeed being planned. In September of 1944 a much delayed Finnish Intelligence report surfaced referring to a "Hitler Escape Boat" being made available at the port of Danzig, Poland as of early July. When one studies the details mentioned in this report there is only one conclusion: the alleged "Hitler Escape Boat" is none other than the Type XI-B U-Cruiser... the same vessel which was never officially commissioned into the Kriegsmarine. The very same vessel which is not supposed to even exist!
The long trail of records show that this vessel departed the port of Danzig, (Gdynia), on the afternoon of 20 July, 1944 - the same day as the assassination attempt on Adolph Hitler by the Nazi-Opposition. Records also indicate very strongly that the German Industrialists were behind the deployment of the Type XI-B U-Boat. One can only assume that the excuse for this vessel's existence in acting as a "Hitler Escape Boat" was only an accepted cover story for the benefit of the Nazi-Opposition, as quite obviously Hitler himself was not embarked on board the vessel at the time of its departure.
A "Controlled Panic" caused the Industrial Opposition to deploy this vessel as quickly as possible for a two-fold mission: to negotiate an acceptable armistice directly with U.S. representatives and to export to Argentina at least a portion of the German corporate securities. Thirty-Seven days later the Type XI-B U-Cruiser arrived off the
Massachusetts coast - committed to her clandestine mission.
V. C O D E N A M E: "O B S C U R E C I N C H"
The date of 25 August, 1944 appeared to begin as any normal day along the Eastern Sea Frontier. But, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence had been continuously briefed over the past few days by the British Admiralty "ULTRA" of an "Unknown" U-Boat heading their way. On 15 August Admiralty informed U.S. Navy "COMINCH", (meaning Commander-In-Chief), that a U-Boat they had designated as "LT" was heading across the Atlantic and that they suspected it was on a "SPECIAL MISSION" since it was observing radio silence and not reporting its daily position, as was the normal routine among U-Boat Commanders of the time.
On the 17th. of August British Admiralty appears to be reasonably sure that the mystery vessel was bound to the American coast, but inquire further from U.S. "COMINCH" for any additional information that may help in their assessments. Simultaneously to this tracking the U.S. Navy was following the movements of the U-1229, designated as the "RJ", (Red Jig), which appeared to be running a parallel course to the mystery U-Boat.
By the 18th. British Admiralty admitted to U.S. "COMINCH" that the heading of "LT", (Love Tare), "REMAINS OPEN", suggesting that all are totally confused as to the subject vessel's actual destination and purpose.
Then on 20 August the U-1229 was successfully sunk by U.S. Naval forces just east of the Grand Banks, as stated within the "ULTRA" radio-intercept transmission, as follows:
"TWO OFFICERS AND ONE PROPAGANDIST AMONG 41 P/S FROM LOVE EASY x C.O. LOST x YOUR 1279 PARA 4 x LOVE TARE HEADING BAFFLING BUT BEST GUESS IS HE IS APPROACHING ST JOHNS AREA x THIS CONSISTENT WITH AMERICA II..."
Again, on the 21st. U.S. "COMINCH" requested further information from the British Admiralty concerning the unknown U-Boat in question by stating:
"WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR FURTHER VIEWS AND WHEN CONVENIENT COMMENT ON QUERIES MY 386 AND 387 x".
After comparing all of the pertinent documents to the numerous other operational intelligence material is becomes obvious that the "ULTRA" staff are completely unaware of the actual mission of the Type XI-B U-Cruiser, whereas certain other intelligence operatives are totally aware of the facts. This is a typical example of "need to know"
restrictions between intelligence departments.
By the early evening of the 25th. it becomes obvious that the Type XI was successful in evading the U.S. Naval Task Forces east of the Grand Banks, as she surfaces at approximately 1600 hours just south of the Great Round Shoal Channel seven miles east of Great Point, Nantucket. Due to a submarine sighting by a commercial Pan-Am Plane at this time, the Naval Airship Squadron 'ZP-11' based at South Weymouth, Massachusetts
orders the Naval Airship "K-25" to divert from its escort patrol 60 miles to the northeast and to investigate the reported sighting. Local vessels of the Northern Ship Lane Patrol are also ordered to the scene, which included two Coast Guard 83-footers and two 110 foot Sub-Chasers.
