U-576 was lost with 45 members of its crew



It is a “rare window into a historic military battle”, the NOAA said.

The two ships met on 15 July 1942 when the German submarine attacked a convoy of merchant ships en route to Florida.

The U-576 sank the Bluefields and seriously damaged two other ships.

A US Navy Kingfisher aircraft in turn bombed the German vessel at the same time as it was attacked by the merchant vessel Unicoi.

Bluefields and U-576 were lost within minutes, the NOAA’s account of the battle says.

“Most people associate the Battle of the Atlantic with the cold, icy waters of the North Atlantic but few people realise how close the war actually came to America’s shores,” said David Alberg, superintendent of the NOAA’s Monitor National Marine Sanctuary.


Bluefields did not suffer any casualties during the sinking but 45 crew members were lost on U-576.

Germany’s foreign ministry appealed for the wreck site to be treated as a war grave to “allow the dead to rest in peace”.

Source: BBCNews