The Sunken Wreck Of The Worst Maritime Disaster In History | Hunt for U-479

foreign [Music] it's the second World War Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were at opposite ends fighting for the Baltic Sea territory the German new boat u-479 was operational in the Baltic Sea and is rumored to have been on a secret mission would it be possible to find the lost boat [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] but it's not only Wars that create shipwrecks Baltic Sea is a hazardous C with extreme weather and shallow Waters thousands of islands and rocky shores and harsh Winters when thick ice covers the northern coastlines environmental conditions are also unique the water is cold and the saline level is too low for most marine species to survive including corals and the shipworm that everywhere else destroys shipwrecks in no time at all [Music] Baltic Sea is filled with well-preserved wrecks it's a treasure Trove for any diver or archaeologist [Music] the biggest Maritime disaster in the world happened in the Baltic Sea at the end of the second world war German ocean liners gustloff stoben and Goya were overspilling with Germans fleeing the Russian occupation a Russian submarine torpedoed and sunk them it's such a massive and neglected tragedy that we listened to several stories legendary British diver Lee Bishop has dived and photographed Wilhelm gustloff yeah it's it's kind of um a wreck that is uh it's got serious political history you know huge amount of people died on that wreck you know massive loss of life like and it's a story that you just don't hear about you know I mean she's like 25 000 turn liner built in the 1930s built for the strength through Joy period it was like um a period of time when Hitler was uh reigning there was no first second and third class passengers it was all a classless society you know you've got to remember a lot of people didn't buy into The National um so yeah and as the Russian Red Army was advancing back in to that part of the world this was like you know 1945 beginning in 1945 end of 1944 and um basically um they were evacuated on anything that was available of course the gustloff had been you know this huge wonderful ocean liner um have been moored up in that bay for three or four years that moved at all so what they did is they fired it up and there was said to be 7 700 people left on that ship there was a ship made for 1 500 2 000 people at most yeah you know so heavily over overloaded so what they did is they um keep bearing in mind this is January 1945 it's freezing cold parts of the Baltic have Frozen and um it's minus 23 degrees the gustoff had left the uh the harbor then it's on its way out and on its way out there was a lot more ships actually um pulled up alongside a lot of Nets came down the side and hundreds and thousands of more people climbed up inside and some historians say there's there was a possibility there's 10 000 people who won that wreck on that ship when it sailed yeah now two and a half hours out of the uh the bay there and um just took a torpedo from brushed Submarine that's 13. now initial but he torpedoed that and the Goya as well and um and at the same time the General Store even was another ship that was carrying a lot of people that had gone down and so we're looking at something like 10 000 people onboard that ship yeah so it was a lot thousands of people 400 something people survived with a massive loss of life massive loss of us maritime's worst ever disaster you know yeah but you've never heard of it have you no no so many people have not heard this story uh I was taking these beautiful wide angle black and white shots of this wonderfully preserved poop deck with all the stern man in that again and we swam around the stern and you could see the letters Wilhelm guslof in in Nazi lettering it was unbelievable you know you really felt a sense of histogenic and another thing right we thought we would we we thought we were going to see you know lots of human remains but that actually wasn't the case but we never really see human remains in many registered you know with 10 000 people after the dive have come up I'm just sitting on the surface and there's only one other place I felt a presence and that was on the Titanic when we was out of Titanic yeah you know you knew something bad had happened there in Dover Yak tells his side of the story who in Germany were built for economy not speed and when the gustloft sailed it was decided that being a passenger ship it should go on its own now this was fine except that it just didn't have the speed to outrun a submarine the kushlov then was attacked by a Soviet you vote and it sank but the losses were about four times that of the Titanic several times foreign [Music] one part of it is of course this experience of diving this huge cool wreck but the other part is like diving to this grave site where like over probably over 4 000 people lost their lives those kind of spooky feeling and the the boat trip out it's like it's a 12 hour boat trip from the south part of Sweden it's like in the middle of nowhere we have no connections on the cell phones no connection on the VHF it's like in the middle of nowhere and you'll see on the echo Sounder the the shape of this huge rack on the bottom is it's like it's