At this same time O.N.I. Telegrapher Preston Howley was monitoring the U-Boat's wireless transmission from the Office of Naval Intelligence Radio Intercept Station located at Chatham, Cape Cod, only fourteen miles to the northwest of the U-Boat's position. According to Howley, the transmission was originating from an "S-5" position, (Navalparlance meaning from a very close location), and was being sent out on a 'diplomatic B-Bar' signal. This meant that this particular German U-Boat was sending diplomatic messages in a "High Priority" status. Given what we now know about this vessel's mission parameters, this diplomatic message tends to run parallel with the established facts. Howley described the message as being sent in three parts lasting just a few minutes each and separated by approximately two or three minutes. The total message lasted perhaps twenty minutes, enough to fill three legal-size teletype pages of coding data.
O.N.I. Telegrapher Howley duly re-transmitted this message over his teletype to the U.S. Naval Cryptographic Center in Washington, D.C. Within half an hour the message bounced back to his station from Washington with the statement that they wished him to verify the coding and destination address, which he did. Howley verified the coding and address which, looking back on it fifty-four years later, he firmly believes was destined for the White House Map Room. The White House Map Room was not just the President's War Room during World War Two. It was also an intelligence center for combined services - managed by the Department of State itself. The implications of Howley's experiences and later assessments are obvious.
The following operations, which lasted over two days, are code named "OBSCURE CINCH" and "LADY BULL". According to the 'Official' record these "Special Searches" resulted in no activity and no confirmation of any subsequent action at the scene. The fact that these operations occurred at exactly the same location as the present location of the wreckage of the Type XI-B discovered in 1993, however, is extremely indicative. Veteran interviews have revealed that the subject U-Boat was actually sunk by the Naval Airship "K-25", with the small surface vessels conducting a 48 hour surface search for survivors and debris. The official records certainly tend to support the follow-up search for debris, often termed as a "Yankee Search".
Unfortunately, only a further declassification of existing"Operational" documents would provide additional insight into exactlywhat happened and how it happened.
VI. I N S E A R C H O F A G H O S T
The first hint of the existence of a U-Boat wreck off Cape Cod occurred in 1988, when now Trident President Edward Michaud heard for the first time the accepted stories of its demise off the Cape from a local tug-boat skipper named Warren LeGyte. Michaud had been running a sixty-one foot crew-boat out of Boston for the then ongoing MWRA OutfallProject. Every night Michaud and his fellow crewmen would bunk in Warrens 100 foot tug "Georgina A", then tied up at one of the East Boston docks. Since hearing of the legendary U-Boat, Ed would query Warren of what he knew of the vessel and its location. In due time the MWRA contracts would end and Michaud would eventually locate the various veterans who were involved in the original 1944 incident.
By June of 1993 Michaud had joined up with several dedicated professionals in an attempt to re-locate the legendary Cape Cod U-Boat and on the 5th. of that month the first hazy side scan sonar images of the wreckage were obtained. Equipment and financing, however, were slow in coming and it was 9 December of 1993 before any detailed sonar images of the wreck could be obtained.
Upon the initial discovery in June it was assumed by all involved in the project that the U-Boat located off Cape Cod was a standard German Type IX-C/40 submarine on a routine war patrol at the time of its loss. However, when the detailed sonar images were obtained in December it was immediately apparent that what had been found was indeed much larger in both length and bulk. After weeks of study and comparisons with knownGerman building plans it became obvious that what had been found was actually a submarine that, according to all known histories, was not supposed to exist! Michaud and his team had found a German Type XI-B U-Cruiser - in and of itself a major discovery.
By November of 1994 the first detailed sonar imagery of the Type XI armored gun-mounts were obtained utilizing E.G.&G sonar equipment. This left little doubt as to the vessel's structural confirmation. The following month of December brought with it a dive to the confirmed wreck site by Michaud and fellow diver Mike Turner. Although underwatervisibility was at an all time low of one foot, a total of fifteen small artifacts were recovered from around the wreck's pressure-hull. It was noticed that the wreck overall was heavily encased in huge drifts of sand ledges, as is to be expected in the area. As an example, just several miles to the west the 325 foot long wreckage of the steam-freighter "Dixie Sword" is almost completely covered in the same pattern of sand disposition.
