"The Mysterious Fate of Adolph Hitler's "Black Sea Fleet"" Topic

Quite interesting thread here…

"Stefan Semerdjiev, bulgarian author, wrote in his "The Mysterious Fate of Adolph Hitler's "BLACK SEA FLEET" :
"On 25 August, the last German ships left the Romanian harbor of Mangalia in direction of Bulgaria. Several German commanders were so frightened that, immediately after crossing the Romanian border, they ran their ships ashore between Durankulak and Shabla and panic-stricken, fled with their crews to the West. In the bay of Varna, the ships anchored on the commercial pier and in the chanel to Varna Lake. On 27 August a compromise solution was found: the ships were to be disarmed and the crews were to leave the country. The Bulgarian's would provide railway trains for the departure. The commander of the S-flotille refused to obey, departed the harbor with his last 4 S-boats and scuttled them off Baltchik. On 28 Aug.1944, a great part of the ships with only a few men on board left Varna's harbor and stopped 5-6 miles to the east. Immediately upon leaving the harbor, the crews began to throw weapons, ammunition and valuable equipment overboard, while leaving the engines run without coolants and lubrication so that they would burn themselves out and become useless. Then a R-boat made the round of all ships and collected the crews. Another boat followed with a demolition team, which placed explosive charges with time fuses on each ship. After a preset time, the charges exploded and all of the ships sank. The boat with the crews returned to the harbor and was abandoned with running engines without cooling and lubrication. By afternoon, a storm made it impossible for 20 remained ships to leave the harbor to be scuttled. On 29 August, after sank some more ships, the last group of Germans left Varna by train. The ships abandoned in Varna were seized by the Sov. troops. The number of German ships lost in WW2 in the Black Sea is not exactly known. It varies from 110 to 145 according to different sources. The fate of many of the ships in the Black Sea still remains unknown. For many of them it was later claimed that they were Soviet war prizes, but this also remains unclear. 101 German ships were in the area of Varna and Bourgas in the end of war. 73 were scuttled by their crews : 71 in the bay of Varna and 2 in the bay of Bourgas. It leaves the impression that a great part of the ships – 28 (about 1/3) – were abandoned without being sunk. This confirms that at that time the German troops in Black Sea area had become panic-stricken. But German commanders took the measures to ensure that as many as possible of the combat ships were scuttled – these were all S-boats, AMLs and AFs, a great part of the R-boats (32 of 38), MFPs (28 of 32) and KFKs (2 of 5)."
From here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Very interesting. Must have been quite an eventful train ride home.

Happy you enjoyed it my friend!. (smile)

Agree with you!.

Amicalement
Armand