Dear Pedro

Thank you for your kind note.

I am not an historian. I am a published author and translator. As such I am continuously coming into possession of fresh material, some of which forces me to change my stance on matters. It is my principle never to remain four-square on an assertion once I know it is wrong.

In their book Salinas and de Napoli made serious errors of interpretation of the facts, but the research was good. As you will see from my post on "Bahia" tomorrow, we tend to accept most official facts without really thinking about them too deeply. It may happen some time later that on reviewing the evidence one suddenly sees what it really means. I am happy to admit to error when I am guilty of it. All I am really interested in is establishing the truth of the history, and in this there is a very long way to go. People argue very violently for one point of view or another when all they really know is what they have been told by someone else, and that is not a good scientific basis.

Three boats came to Argentina based on the official declassified documents and our general knowledge. These boats were U-977, U-530 and U-235. The only mention of U-235 is in an 1952 Argentine intelligence document which I will quote in full if you are interested. This document states that U-235 was one of the pack of U-boats which arrived together for Patagonia after the conclusion of hostilities, and put ashore passengers at Mar del Plata submarine base.

Now U-235 was reported sunk in error on 14 April 1945 by the German torpedo boat T-14. The location was just inside the northern tip of Denmark, and the wreck should be the easiest of all to find. The Danish authorities report that all known U-boats wrecks in their waters have now been identified and either lifted, marked or destroyed with the exception of U-235 which cannot be found.

"Logically Bahia was sunk by crew negligence". At the time I was merely following the official report as everybody else has done. Salinas and De Napoli had suggested that "Bahia" was torpedoed which was obviously not the case. When reviewing the Argentine Navy interrogation of Schäffer last year it came to my attention that his boat had arrived with all equipment intact EXCEPT for the flak ammunition which had all been jettisoned. I thought this was odd and in reviewing this aspect finally saw its significance, which I will set out tomorrow.

I hope you find this satisfactory, and will excuse your servant for his imperfections.