+Billy Rigney Sadly not you have to remember she's a closed wreck with the exception of where she broke in half. the Remains can't float away if they can't get out.
Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu True, im not a boat expert and forgot to think that it was a submarine as ludicrous as that sounds! We all have them days haha. Very sad for the trapped souls down there though and it must have been one of the worst ways to go too
@@mikebritcom3171 Civilian might be a bit too broad of a statement, they were part of the merchant navy which had a tendency to arm their vessels so they could fight back, In my opinion any ships with guns on deck, no matter the crew, I consider legitimate targets during war operations. Remember that these men were fighting for their country and died doing so. The IX C types had a complement of 48 to 56.
@@mikebritcom3171 The crews of these boats had no choice but to fight for their country, and follow orders. Anyone who disobeyed orders faced the firing squad.
One of the Operation Drumbeat boats- the US was so badly unprepared for WW2 that there was no blackout on the coast and no antisubmarine patrols to speak of. For about two months German U-Boats ranged the US coast and the Caribbean at will- sinking ships within sight of people on shore. One U-Boat actually positioned itself between the merchant ship and the shore to avoid hitting civilians who were watching from the shore, before shelling the ship it intended to sink. Many of the ships sunk were vital tankers and it was a crisis point in the Battle of The Atlantic. Eventually, the USN got its act together, strengthened its defenses and the sinkings tailed off but not before a lot of men and ships were lost. According to records, the PC 566 did not sink it, it was sunk by aircraft on the 30th of July, 1942. From the hatches being closed we can safely assume that U-166 managed to dive before being depth bombed and sunk. A nasty way to die, I'm sure.
Numbers are skewed regarding German U-boats. There were over 1,600 U-boats built, each on average had a 50 man crew. If you do the math that's 80,000 men. Over 700 U-boats were sunk, most of those men didn't survive. So 30,000 Kia on a sub was a conservative number
I question your numbers. My uncle was a skipper on both a type 7 and type 9. He was sunk twice and by miracle of god lived. These wrecks are war graves to the kids who died in them. Respect them as such.
Sad and Sobering. Split in two. A horrific and sudden death to her and her crew. Yet also, very interesting. She is astonishingly well preserved. The worst seems to be that the wooden decking has been eaten away. Very little growth or as much metal degradation as I would expect for something being exposed at the bottom as long as this boat has been. Lack of oxygen for the reason as to the state of preservation? Or something else?
it is surmised that as she was diving to avoid Allied ships a depth charge landed right on top of the area in the sub where torpedos were stored causing a chain reaction explosion and breaking the U-boat into 2 sections.
@@Birdbike719 Agree on the first, disagree on the 2nd, Look at the hull, its all caved in, certainly a direct hit with a depth charge, but a subsequent explosion from stored torps... unlikely. The sub was almost certainly carrying some variant of a G7 torpedo, most likely a G7e, which carried over quarter of a ton of a mixture of dipicrylamine and TNT as its warhead. The hull is showing no signs of being forced out from an internal explosion, which if those torpedo warheads had detonated, would have left strong evidence of the hull being blown out. Also the warheads were relatively safe until they got armed, and that was only when they got put in the tubes. It would need a direct hit on the warhead to set that off, and that's impossible when the torps are inside the sub. Its more likely the sub received a direct hit from at least one, if not more, depth charges, which caved the hull in, and most likely split in two when it hit the seabed due to a weakened structure form the depth charges.
@@roadsweeper1 The two pieces are more than 100 feet apart. There was definitely more than a depth charge that blew the two pieces of the boat that far apart. I believe they were possibly loading aft tunes one and two when they were struck with the fatal charges possibly or moving them from storage to aft tubes. She definitely took a very rare depth charge to the stern deck but I do believe from distance of wreckage she definitely had a internal explosion pushing the two pieces away from each other.
Interesting side story....It was determined in 2014 that U-166 was actually sunk by US Navy PC 566, not the Coast Guard Widgeon seaplane as originally thought. Apparently the Captain of PC 566 was removed from command after the engagement with U-166 as the Navy thought he had botched the attack.
at least they got it right at the end. Initial credit for the sinking of U-166 had been given to a Grumman G-44 Widgeon, but the position of the wreck made it clear that this should have gone to the submarine chaser PC-566.On 16 December 2014, the Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus posthumously awarded the captain of PC-566, then-LCDR Herbert G. Claudius, USNR (later CAPT USN), the Legion of Merit with a Combat "V" device for heroism in battle and credited him with the sinking of the U-boat. "Seventy years later, we now know that Capt. Claudius's report after the action was absolutely correct," he said. "PC-566 did sink that U-boat, and it's never too late to set the record straight." - Brian Clark Howard (19 December 2014). "72 Years Later, Snubbed Captain Credited With Downing German U-Boat". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
Wow, some people have no sense of the value of life in celebrating death. Enemies or not, they were human beings, with mothers, fathers, siblings, and maybe children back home. War is a fool's errand, one that we as humans are yet to shed.....RIP former foes.