really creepy actually [Music] thank you [Music] thank you it's really difficult to get an idea of where we are and how and the distances and the soon we did discover that it was actually covered with Nets [Music] [Music] well then this is the shots of the anti-aircraft gun yeah and this is I guess the shot on the Bell it's enormous it's multiple way like like a hundred kilo maybe it's like a huge shift spot but it doesn't have any inscriptions on it yeah and there you can see a fish actually caught in one of these nets that you find them everywhere on the rack [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] and here you can see inside the bridge yeah the place where the steering wheel has [Music] that's one thing actually missing on the rack is the the main steering on the side of the stone so if you go closely you'll see two skulls and this is a strange feeling down here because you get like so amazed by this beautiful ship and all the things you see and out of style you start thinking about my God like 4 000 people dying and you see some remains it's a really spooky spooky feeling as also some some feelings of like guilt like disturbing this this great but it's a really important story to tell so we actually found the hole from torpedo yeah we got like two two direct hits from Torpedoes and people who have found the other hole or the other place where the the one on torpedo hit they say that it's just a like a den yeah so it's probably never went off but we found the place where the torpedo definitely went off because it was a huge hole if what do you say like maybe 20 meters in diameter like Twisted Metal it was way below the the water the water line [Music] foreign [Music] on the bottom today is 100 intact everything is still there you can see the mask you can see like the wires the lights the ship spell everything is there [Music] [Applause] we can't talk too much about storming because that's the wreck actually it is it's the best rank thank you [Music] we met the historian and new boat author Jacques P melmanshawal at the U-Boat archive and he recommended that we visit this Museum boat it's similar to the boat we are looking for u479 missing in the Baltic Sea this u995 is the world's only remaining type 7c U-boat seeing one for real brings a few surprises it's so small when we'll be looking for one at the bottom of the Baltic Sea it's going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack [Music] it was hot and humid inside working and living in one of these things must have been a claustrophobic experience bredo is a U-Boat archivist and a second world war German U-Boat veteran he tells about his life on board so the Baltic Sea was a very good room for for training operations for the German U-boats the the this training was very hard everybody from the commander to the last sailor um the sea moves in a most peculiar way and you can't get away from it yeah and he said the first time he was worried seasick was when he was on a type 2 boat a boat does not go so or so it does goes off this way huh and I was seasick I thought I must die it was always something to work a part of you but and when everything was done then we had longer while what was it we're bored I had always books with me I read a lot I was a young officer a young watch officer aboard of my boat and I had to learn a lot of the older comrades so we had four hours of UT and eight hours and eight hours free because this crew had 51 crew members [Music] foreign [Music] knew exactly what he has to do in every situation [Music] the Russian submarine limit that claims to have collided with the u-479 was built by Vicars Armstrong in Britain originally for estonians it is approximately the same size and speed as the u479 at least in theory could have hit the German new boat hard enough to cause serious damage [Music] [Music] the kill channel is teaming with ships and boats of All Sorts Keel is famous for its sailing events however this is just normal Baltic Sea traffic on a beautiful summer's day it's a hypnotizing sight [Music] kill channel has been this country's main Naval Base since 1860s and the center for German shipbuilders this Naval Base is still in active use [Music] you can see War memorials by the water's edge kill was known as the war Harbor of the Nazi Germany and was heavily bombed by the Allied Forces during the second World War that round structure is a U-Boat pressure chamber where U-boats could be tested for faults and leaks before they were put to real use to our surprise U-boats are still built here and the lost due boat u479 was built right here in these docks [Music] Canal car travel to the former East Germany traveling from west to east the landscape doesn't change a lot it just comes even more rural thank you we drive all the way to the tip of the Baltic Sea Island to pinamonde this is the famous German military and research base where the V1 and V2 Rockets were developed by scientists Werner Von Braun you can learn all about the history of the Rockets in the especially designated rocket Museum the much feared destructive and silently traveling supersonic V2 was the first man-made object launched into space at the end of the second World War Verna Von Brown and his expert team were swiftly snatched by Americans to kick-start the NASA Space