Hi Vince,

Again Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information on U-boat matters. Do a forum search on civilian air patrol to see previous discussions of this topic.

There were many claims of U-boat sinkings during the war that turned out much later (after awards had been passed out etc.) to not be true. The reverse was also true. Some sinkings were not credited to the right source at the time and this wasn’t discovered until way after the war. It is all still being sorted out. The CAP did attack many suspected U-boat targets but the outcome of those attacks is still in doubt. They may well have sunk two or more U-boats (as they believe) but they just as well may have sunk nothing. A number of seriously damaged U-boats initially reported as sunk made it safely back to port. They call it the fog of war. Until the U-boats in question can be accurately identified we don’t really know what actually happened.

New U-boat wrecks are found (sometimes a long way from where they were supposed to have been sunk) from time to time and sometimes an investigation of these wrecks reveals the cause of their destruction and sometimes it doesn’t.

Dr. Axel Niestle (a frequent forum visitor) has written the definitive book on the subject of the fate of each U-boat, perhaps he can bring us up to date on the CAP claims. Dr. Niestle’s book is: Niestlé, Axel. German U-boat Losses During World War II – Details of Destruction. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. ISBN: 1-55750-641-8. Copyright: Axel Niestlé, 1998.

Also note that the member’s area here at uboat.net is kept updated with the latest research from reliable sources.

Regards,

Ken Dunn