This is amazing footage. U-166, an IX-C boat, wasn't even two years old when she was lost with all hands. A sister IX-C, U-505, can be seen in the Museum Of Science and Industry in Chicago. Only 54 were built. I have an old Polaroid photo (1954) with my father standing in the foreground as U-505 was being cradled across Lake Shore Drive.
The U-Boat U166 is Type IX and the commander was Hans-Günther Kuhlmann. They begin the journey the 17:th of June 1942 and sanked four ships of 7595 ton together. U166 was sunk 1:st of August 1942. The german U-boat crews was the most bravest men during WW2.
Actually, one of the craft sunk was a tiny coastal sailing boat that carried agricultural products (84 tons, from the Dominican Republic) and another was a small motor-driven fishing boat (American, based in Miami, only 10 tons). Both were sunk by gunfire. Only two ships were sunk by torpedoes, one was the Robert E. Lee.
@O D GREEN Yep and the Americans shouldnt have been in japan killing, just like the Russians shouldnt have been in Germany killing. Can't forget the Japanese! In war everyone is the good guy and the bad guy, get over it
in the sub's last few moments, the crew knew they were under attack, crash diving as fast as they could. standard emergency dive procedure was for all available sailors to run to the bow torpedo room, leaving all the bulk head doors open. the first few depth charges were close and probably fractured the pressure hull, but not fatally so. the bang sounds inside the boat must have been terrifying. the one depth charge that landed on the front deck blew the the torpedoes up and that huge blast blew off the bow. those crew in the torpedo room were the lucky ones, dying instantly. now with no lights, the boat diving an extreme angle and with a bad list, the survivors in the engine room would have had a few seconds to realize they were doomed. in the pitch black, water poured in through the open doors that facilitated the run to front of the boat. and those few seconds lightly felt like a life time...no one will ever get me in a submarine.
The U-166 must have made a very speedy decent. The retractable antenna is still extended and seeing it bent back like that tells me they made a crash dive and what ever damage they had took them to the bottom.
Please see my comment above. It appears that a depth charge exploded right at the boat and set off some of the boat's torpedoes as well as the depth charge explosion. It's pretty much blown in half. It went down FAST after that explosion.
Most of that is crush depth damage. Depth charges were not powerful enough to tear a boat in half. They would crack the pressure hull and cause massive flooding. When she reached crush depth, she would crumple like a tin can.
@@tramlink8544 possible but highly unlikely. Depth charges cause overpressure of the hull to create a breach, they don't explode like a bomb. Even one exploding in contact with the hull is unlikely to cause a sympathetic explosion of the torpedoes. More possible is a hot run in a tube that could have lead to an explosion of the warhead from overheating in the tube.
@@tramlink8544 The torpedo storage is forward. The break is over the diesel engine room. This points to severe depth charge damage and final breakup due to crush depth being exceeded.
For anyone who is about to comment “but it was Nazi’s, they deserve to die!” Not all Germans were Nazis, and most German soldiers were drafted into war regardless of political beliefs.
Yes, they were our enemies at the time, but they were brave young men fighting for their country, however misled they were. I agree. Respect please. Real families lost real sons, real fathers, real brothers, real husbands.
@@charliekill88 It's true what you say but at the same time the German nation bought in to the master race, world domination ideology. Imagine the same type of ideology being implemented or cultivated in other nations....we'd only stop laughing in order to haul those pricks out of office and string them up by their gonads. They would get zero percent co-operation. The German army slaughtered everything as the retreated...men women children animals...EVERYTHING! Who in the name of Christ does that!!!!
Talking about human remains, those U-boats quite commonly have entire compartments still sealed and airtight if they're not too deep. When I was in the US Navy I had a few drinks with a retired deep sea diving dude, the guy's who breathe helium and dive to 1000' on a daily basis, insane. Anyhow, he said back in the 1960s they started finding all kinds of stuff in the Mediterranean, planes, ships, and submarines with better SSS. According to him, he and a crew torched a part of a U-boat from something like 200', which is kinda deep but you could do it with scuba. They haul it on board, it's the aft torpedo room, they open the hatch, he said it was like cold rotten meat, it stank but there they were, four sailors, still in uniform, slumped on the deck. He said they were well preserved enough if he were handed a photo of one of the four he'd recognize him.