Program many criticized this decision and sorvan brown as a danger to America because of his Nazi German past but his Defenders thought that he was not a politician but first of all a scientist and without him NASA couldn't have developed its Saturn V rockets and missions to the moon and Beyond one more Baltic Submarine Museum recommended by our Uber expert yuck since the second world war East Germany was ruled by the Socialist government and as a reminder of the Cold War years there was a Russian Submarine Museum here in Phoenix Monday Monday these Juliet type Subs were made in the 1960s to provide the Soviet navy with nuclear strike capacity against USA aircraft carriers They Carried nuclear cruise missiles there were Grand plans for these submarines but only 16 got built in gorkett Russia [Music] this Juliet u-461 is 90 meters long and sometimes stayed on patrol for more than 90 days three months at a time with more than 70 men on board it seems really dark and oppressive inside [Music] we are heading towards the Estonian Islands to start the diving trips of the northern Baltic Sea the divers underwater cameras and Diving boat pelagonia and the Baltic Sea Rex are waiting for us let's go [Music] Swedish divers taught par and Lotta dive Charlotte Schroeder it lies 70 meters deep in the Baltic Sea during this dive the water was crystal clear it's interesting with Australia is that the shift spell is still there and I hope it stays there because most of the time the ships films like a trophy for a divers they're the first people to discover and dive the wreck usually takes that take the ship Bell but um has a really nice beautiful looking Bell and it's uh extraordinary too to do the diving in the distance you see the bow and this is this is actually an awesome wreck this is a like normal size and it's a little bit bigger than Augusta maybe like 75 meters long or something total intact except for the bridge you see this this damage on a lot of wrecks in the Baltic uh fisherman fishing with Nets or Troll and they get caught best information to positions for new Rex is from the fisherman because they keep track of every place they get caught with the Nets [Music] back on the mainland Estonia Tanya and Kimo pick up their Finnish colleague Carrie Kettler [Music] we had a drink and a meal on a commuter Ferry but our mood doesn't fit the scene during the past few months we've been doing a huge amount of work behind the scenes organizing the ball to see diving trips the Swedish diving team will join us later this month but until then we are supposed to explore the Uncharted Estonian wrecks at the base camp our first rental cabin we start frantically reorganizing everything the underwater casings for our high definition cameras haven't arrived to Estonia even though we've ordered them ages ago from the USA they definitely should be here by now we can start filming before the camera cases arrived they should be here in plenty of time during this week [Music] yes oh that's very well done so he'll pay here five ish then the weather gets lousy our Diving boat will arrive late it's still in Finland only a few hours away but it can't make the crossing in the storm is anything going to be ready in time for our diving trips in a few days time [Music] luckily from the internet we find cat medre from Tallinn Estonia here's a diving instructor and knows the hamar divers cat is willing to try to get his local friends to help us as soon as the weather reports start promising better conditions we hear that our diving boat pelagonia is on its way from Finland [Music] technical fault in the ship had been blamed but conspiracy theories live on nearby there's a touching memorial for the children of the Estonia car ferry disaster it's small and modest the Bell has a face of a small child on it it starts ringing when the wind swells up to the strength it did in the night of the accident on the 28th of September 1994 on its way from Tallinn to Sweden car ferry Estonia sank in the storm just after midnight the bad weather and the freezing cold water made the rescue operation very difficult only 137 survived and over 850 died in one of the worst modern time Maritime disasters people on board were just everyday tourists and commuters mostly Swedish and estonians and a few fins the ferry lies only 30 nautical miles Northwest from here at the bottom of the Baltic Sea it's considered a grave site and a no diving Zone the weather gets better and when we meet the transit crew in the morning the mood is already picking up at the left Mahaba pelagonia is snugly moored between the cargo ships and the sailboats we start getting the boat ready for the diving trips and start loading on the camera and the diving gear if only the American underwater camera casings weren't still missing [Music] carrot has asked the Russian Estonian diver and Rec Hunter Andres to come along he knows everything about the local wrecks [Music] has joined our diving crew for a few days if you want to know about the local wrecks he is the man to talk to he has his own side scan Sona and spends all his time diving the local water since Tanya and Kimo don't speak any Russian Martin does his best to translate Finnish Estonian and Russian all different languages but we'll manage somehow the Eastern Baltic