In March of 1995 Michaud and his group incorporated as Trident Research & Recovery, Inc. and by June the new company had filed for, and received, exclusive rights of salvage for the German Type XI-B U-Boat in the First Federal District Court in Boston. Under this Admiralty claim, Civil Action No. 95-11374RCL, Trident continued its survey of the site.
Of special interest to the company was the exact disposition of the wreckage and how this information correlated with the known research facts.
An Archaeologist was added to the survey team to insure proper methodology in the project. Additional Archivists and Researchers were consulted and the process of discovery continued both in the Archival repositories and on the site of the wreck itself.
VII.T O D A Y
As of August, 1997 Trident Research & Recovery, Inc. and Sub-Sea Research, Inc. of Portland, Maine combined their resources in order to bring the latter's experience, expertise and high technology ability to bear on the Project. Trident and Sub-Sea had been working jointly on other interesting research projects in the recent past, so it seemed only natural to combine the resources of both companies on the "Operation CA-35" Project.
The new Joint Venture will concentrate on obtaining video-tape footage of the Type XI-B wreck site and is presently planning on follow-up recovery operations. All vessel artifacts so recovered are slated for preservation and ultimate public display at the U.S.S. Salem Museum located in Quincy, Massachusetts. Needless to say, this should make for a rather impressive and informative stage for further public dissemination.
It should be noted that Trident has attempted on many occasions to open a dialogue with the respective offices of the U.S. Department of State, the Federal Republic of Germany and the U.S. Department of the Navy. All such requests for open discussion have gone ignored. It is hoped that in the near future this situation can be resolved. However, given the political revelations as described above, its really not very surprising that Government offices refuse to discuss this Project and its related investigations.
Several Senators and Congressmen have been notified by Trident in an attempt to both open such dialogues and assist in further investigations into the original 1944 incident. We at Trident and Sub-Sea believe that there will probably be more developments in this area as the Project moves forward.
As an additional note, if all of those very fine authors listed in Section "C" of the following Source Citations had been aware of the existence and deployment of the German Type XI-B there is no doubt that they too would have put the pieces together! Apparently, the missing link was the Type XI.
VIII. R E C E N T R E S E A R C H
There has been some very interesting revelations in the Project's follow-up of research data. Due to the efforts of contributing researcher Mr. Eric Brothers U.S. State Department Protocol documents are now available to confirm one of this investigation's long-standing curiosities - the visit of members of the Dutch Royal Family to Chatham, Cape Cod during the very same time-frame in which the German Type XI-B U-Boat was known to have been operational off Cape Cod.
These documents consist of a series of notifications between the representatives of the Dutch Royal Family in exile and the Protocol Section of the Department of State. On the surface they do indeed appear to be routine in nature. It is only when viewed with the other known occurrences off Cape Cod at this time that these Protocol records seem to indicate more than just routine procedure.
For example: One of the most obvious details that stand out is the sudden departure from Chatham of Princess Juliana and her royal attendants on the morning of the 26th. of August, 1944, only hours after the known destruction of the Type XI fourteen miles to the southeast. This, combined with a published news report in the local Cape Cod Times for that date, quote the Princess as opening a short public statement upon her departure, stating: "I will not talk about anything political and cannot take questions". She goes on to say how the Royal Family enjoyed their stay at the Chatham Bars Inn, etc.
Within five minutes the impromptu interview is over and the Royal Family departs by car for Boston enroute to Canada. The fact that these State Department Protocol documents were only declassified at the time Mr. Brothers requested to view them in July of 1997 is possibly indicative - fifty four years after the fact.
To add to this new information Trident had conducted background research into the Dutch Royal Family due to its suspicions and has confirmed the following:
1) The Royal Consort, Prince Bernhardt, Husband of Juliana since 1937, was previous to their marriage an active card-carrying member of Hitler's black-shirted SS.
2) Prince Consort Bernhardt was employed prior to, during, and after the war by I.G.Farben's Industrial Espionage Unit "NW-7" which, needless to say, placed him under great suspicions by both the British and American intelligence communities. The mere fact of his employment as an "industrial spy" for Farben places him squarely within the sphere of the German Industrial community, links for which have already been established with the Type XI-B U-Boat.
