Kriegsmarine U-190

[John Burchell]

#4.

[John Burchell]

#5.

[John Burchell]

#6.

[John Burchell]

#7.

[Steve campbell]

That's some of the ones I'm talking about. Thanks for all that information. St. John's has witnessed alot of history in it's time.

[Martin W]

John,

what a great set of photo's.Thanks for showing.

Regards,Martin

[John Burchell]

Gentlemen:

In order to obviate any confusion whatsoever, I now wish to post a clarification / correction regarding information which I included in my posting in this thread regarding the surrender of the U-190 off the coast of Newfoundland in May of 1945.

Initially, in my posting ID4 I noted that after the "... unconditional surrender on May12th...the U-190 was escorted into Bay Bulls, Newfoundland by two RCN corvettes on May 14th...." 

I then wrote in my posting ID19 about..."the submarine being towed toward Bay Bulls...[and] subsequently boarded...some 150 miles out at sea...."

The latter comment contains the incorrect information which has recently been brought to my attention by the then Chief Engineer Officer on the U190 in May 1945, Werner Hirschmann (also referenced above) who read this thread and expressed concern to me.  I agreed to correct my words as stated and will quote his words here:

" Two things: Nobody boarded our boat 150 km out at sea....The first boarding happened just at the entrance of Bay Bulls where we were received by a Fairmile. And we entered Bay Bulls very much on own power. There was no need to tow us.  I felt a bit hurt by the insinuation that I didn’t keep my Diesels going until the end. I guess this is, by now, quite clear to you, but to read it now on the Internet was a somewhat unpleasant surprise....".

He added that, "U-190 did not fly a black flag as requested by our superiors....we didn’t have a black flag at hand and there was no point in looking for one since a black flag has never been in  the inventory of a U-boat.  U-889 must have developed some ingenuity in creating the black flag that is shown flying from its periscope." 

And a further note that, "While scrolling through some of the U-190 items on the Internet, some highly inventive author told the world that Canadian crews could not enter U-190 because of a terrible stench in the boat and had to wait until it was “fumigated”. I’m not sure they needed pest control for removing odor but the whole story is pure nonsense. Every night, while snorkeling, the diesels sucked all the bad air out of the boat which was then replaced by the fresh air coming from the snorkel.  While I had the Canadian sailors on U-190 on our two-day trip to Bay Bulls all of us at times went on the conning tower and back into the boat without ever noticing any smell whatsoever. But stories will always be repeated and kept alive."

So there you have it, gentlemen...straight from the man who was there at the time.  I am happy that this has now been corrected for posterity.