[Not a Number]

Here's something - After WWI a German U-Boot UC-97 was indeed in the Great Lakes - Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan. It was scheduled for a tour through Lake Superior but the tour was cut short due to excessive wear to the engines.

Lake County, Illinois History: German U-Boat in Lake Michigan Waters

[monochrome]

There was a WWII POW camp at the Missouri River bottomland about 30 miles west of the St. Louis city limit. There were several escapes from the camp during the war and some of the escapees actually were successful (it was later discovered one of them walked to Canada and disappeared). When we were very young my father jokingly told us the Germans had navigated a Submarine up the Mississippi River to St. Louis to pick up the escapees, which we believed well into High School.

There are no dams on the Mississippi below St. Louis. That was the 'proof' of the story.

The Hellwig Farm was the destination for many St. Louisans' annual pilgrimage to get Halloween pumpkins until it was inundated in the historic 1993 flooding. The Levee was raised afterward, and the entire 'Gumbo Flats / Chesterfield Valley former farming area is now a 4 mile long shopping mall.

[monochrome]

I think the closest a U-boot got to the Great Lakes is U-505 which has been at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry since 1954. It was towed up the Chicago River before being transported to the Museum.

U-boat Archive - U-505
The Type IXC boat U-505 - German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net
U-505: The Only Captured German Submarine in the US

As I recall from an article in American Cinematographer some of the fittings from U-505 were loaned to the production of the 1981 film/ TV mini-series Das Boot.

I've toured that museum. The sub is incredibly claustrophobic.

[Rupert]

I still believe it....deleting it is just another conspiracy to keep us from knowing the truth.....

Regards!

[Unregistered User 8]

I still believe it....deleting it is just another conspiracy to keep us from knowing the truth..... Regards!

T rying
R eally
U nsuccessfully
T o
H oodwink !!

[Rupert]

T rying
R eally
U nsuccessfully
T o
H oodwink !!

Yep they don't fool all of us, do they! Heck, all of life is a conspiracy and they are trying to "get us". All those missing ships in the Great Lakes.......now we know what really happened to them.

Regards!

[Tom S.]

Speaking of subs and their main weapon, the torpedo, here's an interesting factoid for you. During WWII, the government financed the building of several plants in key areas to build weaponry. One of those areas was my old home town of Pontiac, Michigan. Two plants were built there: a gun plant that produced the well known Ma Duce .50 caliber machine gun and a second plant to build torpedoes. Here's where it gets a bit interesting, if not somewhat morbid. The walls of the torpedo plant were comprised of three foot brick and cement up to a height of about 7 feet, and single pane glass panels the rest of the way up - maybe 14 feet. The idea was should the building ever be bombed, or far more likely, should one of the torpedoes ever explode, the windows would blow out, preserving the walls for a rapid rebuild. Of course I'm sure that was a great relief to the workers inside.

[Rupert]

Of course I'm sure that was a great relief to the workers inside.

When I was a teen I worked in an explosives plant one summer. The boss' office and the staff were in a steel reinforced concrete section of the plant with thick steel doors. We were extra careful every time we thought of that situation.

Not a submarine story, but similar in espionage and attack strategy....

One day many years ago I went fishing with my Dad, at that time a US Army Bird Col. and active in Army Intelligence/Nuclear Weapons. We went to a lake behind LTV in Grand Prairie where they once produced the Corsair fighter jet. A Navy Air Base was next door to the plant.

As we sat on the shore fishing my Dad pointed toward the fence line at the plant and said "we are about 100yards from Ground Zero". Do what?

He went on.....A night fisherman years earlier.....60s......was fishing in the dark one night near our spot when he saw two men digging. They were very discreet and it aroused his suspicion. The next morning he went to the location and could not find a trace of disturbance, but knew what he had seen the night before. He thought maybe it was a Mob murder or something like that, so he went to the police. The man was very reputable and well known, so they followed up and after much exploration they dug up a device of unknown specifications. Fearing it was a small bomb, they alerted the FBI. From there it was determined to be a homing device and would pinpoint the delivery of a Russian missile. Using the information gained, many, many of these devices were located at strategic points across America. At the time he told me this none of it was classified, and later on technology eliminated the need for such devices.......but at the time it could have made a devastating difference in the event of all out war.
Things are happening all the time that we know nothing about...kinda scary!

Regards!

[timb64]

There are similar stories in the UK about Cold War days,the most amusing relate to O.S. Maps at the time which "missed off" certain strategic installations such as Naval Facilities and other buildings including the The Post Office Tower a major London landmark for fear it would assist the Soviets.Since the thawing of relations Soviet maps from the time have emerged that were in far greater detail than was commonly available in the UK at the time!