Waters around these Estonian islands are especially interesting so meanwhile we see what the Swedish technical diving team and losser get down to on the west side of the Baltic Sea via webcam they tell us about a small cargo shipwreck they found Swedish Humber this is a Honda Humber it's a really small Swedish wreck it's like 35 maybe 40 meters long and then we're in the middle of the winter and and the ice was like packing up so they got actually stocking stuck in their eyes and they had no radio on board the [ __ ] and we found this wreck 2004 I guess it's me a lot that we were actually found the first time it was very exciting it was like the visibility was 25 meters and to be like the first person like you have no idea what it is this is Adventure it's really cool but we will search for and you know uh name is her name anywhere obviously we found the ship fell ship spell with a name and a date a year on it we found the name in there in the star where it said Hammer and the lifeboats were no longer on the ship so it's quite obvious that trying to rescue yeah you try to rescue themselves but because of the hard weather the storm weather and it was Winter and cold and the pack eyes they didn't survive [Music] we found the the captain's cabin which is still intact you can see the back you can see those mattresses with you know horse hair hair sticking up yeah you can see lots of you know personal stuff inside yeah so this is I like this record this little easy dive it's maybe 45 meters deep that's the coolest part with diving Rex is untouched Rex is that it's kind of a cliche but it's a frozen moment it is everything is in the same place that it was when it sang so the time is still out even if you know if you find a clock you probably stop at the time when it actually so it's a it's hard to actually feel that feeling of being on a wreck I think we're in some other shots maybe we've got [Music] you have to probably experience itself [Music] the divers Martin Lennon and Andrus are happy to take the plunge they do ordinary Sports diving much more straightforward than the technical trimix styling our Swedish diving team does foreign you'll have to watch the boat crew while the divers are diving unfortunately there is no chance of getting any underwater footage today we are still waiting for the underwater camera cases from the USA diving Gear Company oh this is Kim mclaring again they should have arrived already every time we talk to them it gets more Awkward tracking information what's The Courier the company can't even give us a tracking number FedEx okay thank you bye-bye [Music] the coastal regions are so shallow here the water gets exceptionally warm by August something you wouldn't expect from the northern Waters they're sweaty very warm robot [Music] thank you when we start heading back to Hima the boat engine starts to overheat we'll have to wait for it to cool down [Music] [Music] we head back to the left Mahaba it's both a guest and work Harbor local natural resource Timber is often being loaded on cargo ships they're on their way to the Finnish sawmills all these young divers work in the forestry industry it's a big business here enforcement diver Thomas Astron is waiting for us at the harbor we have a meal at the beach bar by the left of my Harbor a perfect warm Inn good food great atmosphere submarine now sender send a diver to connect the door the jokes of the neighboring countries and their peoples are forever popular Thomas has been doing sports diving for a long time he also used to work in the diamond shop in Helsinki and is well known amongst the Finnish divers in everything with the help of laughter and general banter we'll get to know each other a bit better while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes [Music] everything this bar is popular amongst Surfers and divers [Music] yep we make plans for the next few days tomorrow we're planning visit andresport and visit the Museum yeah and again tomorrow we'll we'll discuss what the program for the next day is because hopefully we know tomorrow morning about the camera housing two major problems the foxes and the weather yeah bye-bye bye-bye foreign [Music] the next day the weather deteriorates to turn our luck we visit ristime across Hill in English there's been a Swedish presence and minority population in Estonia for more than 700 years many times they have fled the occupying forces when the 1000 swedes living in Hume are packed their boats with their belongings in 1781. they came here to make a cross with the wish that they could one day return to this beautiful island they considered their home even here we managed to do business [Music] we cannot wait for the vanished underwater camera boxes any longer and have been able to locate one in Finland now we are organizing to get it delivered here in nine minutes five minutes yeah every surface of the forest is covered in crosses of all sorts it's very Blair Witch Project kind of place our rainy day continues we meet the Estonian diving team in Surah sudden one of the oldest Harbors in here month it's now a shipyard fishing and guest Harbor there's a small Maritime Museum here some of the small Treasures that Andre has picked up from the wrecks at the bottom of the sea are on display [Music] this place is different