There are many more details regarding the Dutch Royal Family, Prince Bernhardt, Princess Juliana and the German Industrialists which have not been included in this specific brief due to space considerations. However, the basic facts as listed above give very strong indications regarding the Dutch Royal visit to Cape Cod at this specific time in July and August of 1944. Suffice it to say that there is the very strong possibility that Prince Consort Bernhardt, through his wife Princess Juliana, may very well have been acting as a sort of liaison or facilitator in connections for Armistice Negotiations between German Industrialists and certain members of the American Department of State and Intelligence Community. The final proof for this is as yet not confirmed, but the stage is certainly set for such endeavors. Perhaps the amplified documentation for such a situation is contained within the hull of the Type XI off Cape Cod.
Story #2
Say "the return" when discussing Haiti, and people who follow events in the country know you are talking about former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returning from his exile in South Africa. Mr. Aristide was ousted in a coup d'etat in February 2004, and flown, against his will, in a U.S. government plane to the Central African Republic. He has since settled in South Africa, at the government's invitation, but has always said he will return to Haiti when the conditions are right.
The conditions are getting closer to right, although President Aristide would now return as a private citizen. President René Preval was elected on February 7 and inaugurated on May 14, 2006. His Ministers were ratified by Parliament on June 7, replacing the brutal and unconstitutional Interim Government that had ruled since the coup. Haiti's Constitution limits presidents to two non-consecutive terms, and President Aristide's second term ended in February.
The prospect of President Aristide's return generates passionate reactions, both for and against, in Haiti, but also in Washington and other world capitols. The return is usually debated in terms of President Aristide's likely role in Haitian political life, but the controversy raises two important questions beyond politics- what right does everyone have to weigh in on a private Haitian citizen's decision to live inside his country or out? And what does the controversy say about the much broader issue of return- of the return of full democracy and sovereignty to Haiti.
President Preval is asked about the return incessantly by the foreign press, and he gives a simple answer: as he told France's Le Monde on Tuesday, "the decision is not mine to make." He cites Article 41 of Haiti's Constitution, which declares that "no individual of Haitian nationality can be deported or forced to leave the country for any reason whatsoever," and Article 41-1 which adds that "no Haitian needs a visa to leave the country or to return to it." President Preval affirms that he intends to comply with Articles 41 and 41-1, as with all the articles of Haiti's Constitution.
Several commentators have mentioned that President Aristide would have to face any legal action against him if he returns to Haiti, or if he goes to the U.S. That is true of any citizen in any country, but is independent of the right to come home. Moreover, although the foreign press has reported extensively on criminal investigations against President Aristide in both Haiti and the U.S., there are no criminal charges against him in either country. The Interim Government and its allies made many serious accusations of criminal activity against President Aristide to the press, but not a single one to the Haitian justice system in two years. The Interim authorities did file a civil complaint against Mr. Aristide and several others in Federal Court in Miami. They launched an impressive public relations campaign, including press conferences, Washington briefings and seminars to accompany the filing. But they did not actually pursue the case in court- eight months after filing the complaint (the first step), not a single defendant has ever been served with the complaint (the second step, usually done immediately). A U.S. grand jury has spent two years investigated drug trafficking and money laundering between Port-au-Prince and Miami, and although the "smoking gun" against President Aristide has been announced several times in the press, not a single charge has issued from the courthouse.
Articles 41 and 41-1 should dispose of the discussion of the return, but once again Haiti's Constitution is not allowed the last word. The countries that used their financial and military clout to remove President Aristide back in 2004- the U.S., Canada and France- are now using their diplomatic clout to keep him out. The U.S., once again, is taking the lead, with its trademark faithfulness to a consistent sound bite. Before the votes from the February 7 Presidential elections had even arrived at election headquarters, Acting U.S. Ambassador Tim Carney predicted that the election "is going to demonstrate . how Jean Bertrand Aristide is a man of the past." Later that week, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that Aristide "is in South Africa, and I would expect that he would stay there," and that "we think the Haitian government should be looking forward to their future, not to its past." Deputy State Department Spokesman Adam Ereli added: "our understanding is that the government of Haiti is looking forward, not looking back. They've got a democracy to build, and the future is not in the past. Aristide is from the past" (all italics supplied).
