Divers aim to solve the mystery of U-boat scuttled after toilet trouble off Aberdeen coast

IT WAS one of the most bizarre maritime losses of the Second World War. A German U-boat was apparently forced to surface off the Scottish coast after filling with chlorine gas following a toilet malfunction – and the vessel was then scuttled by its crew.

The wreck of the U-1206 is thought to lie 250ft deep, 12 miles off Cruden Bay in Aberdeenshire, but has so far eluded attempts to find it. Now a new search for the submarine is to be launched next month by a team of divers using newly uncovered information about its location taken from the log of a British naval vessel which witnessed the sinking.

The team, led by amateur diver and IT consultant Jim Burke, hopes to finally establish why U-1206 surfaced in April 1945 – weeks before the end of the war. The U-boat captain ordered its sinking after the submarine was spotted and attacked by Allied aircraft. The crew took to life rafts, with 37 captured while three drowned.

According to several accounts by historians, the fault with the toilet – or “heads” – was caused by a crewman opening the wrong valve to flush it.

This caused the contents of the toilet to flood the submarine’s batteries underneath, producing poisonous chlorine gas.

The problem derived from the toilet’s complicated high-pressure valve system, developed so U-boats could dive deeper to evade Allied attack.

Burke said the German U-boat archive showed the incident happened during repairs to the diesel engines after they stopped recharging the batteries.

It recorded Captain Karl Schlitt as stating: “I was in the engine room, when, at the front of the boat, there was a water leak. What I have learned is a mechanic had tried to repair the forward WC’s outboard vent.

“The engineer who was in the control room at the time managed to make the boat buoyant and surfaced, despite severe flooding.

“Meanwhile the batteries were covered with sea water. Chlorine gas started to fill the boat.

“We were then incapable of diving or moving. At this point, British planes and patrols discovered us. I let the boat sink.”

The incident has captured the imagination of television producers, with the story featuring on the popular children’s series Horrible Histories, and a Hong Kong production company plans to produce a documentary.

Burke, 48, who has been searching for the elusive submarine with the Buchan Divers group for 11 years, said he hoped the latest dives with the four-strong team would be successful, having already found several other wrecks.

He said: “We will search again when the weather clears up, in June or July.

“We have new information to work on – the last position of the U-boat as recorded by a British naval vessel which saw it. This is about a mile away from previous searches.”

Burke has also heard another – albeit uncorroborated – theory from a relative of a crewman, that the toilet fault was a cover story for the captain who wished to surrender.

He said: “Apparently, Captain Schlitt and some of his senior officers, deciding that the war was lost and having no desire to face the almost certain death which befell most of the U-boat crews at the tail end of the war, staged the toilet flooding event so they could deliberately scuttle the boat without appearing to desert.

“I heard this from the grandson of one of the crew. They had to preserve the myth or they risked being murdered by fellow prisoners of war.”

Nautical archaeologist Innes McCartney, has dismissed the surrender theory.

McCartney, who is completing a doctorate in U-boat wrecks at Bournemouth University, said: “The submarine was on its first operational patrol. The crew were very young and green to say the least.

“It was also built late in the war, when Germany was starved of materials. Iron would have been used for nearly all the valves rather than non-corroding bronze so it was quite possible the toilet system simply failed, or was difficult to operate.

“The submarine had also sailed from occupied Norway, where there were rumours of sabotage of German vessels.”

McCartney added: “In my experience, talk of the crew surrendering is rubbish.

“There is no evidence that can be verified that any German submarine threw in the towel. Generally, these guys took a pride in what they were doing and fought to the end.”