from the norm since there are no do not touch signs anyway the old diving gear doesn't seem too comfortable how does he play do you know [Music] the chairman of the shipyard is Keen to tell us about the displays [Music] [Music] this is the kind of Museum we like with a real interactive feel to it there's no need for High-Tech multimedia display units Andrus tells us the story of an incredibly successful and notorious humor pilot Von Unger and Sternberg who made this bonfire Century Baron ludwigensteinberg was the most feared part of the Baltic Sea with false fires he lured the passing ships to the cliff edge of the hiuma island with the help of his men he killed the crew and collected the cargo he was smart enough to involve many of the locals and share some of the loot with a large group of people so nobody was willing to give him up [Music] Tanya and Kimo went to see Von ungun's house It's a grand building indeed huge in scale and style although we were here early in the afternoon the place was locked the house is used as a primary and technical school and a former student Agatha comes to our rescue and finds a teacher to let us in [Music] a baron a parrot and a very wealthy man [Applause] the local divers know the spot where the pirate Von ungren sank the ships they want to explore that area in the near future Andre's boat is usually moored here by the big fishing boats Andre takes off on his own boat we didn't know at the time but this was the last we would see of Andre during the whole time it was a Communications problem with him we didn't share the language and our documentary filming methods seemed to be entirely alien to him too bad he didn't realize that we were filming him all the time he's very mad diver always alone now tonight it's time to move our base camp and surprise surprise it's all finished only a few days ago it didn't even have any windows or doors the builders must have worked hard this holiday home is a traditional Hema Farmhouse now completely renovated for our comfort [Music] a new diver Lena ranste joins our Motley Crew she's Kurtz diver friend from Tallinn [Music] the next day things start to move on we get a call from our executive producer he has sent us his brand new rib to be used as a secondary Diving boat it seems that we are in business at last [Applause] now totally dry this is going smoothly yeah yeah this is it the divers Thomas Martin and Roman go for a quick test dive to try out the camera case the casing is big and old for a film camera but this is the best we can get from now gets a nickname from the estonians eagle eyes you can see why is it very crazy weather but it was beautiful cross waves coming from both ways thank you for the safe ride come on no water okay at last an underwater image underwater picture now that our main Estonia contact Kurt has arrived it's time to have a proper talk about our Russian Captain under will do when because he didn't want to start to explain it because he was worried about his translation he had agreed to spend at least a week with us but just after two days of filming is told Kurt he's ready to leave maybe when he's not needed that much anymore he can leave he will give us all the coordinates since Andre is a really bored and frustrated and doesn't understand the whole filmmaking process maybe Kurt can explain things to him I will explain it yeah here's a bit different yeah yeah Thomas fills the bottles and we are ready to start diving but surprise surprise Captain Andre has had enough and tells Kurt he's not coming back maybe we seen the Widow yes okay again it takes exactly two minutes to decide who the next Captain will be this is the new captain his name shall be Martin or Captain Morgan as we quickly rename our new leader let's see how resourceful he is very nice today lady Baltic Sea shows us its most beautiful features it's such a great day it hardly seems like work and also all right since Andre and his side scan Sona left us unexpected I think I think we're 15 minutes we have to locate the wreck of the survey boat vest oh okay using the coordinates of the wreck and the rubber rip you can usually recognize the known wrecks in the boat's underwater sonar it just tends to be a bit more difficult [Music] Magic [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] the divers do two diving trips to the wreck vest it was part of the fleet of survey vessels that were bombed and sunk during the second world war 23rd of July 1941. it's not a big ship and lies in Shallow Waters in depth of about 16 meters it's so shallow you can see lots of surface light in these images and lots and lots of silt since the day happened to be quite windy all the sediment is on the move it's like a soup Thomas is handling the Canberra and he does well capturing some of the wreck and the divers but the visibility is still poor there's nothing we can do about that [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] wind is high and the Sea a bit choppy but it doesn't matter much this is what's really astonishing it takes a big investment hours of preparations and hours of travel to do less than one hour of diving seems hardly worth it but all the divers tell us otherwise [Music] it's more than worth it and when you go down there it's a world of its own we have noticed that