This message was echoed far beyond the Bush Administration. Former Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega declared that for Preval, Aristide's return "would be the end of his ability to run the country." Lawrence Pezzullo, President Clinton's special envoy to Haiti warned "if [Preval] brings Aristide back, that thing will blow up." The International Crisis Group added that Aristide's return "would be a very polarizing and divisive event that could fatally damage the effort to move Haiti forward.'' None of these experts even mentioned that it was Aristide's removal in 2004 that led to unprecedented violence- thousands of deaths- not to mention the reversal of ten years' hard won democratic progress.
France's Minister for Cooperation and Development, Brigitte Girardin, visited South Africa in April, and opposing Aristide's return was high on her agenda for discussions with Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Canada, France, and even some South American countries buttonholed South African President Thabo Mbeki when he went to Chile for President Michelle Bachelet's March inauguration, to tell him not to allow Aristide's return.
The fact that such a broad spectrum of non-Haitian officials and commentators feel they can pressure Haiti's government to deprive a citizen of his Constitutional right to live in his homeland raises an obvious question: how much has democracy actually returned to Haiti, and how much democracy will the international community allow?
There are few, if any, precedents of the world's powerful countries keeping a former elected President out of his own country, but that level of interference is routine for Haiti. On February 17, 2004, as insurgents took over cities in the north of Haiti, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell reaffirmed that President Aristide was Haiti's constitutional President, and announced that the U.S. "cannot buy into a proposition that says the elected President must be forced out of office by thugs and those who do not respect law and are bringing terrible violence to the Haitian people." But twelve days later, Mr. Powell's State Department forced President Aristide onto a plane, delivering Haiti to thugs who brought terrible violence to the Haitian people- over 4,000 killed, hundreds of political dissidents imprisoned illegally, and a deadly increase in hunger and disease. The United Nations, with a Charter proclaiming "respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples," declined the elected government's request for help before the coup. But within a few hours of President Aristide's departure, and on a Sunday morning to boot, the UN Security Council had authorized a military mission to Haiti, not to restore the Constitutional authorities, but to consolidate their overthrow. The Organization of American States, which had a newly-minted Inter-American Democratic Charter designed to respond to threats against the democratic order of member states, never once criticized the coup.
If Haiti's former President has trouble traveling into Haiti, its current Prime Minister, Jacques-Edouard Alexis has trouble traveling out. Canada announced in early May that he was barred from the country because his name is on a list of people accused of "crimes against humanity." The Canadian government admits it has no specific evidence against Mr. Alexis. It makes vague reference to the Carrefour Feuilles massacre, a police killing of suspected gang members during Mr. Alexis' previous tenure as Prime Minister in 1999. Ironically, Mr. Alexis' government aggressively prosecuted that massacre- several top police officials were convicted of murder and imprisoned- and the UN and human rights groups hailed the prosecution as a major step in fighting large-scale human rights violations. Canada claims to be sorry and to be looking into the matter, but almost two months after the issue was first raised, Mr. Alexis' name is still on the list.
Imagining analogous treatment among the world's powerful countries is difficult: England's Prime Minister Tony Blair pressuring President Bush to restrict former Vice-President Gore's anti-war speeches, because he "is a man of the past." Or the U.S. Ambassador to France warning against the "divisive" socialist Parliamentarians who called for a vote of no-confidence against the French government last month. In Canada, lawyers and human rights groups did present extensive evidence of George Bush's responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity ahead of his December 2004 visit. Of course the Canadian government declined to invoke its laws barring entry of human rights violators- the very laws it did apply to Mr. Alexis- despite the ample evidence for Mr. Bush, and the lack of any for Mr. Alexis.
Haitians have a marketplace expression for double standard- de pwa, de mezi (literally "two weights, two measures"), that gets frequent use in discussions about the international community's treatment of their country. Haitians with varying levels of approval for President Aristide's tenure in office agree that his forced exile is yet another example of de pwa de mezi -powerful countries that preach respect for human rights, the rule of law and national sovereignty declining to apply those principles when they stand in the way of want they want to do with Haiti. So for them, President Aristide's physical return is one part of a broader return of Haiti to a complete democracy, and to a sovereignty respected by the rest of the world. In this broader return, there would be no more need to argue about a former President coming home, any more than there is in the rest of the world.