Or the subs,I suppose they need paper pushers, and the toilet rolls always need replacing, it's a shame you don't use your real name. never mind carry on the good work, oh and don't try to troll adults
Beppe my father was a WWII veteran as were almost all of his circle of friends and our relatives. I never met a WWII veteran - from the western European theater anyway - who wasn't willing to shake hands with a veteran from the other side of the war. So if they buried the hatchet before they died, there's no reason for you to feel a need to carry on. Certainly don't suggest you're doing it in their memory, anyway.
Beppe Sapone Not all Germans are Nazis, if you lived an evil military junta you would definitely be conscripted, right? When all the depth charges dropped around them, did you the only thing they thought about was the Nazi Idealogy?
THANK GOD SHES IN SUCH DERP WATER NO SCAVANGERS CAN GET TO HER. MY DAD WAS 4 YEARS USN N ATLANTIC AND NORMANDY. I MISS HIM ABOUT OUR TALKS. TO THE MEMORY OF U166 CREW FAIR WIND AND FOLLOWING SEA.
As an American, having a Nazi submarine sunk in our backyard creates a different feeling. It is not lost that you and your allies wrote your comments on RU-vid in English.
As a German i'm really not emotional about that. I wonder what we could have learned and where we would be today if instead of in the war machinery we had put all that resources into peaceful sience.
As an american Skinhead How i long to raise this boat, restore it, fresh coat of Kriegsmarine gray, and vacation with it at PUT IN BAY. Wearing mt ben shermans in the sun atop the conning tower
Its quite interesting, I always thought German Uboats stayed in the Atlantic to prevent supplies from reaching the UK, but this Uboat was in the Gulf of Mexico near the coast of Louisiana. I imagine civilians in the US coastline in fear of using their boats due to a German uboat hunting in the area.
I can imagine they knew they were going to die when their ears were wrecked by the loud sound of a direct hit breaking off the front of their killing machine 😐
If I am correct, the U-boat sunk a ocean liner and was then fired upon by escort frigates. As the sub descended, the Coast Guard launched it's depth charges, one of which landed directly on the aft torpedo section. You can imagine their surprise when the ordinance exploded directly over their heads. It took the whole bow with it.
Let's just agree that your version of events is exaggerated, but similar 😐 The SS Robert E Lee was a local passenger steamer, not a transoceanic liner.
@@craftpaint1644, it has also been recorded that this boat sank pleasure craft as well.... With complete sarcasm, those were some very brave nazis...... The n word does NOT deserve capitalization.....
Great video footage, but its a shame the volume is far too low. I don't imagine it would be hard to fix that. I have my computer volume at 100 & I cant hear it.
If he is alive please Thank him for his service. He and all the allied soldiers literally saved the world. Imagine if Germany and their allies won the war. It was the men of WWII that inspired me to serve my country during Desert Storm.
Every video on RU-vid has someone in the comments who says "i was friends with that person" or "my father worked there" or "my grandfather spotted the submarine"! Sorry but at this point if you dont have proof just move on and keep it to yourself.
Zoes Dada how are you going to post proof in the comment section?? And I don't know about you but I'm not going to post a video or something just to prove anything to you... Let people write what they want dude. So why don't you move on and keep it to yourself buddy
My greatuncle served on the U-157. They were 52 crewmembers and they sunk on 13th of July 1942. He just turned 23 at that time. American ships and airplanes sunk them near Key West, Florida. They were never found
I’m very sorry your uncle died like this, and I hope Nautilus schedules a dive eventually, the subsequent results may give your family any necessary closure.. And we all get to see a very intricate piece of history. I’m also very surprised nobody has done a sonar scan yet of the site or sent an ROV down to check it out ( wreck lies approximately 700 meter deep water )
@@leo5504-l9v Yea same, I don't know why no one has ever found them.. There were 2 submarines in the gulf of Mexico that sunk (german ones) and one of them is the one in the video, the other one is the one in which my great-uncle died. Also, I noticed you said uncle xD, I'm 17 so it can't be my uncle. He was my grandmas brother
There are millions of tons of planes, ships and other junk from WWII. It's a waste of time to get emotional about it, in my opinion. The United States and Britain had dozens of intact U Boats and Japanese submarines that surrendered after the war. The few that people wished to preserve could take their pick without dredging up wrecks that had been sunk for many decades If you want to visit a display, I recommend Pearl Harbor, where you can view where the Arizona Battleship blew up and next to it the Battleship Missouri, where the peace was signed in 1945. . Not to mention similar quantities of American and British ships and aircraft sunk.