whenever the diving team is back they are so happy that they are all smiles it's called a diver's High [Music] I think we should try it maybe tomorrow morning to to take the rubber boat the rift and go just me Martin assistant Thomas and you same place hear the dive we'll check the weather at 2200 hours yeah tonight yes then it will be more clear about this morning [Music] thank you okay bye bye [Music] very early next morning our plans are confirmed the weather report warns us of high winds by the afternoon pelagonia is Clumsy and slow and we all decide to leave her behind it would be a lot quicker to just take the rib to the rep the crew will be there and back in no time at all the divers today are finished Thomas and estonians Lina and Martin Carrie will drive the rip Kimo is filming all this a friendly local cat is wishing us good luck the coordinates of the close by wreck are programmed onto the GPS foreign [Music] the divers Gear Up and Go [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] but then disaster strikes [Applause] even before the divers Moore Kumar knows there's something wrong the rib is back too soon camera cases flooded it could have been a fault in the old camera case or a human mistake and if any tiny particle gets in between the rubber seals the casing would leak underwater pressure even the half salty Baltic sea water can destroy electric equipment in seconds this high definition camera is as good as gone you can see the devastation in everyone's faces [Music] for roads everything but there may be we must put this camera to the fresh water soaking it in fresh water might save the tape it's worth a try anyway is this what a diving camera is supposed to look like other people build their bolted by we have a camera in the bottle [Music] Thomas is absolutely gutted but there's no crying over spilled milk after all it's just a camera Thomas is ready to go home and he'll take the camera casing back to Finland with him nobody is accusing him for this mishap but naturally that doesn't stop chemo from teasing him [Music] down himself walking to the lake yes twice this is [ __ ] Ing and then the boys go for a sauna it's an old Scandinavian tradition [Music] we still have some time on our hands to see some Baltic Seaside sights Martin Lina and Dan join us the motor sailing ship Allah is not much to look at but it has great symbolic significance for the locals 144 people trying to escape the occupied Estonia to the neutral Swedish Waters at the end of the second world war on board this old workship but it was captured women and children were released and Men sent to prison in Tallinn okay the after War years of Allah were eventful this ship has sailed the Seas under German Swedish English and panaman flags and only came back to Estonia after 60 years of Adventures it stands as Memorial to the colorful seafaring history this ferry line is the connection between the islands of hiama and salimar kopu Lighthouse is a symbol of humor it's one of the oldest lighthouses in the Baltic Sea and the third old is still operating lighthouse in the world 500 years ago the Hanseatic League was complaining about losing too many ships in the Baltic Sea they needed landmarks and guiding lights the construction took a long time to complete since the locals were making a nice extra income looting the sunken ships the C Mark became a lighthouse only in 1649 when a wooden staircase was built to the outside wall and wood and coal was burned on top of the tower there's a Soviet era Watchtower to watch the people who came to visit the lighthouse so this is what's called double surveillance the lighthouse used so much wood that all the surrounding forests were hacked clean as far as you can see and still when the fires were most needed in storm and rainy weather the fire often got extinguished in later years this very Steep and narrow staircase was tunneled into the lighthouse and other light systems oil gas and then electricity have replaced the original wood fires the latest addition is the concrete skirt that holds this very old structure upright and is still in use visible miles and miles to the Baltic Sea after the sightseeing we have burgers in this exotic underground bar Lena tells us that she has made friends for life during the trip to hiuma and Dan turned out to be a good tourist guide he works for the local Museum department and knows about the old buildings these are the last few pictures you'll see from this day we ate the burgers started to drink beer and gin long drinks [Music] ended up listening to old rock and new heavy metal and we vaguely remember dancing all night in some local restaurant luckily we don't have any pictures to prove any of these stories [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Real History

Views: 42,392

Keywords: Soviet Navy, U-boat attacks, WWII history, WWII naval warfare, WWII shipwrecks, deep-sea exploration, historical documentaries, maritime archaeologists, maritime expeditions, maritime heritage, maritime research, maritime warfare, nautical exploration, naval technology, naval tragedies, naval warfare, underwater discoveries, underwater exploration, wartime shipwrecks, wartime tragedies

Id: Ds4jY2a5sHg

Length: 57min 23sec (3443 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2023