STORY #3
Maritime Law
Treasure hunt
Salvage in wake of ruling in West Palm Beach may reveal bounty that far outstrips famous Atocha’s |
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 December 17, 2002
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 By: Dan Christensen
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The Notre Dame de Deliverance, seen here in a copy of a woodcut made on the day of her commissioning, sank in a hurricane on Nov. 1, 1755, a day after departing Havana.
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n 18th century shipwreck believed to contain a king’s horde of Spanish gold, silver and jewels more spectacular than the $400 million treasure recovered by Mel Fisher from the sunken galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha has been found in deep water about 40 miles southwest of Key West.
Treasure hunters who’ve examined the wreck say their research indicates that it’s the Notre Dame de Deliverance — a 166-foot, armed merchant vessel of French origin that sailed under a Spanish flag. The research includes surveys of the site by state-of-the-art remote sensing devices and divers, a study of historical records, and the discovery that a few silver items — including a crucifix, plate and some coins — were brought up years ago by other salvagers.
“It was one of the richest ships ever lost,” says Greg Brooks, 51, the co-manager of Portland, Maine-based Sub Sea Research Inc., which is conducting the search and proposed salvage effort. He estimates the value of the Deliverance’s trove could be between $2 billion and $3 billion.
Sub Sea Research recently followed its findings with a quiet trip to federal court in West Palm Beach to stake a claim under admiralty law. In October, Sub Sea won an order from Senior U.S. District Judge James C. Paine allowing the company to “arrest” the shipwreck and protect itself from modern-day pirates. The wreck is located “substantially” inside the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary but outside Florida territorial waters, according to court records.
The law considers wreck sites “submerged cultural resources.” Those found in the sanctuary — a federal trusteeship co-administered by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the state of Florida — are strictly regulated. A permit is required to conduct a detailed survey and inventory of a wreck site. Additional permits are needed to recover and get title to the treasure.
Brooks says the law should now protect the company from other possible claimants if the wreck is indeed the Deliverance. The state has no claim, says Brooks, because the wreck is beyond the three-mile limit. Spain has asserted admiralty claims to lost warships in U.S. courts, but the Deliverance was privately owned.
Sank in a hurricane
The Notre Dame de Deliverance, hired by Spain and owned by the French West Indies Co., which is long defunct, capsized and sank in a hurricane on Nov. 1, 1755, a day after departing Havana for Cadiz, Spain. On board were 512 passengers and crew.
The ship, named for an ancient French cathedral in the Normandy village of Lion-sur-Mer, was a top-heavy vessel equipped with 64 cannons, according to documentation cited by Sub Sea Research. It was hired by Spain because the kingdom was broke and could no longer build her own ships, and because the French and Indian War and the Seven Years War were diverting Spain’s naval resources.
“By 1750, [Spain’s system] that had for centuries shipped treasure back from the New World had virtually collapsed,” says R. Duncan Mathewson III, Mel Fisher’s former chief archaeologist who recently signed on as a consultant to Sub Sea Research. Mathewson, a member of the marine sanctuary’s advisory council, says Spain needed ships from other countries to transport treasure.
The Deliverance departed Havana on Halloween with a Spanish escort of seven or eight smaller, schooner-like vessels called zabras, according to Brooks’ research in Cuba and elsewhere. The ship soon met a fate that Brooks now believes was remarkably similar to what befell the Atocha and its hapless crew in surrounding waters 133 years earlier.
The hurricane struck the night after the ship left Havana, its eye passing over Havana to the southwest. The escorting zabras reportedly were able to survive the storm and scudded across the outer reefs to eventually anchor on the northwest side of the Marquesas Keys to ride out the storm the following morning, according to a research report prepared by Brooks and Sub Sea researcher Edward Michaud in July.
The Deliverance, blown off course, wasn’t so lucky. Sailors from the escorts who made it back to Havana reported the treasure ship foundered in roiling seas 12 nautical miles off the Marquesas Keys, rolled over and sank in waters too deep to allow salvage.