I have dived the wreck of the M2 out from Lyme Regis on several occasions. She sits upright on the seabed at around 30 metres to the deck she went down with all hands apart from the aircraft pilot. After attempting to raise her failed she was sealed with the bodies inside. The wreck is to a fair degree still intact. The last time I dived it I noticed the bow planes were fully upward and found myself thinking was this the last desperate attempt to try to keep the sub on the surface. I chose not dive it again
My Great Uncle CPO John Jewell lies in M2, on his last leave he told his pregnant wife he had a very bad feeling about his upcoming tour for these M class subs had a bad reputation his widow never remarried and his daughter passed on in 2010.M1 lies furthur east in the Channel after colliding with a freighter as only one sea seal had been fitted to the hanger and 8" gun turret respectively.The French Sub Surcouff disappeared whilst escorting a convoy in 1942 and later one merchantman reported hitting something during the night but substained only minor damage her wreck has never been found. Is the hangar door lying partly open Larry?
Yesterday's enemy is tomorrow's friend. It is truly sad and unfortunate that our two great nations were ever in conflict. History is the fickle mistress of Mankind.
Thank You Nautilus. I recorded the whole expedition You guys did to this Sub. I must have well over 5 hours of it. Be cool if You Guys did some Japanese War Wrecks in the Pacific..........
For the people that say they feel horrible for the crew on u boat 166. Need to do more research this u boat sunk 5 u.s ships during its life during the war killing in total of 32 American men. Just keep that in mind rest in peace to all that fought in the war on both sides.
I think it was Ballard that found this sub. A Captain was relieved of his duty when he claimed to have sunk a U-boat in the Gulf of Mexico. Ballard proved he did sink a u-boat, the depth charge landed on the bow of the boat while it was diving and exploded when it reached the depth it was set at. The remaining Son of this Captain received his Fathers declaration and had his honour restored. Ballard saved a man's honour and corrected history. I can't remember the documentary on this sub, but as a Canadian, I remember when that son received his dad's honour restored I had tears in my eyes. My brother and I were talking a while back and we are glad that our Dad has passed away and hero's like this Captain and my Dad don't see what the Dem's and Liberals are doing to our countries today. Men and women like them fought for our freedom and these Liberals today should be ashamed for what they are doing to our countries. To the men on that U-boat, to men like the Captain and my Dad, rest in peace. My Dad has quite a story as well. He was wounded in Holland and honourably discharged and sent back to Canada. He healed and relisted and went back to finish the war. I wish they told the whole story in this clip.
Why does the video title says 1940, if in that year there were no sinkings of any vessels near the US coast ? Besides, the USA entered the war by the end of '41, and the U-166 was sunk in '42....
The capabilities of the type XXI for example were highly exaggerated as of the 109 that were built none sank a ship or really completely finished their sea trials after construction. Best anybody can say is that the Allies copied over some of the design except the propulsion system because it was crap 😐
There are litterally hundreds of u boat wrecks in rivers and off the coast of America. What they dont mention is most of them were scuttled which means the occupants reached their destination, met another ship and sank the u boat. Wonder why?
Wonderful video. The three weapons shown are An 8.8cm deck gun forward of the conning tower. The angle gun atop the conning tower is 20mm Oerlikon and the one aft of the conning tower is a 40mm Bofors.
Actually, you are incorrect. The deck gun forward is a 105 mm, the aft gun is a 37mm, and the conning tower gun(s) are twin 20mm. This submarine was a Type IX-C and carried heavier guns than the Type VII because she was bigger and could support them.
Im SwIft well we had a sense they were there; which is why costal blackouts were common along the east coast and gulf. Go to Bethany beach DW and you’ll see spotting towers up and down the beaches. They did the same on the island of Puerto Rico; as an early warning
Well preserved! What secrets are within...but.....its a war grave so we look sombrely but we don‘t touch. This killer machine sunk many unarmed merchant ships, American, Canadian and British. I think of those poor guys mostly, their wrecks are hardly visited 😔 Thats no criticism meant, your exploratory wirk is truly amazing👏....thats just me.🙂
For most of my life, especially during high school years, I had heard stories of a sunken U-boat off the coast of Florida but nobody really knew much about it until now. At least this one, unlike those sunk around Great Britain, will remain as a war grave and not be pilfered by vandals and thieves as most of those have been. It's a disgrace to that nation that so many feel no remorse at what they have done to those sunken grave sites.
Touching a war grave in the UK is a criminal offence and British people would be horrified at it, German or not. Unfortunately others have access to our waters and don't give a damn about it.
Yes, you can see all three in the video, at different times. U-166 was a later Typ IX, the 88 mm (3.5 inch) gun was fitted to earlier boats but this one is a 105 (4 inch) gun.
