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British war hero's son tours German WWII submarine sunk by his father

Xinhua, June 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

The son of a British World War II hero has paid a visit to the German U-boat submarine sunk by his father in what was one of the last bombing raids in Europe in 1945.

Warrant Office John Nicol won the Royal Air Force's highest honor, the Distinguished Flying Cross, for sinking the U-boat that refused to surrender.

The submarine, U-534, lay on the seabed for 40 years off Denmark and is now a tourist attraction on the banks of the River Mersey near Liverpool.

Frazer Nicol, who lives in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, was given a VIP tour of U-534 by the transport authority on Merseyside who now own the submarine, one of the few surviving anywhere in the world.

Warrant officer Nicol was with RAF Squadron 547 flying a Liberator aircraft when he spotted U-534 North West of Helsingor in Denmark. He dropped depth charges, sending the submarine to the seabed. Amazingly, 49 of the 52 German crew members aboard the runaway U-boat survived, including four who managed to escape through a torpedo hatch.

Frazer Nicol said, "With so much commemoration around the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, I thought it would be a fitting tribute to remember my father's acts by making this visit. It's remarkable to see the actual U-boat. They remain one of the enduring symbols of the war."

During the visit, Nicol proudly showed his hosts his father's wartime medal.

Spokesman Chris Ince at the U-boat site said: "On May 5th, 1945 all enemy U-boats had been ordered to surrender by their admiral, but for some reason U-534 refused to do so.

"In August 1993, the wreckage was raised from the seabed in the hopes of finding hidden treasure on board, however, nothing was found and so the mystery of why U-534 refused to surrender remains to this day."

Supply ships heading towards Liverpool suffered heavily during what wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the Battle of the Atlantic. Packs of German U-boat submarines regularly attacked supply convoys during what was the longest continuous battle of the war.

The battle cost the lives of 30,000 Allied sailors and 30,000 German sailors, with 3,500 Allied supply ships and 175 warships sunk. Over 780 German U-boats were sunk.

U-534 gives a glimpse of what life was like on board a German U-boat, with original film archive and interactive displays. Endit