An incomplete manifest of Deliverance cargo that was owned by Spain’s King Charles III declares those riches to include 17 chests packed with nearly 1,200 pounds of gold bullion, 15,000 gold doubloons, six chests of gems, and more than a million silver pieces. That doesn’t count contraband or any valuable surviving belongings of passengers.
In contrast, the 112-foot Atocha’s approximate yield to date is 115 gold bars, 900 silver bars, 200 pounds of gold, 3,000 emeralds, 135,000 silver coins and less than 100 gold coins.
The largest treasure ever salvaged — worth more than $1 billion — was recovered in the 1990s from the 1857 wreck of the coal-burning sidewheeler S.S. Central America. That American ship went down off the coast of South Carolina carrying bullion and coins being brought back to the east coast by those who’d struck it rich during the California Gold Rush.
Excited but cautious
If the shipwreck found by Sub Sea Research is indeed the Deliverance, it capsized and sank in waters 180 to 200 feet deep, about 10 miles from where the Atocha was found in shallower waters in the 1970s by the late Mel Fisher.
Undersea search devices like side scan sonar and remotely operated vehicles have located an intact hull, two encrusted piles of ballast stones and what Brooks says appears to be cannons on the seabed. The wreck lies outside Florida’s territorial waters. “It looks like two wrecks,” says Brooks.
Mathewson is enthusiastic but cautious about the find. “It is important to emphasize we haven’t dated or identified any of the [sonar] anomalies yet, and we don’t know if it is the Deliverance,” says the marine archeologist, who has not yet visited the site or seen video shot by Sub Sea Research. “But I’m very excited.”
He says it’s promising that the wreck was a good-sized ship that appears to be pre-19th century. “We have side scan images of what looks like a well-articulated, intact lower hulled structure with full ballast,” he adds.
Mathewson says records indicate clear signs of a hurricane at that particular time. “The question is did the Deliverance go down in this part of the keys or go down in some other part,” he says. The ship was reported to have flooded and foundered in a very deep sea. “You would therefore expect the hull to be pretty much intact, and that’s what the images are suggesting. It’s not a vessel that’s scattered or broken up.”
The Deliverance has remained largely outside the shipwreck lore of the Keys. Even within the treasure hunting community, the Deliverance isn’t well known. Bob “Frogfoot” Weller, a longtime South Florida treasure hunter who’s written six books on the topic, says he’s never heard of the Deliverance.
“Just because they find a ballast pile, that absolutely doesn’t make it a treasure wreck,” says Weller, who lives in Lake Worth. “There are thousands of wrecks along the coast of Florida, but there aren’t that many that are real, serious treasure wrecks.”
Another dose of skepticism comes from Dr. John Broadwater. Broadwater is the manager of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of North Carolina, the site of the wreck of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor. Its distinctive round turret was brought to the surface to great fanfare last summer.
“Treasure hunters are often wrong, and so are archeologists,” Broadwater says. “It’s so easy to go off and find something that has some of the characteristics of what you are looking for because you want so much to find it.”
Still, more than one member of famed treasure hunter Mel Fisher’s team has found evidence about the Keys wreck site convincing enough to join Sub Sea Research’s team.
Lead attorney Guy E. “Sandy” Burnette Jr., a Tallahassee solo practitioner, says he’s brought aboard Fisher attorneys David Paul Horan of Key West and William VanDercreek, professor emeritus of Florida State University’s law school.
Burnette convinced Judge Paine that the find is genuine — and that an order protecting the wreck from rival treasure seekers was necessary — by showing him lead sheathing that once protected the hull from worms and was recovered outside the national marine sanctuary. The sheathing is the only item removed so far by Sub Sea Research, Brooks says.
The court order applies to an area that covers 18 square miles.
About 90 percent of the wreck is located in the sanctuary, he says. Still, Burnette says, “we had to go to court to protect our rights outside the sanctuary.”
Sub Sea Research applied for an inventory permit in September. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration general counsel Martin Freeman, in Silver Spring, Md., confirmed the application is pending but declined further comment. An official at the marine sanctuary’s Key Largo office who is familiar with the application declined comment.
Still, Brooks and Burnette remain confident they’ve complied with the rules and will get the permit soon. “We’ve gotten very strong assurances that they won’t consider another permit for the area while ours is pending,” says Burnette.
