Divers Help Mark Final Resting Place

A Manx diving team has helped a German family to pay their respects to their lost relative. 

Josef Schroer and his father Joseph Schroer travelled from their home in Germany to pay respect to Joseph’s great uncle, Engineer Johannes Hüls, who was one of the crew members of U-246.

During the war, the family were only told that their relative was lost in the Irish Sea but no further information. It took Josef some research to find out the truth of what happened.

In March 1945 U-246 was on patrol in the Irish Sea on only her second voyage.  The ship encountered a British Anti Submarine Warfare trawler HMS Lady Madeleine which opened fire and sank the submarine with her crew of 48 on board on March 17 1945.  A few weeks later, a sonar trace of the wreck was found and it was depth charged which released some personal items from within the pressure hull suggesting it was U-246.  The wreck lies 24 miles from the Isle of Man in around 50 metres of water.

Discover Diving took Josef and Joseph out to the wreck site with the dive team. The wreck was located a short distance from the published location and the dive team carried memorial plaques to attach to the wreck on behalf of the family.

Due to the depth of the dive, the divers breathed gas mixes including helium to reduce the narcotic impact of breathing compressed air at depth.

Diving Officer Michelle Haywood MHK explained: ‘This is technical diving, beyond the normal recreational scuba. The divers in the team were hand picked volunteers who have considerable experience diving at these depths.  Use of helium in the gas they are breathing means that they can think clearly, and that was a massive factor in keeping everyone safe while we completed the survey and attached the plaques.’

Five divers in two teams entered the water and the dives lasted over 90 minutes due to the need to slowly return to the surface to avoid decompression sickness. Once all the divers were safely recovered, they reported that plaques had been attached, one near the propeller and one to the conning tower.  Visibility on the dive was excellent and the divers were able to identify a number of features that confirmed the identity of the wreck as U-246. This was aided by a schematic of this class of U-boat provided by Adrian Corkill, author of the Shipwrecks of the Isle of Man.

The family laid a biodegradable wreath over the wreck site and a minute’s silence was held before the dive boat returned to Port St Mary.