There is a lot of background on this incident published on this site and in the numerous issues of the Naval Airship Assoc. magazine, The Noon Balloon. The Mt. Desert Islander newspaper did a 3 part story about 2 years ago that covered all the discrepancies in the official findings and there were many. Bear in mind that a month after the allies landed in France on D-Day and Roosevelt and Churchill were issuing daily press releases boosting morale that a German U-Boat shooting a US Navy Blimp out of the sky along the coast of Maine would not look good. Also consider that over the course of 6 or 7 months in 1944 the Germans investigated the area around Bar Harbor and Hancock Pt. for possible landing of spies. Oskar Mantel was captured in Aug. on his way there and 2 spies were actually landed in Nov. of that year. Had there been a U-boat on a secret mission that shot down the K-14 and was itself damaged by the K-14, only to sink further out to sea, all evidence of its mission would have been lost. I have interviewed the last survivor of the K-14 and the Navy blimp pilot who was first on the scene and discovered the wreckage; both firmly stated that the K-14 was shot down and was not flown into the water.

Fred Morin