Brooks says that “once we get it in hand, and the weather clears, we’ll be back at the site.”
The marine sanctuary rules, which evolved from Mel Fisher’s protracted and ultimately successful legal battle with Florida over the right to the Atocha treasure, allow private salvagers to work wrecks on public property as long as the public’s interest in historic preservation is protected.
Generally, that means commercial salvagers like Sub Sea Research can obtain legal title to valuable items such as bullion, coins and gems deemed by archeologists to be of no special historical interest. The public would own any unique artifacts. But because the marine sanctuary’s rules of ownership are inexact, the potential remains for litigation over each item if and when treasures of disputed ownership are hauled from the wreck.
Distracted by Columbus’ ship
Before he hunted sunken treasure, Brooks built swimming pools for a living. About a decade ago, after 19 years in that business, he cashed out to find his fortune. Brooks’ principal partner and fellow investor is John Hardy, a former National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineer who currently runs a La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery in South Portland.
Brooks says he’s personally spent a million dollars so far in the hunt for treasure that he believes has led him to the Deliverance. He’s helped make ends meet doing salvage work for insurance companies. Brooks, who is married and has a 15-year-old daughter, has plans to create a shipwreck museum and aquarium in Portland.
Until late June, when they first identified the wreck in the Straits of Florida as the Deliverance, Brooks and his associates spent much of their search time in wreck-infested waters off the north coast of Haiti. It’s there that Brooks and his partners think they’ve made another stunning discovery — the ballast stones and anchor of Christopher Columbus’ flagship, the Santa Maria. The Santa Maria struck a reef and sank off Cap Haitien in 1492.
Last summer, Brooks was preparing to return to Haiti when Michaud, a Sub Sea researcher in Framingham, Mass., began turning up information about the Deliverance. “The more we dug, the more we found that fit,” says Brooks. So Haiti was off, and Key West was on.
While Brooks and his company are the first to identify the Keys wreck as the Deliverance, they are not the first divers to have visited the site. In the mid 1990s, Thomas Yerian, a Key West resident, was issued a five-year search permit by the sanctuary, but it later expired. Yerian could not be located for comment.
“It’s been found before, but nobody recognized it,” says Brooks. Or, perhaps, nobody’s had the resources until now to mount an expensive and hazardous expedition, and overcome the bureaucracy, to locate and raise valuables from the wreck site.
Brooks began attempting to check out the Keys wreck site in 1998. Recent technological advances in underwater imaging devices, however, are opening up the search, he says.
Sub Sea Research’s primary recovery vessel is the 102-foot M/V Diamond, a converted U.S. Navy torpedo retriever that’s currently docked on Stock Island near Key West. Today, says Brooks, about a dozen people are employed by Sub Sea Research to conduct the search of the Deliverance and document it with TV cameras; more will sign on when salvage activity at the site resumes. Everyone is a subcontractor, working mostly on speculation for an agreed-upon share of any booty.
Survivors cannibalized?
All 512 crew and passengers on the Deliverance were presumed lost at sea. But Brooks and Michaud now hypothesize that as many as 400 survivors used small longboats and gigs to reach Matanca Key, a spit of sand nearby. The site now is submerged and is named Rebecca Shoal.
Historians previously have reported that 400 Frenchmen were butchered and cannibalized by Calusa Indians on Matanca Key, or Slaughter Key as it was also known, sometime before 1775. Brooks says he’s since learned that a year after the Deliverance sank, a French governor-general in the Caribbean dispatched two French frigates and 600 French and Spanish sailors to the Marquesas Keys to enact retribution on the Calusas for their alleged involvement in the massacre of French seamen who had survived a shipwreck.
The French found the bulk of the Calusa tribe on Key West and slaughtered more than 3,000. The bloodbath, Brooks says, marked the beginning of the end for the now-extinct tribe and may account for Key West’s Spanish name, Cayo Hueso, or Island of Bones.
That hypothesis may never be proved. But 40 miles away, the answers to other questions are lying in the twilight 200 feet down.
“The bottom is flat there,” Mathewson says. “There’s no coral growth. It’s kind of a silty sand substrate, and there won’t be any environmental problems with doing work on this site. If it’s the Deliverance, it’s pretty much just sitting there, waiting.”
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