Ernest Hemingway was part of the Corsair Fleet / Hooligan Navy. That much is plausible. However, he claims the Navy put HF/DF on his 38-ft yacht Pilar. Considering the size of the antennas, that the technology was still secret during WW2, and that to my knowledge it wasn't even mounted on actual subchasers this seems like baloney. What do you think?
Forum: General Discussions

Great info page - thank you!
Forum: Technology and Operations

What is the time zone for U-boat KTBs and what is the offset from Eastern Standard Time (EST)?
Forum: Technology and Operations

I came across a story about a U-boat sunk in the Gulf of Mexico west of Tampa Bay, Florida. According to book about Egmont Key (the island in the mouth of Tampa Bay with the lighthouse), there is a whistle buoy about 15 miles west of the island and the wreck is about 20 miles west of that. The story told was that the USS Nunzer (DE-150) sank a U-boat on Oct 31 or Nov 1, 1943 while on a shakedown
Forum: General Discussions

Image is too small to read. I assume you mean it shows a U-boat surrendering off the US coast during WW1?
Forum: General Discussions

Fort Lauderdale News (Fort Lauderdale, FL newspaper) - 6 Apr 1959 "Another interesting incident that happened during the war was when a US destroyer on routine patrol duty took a U-boat without a shot being fired. The German sub was taken to Norfolk and the crew was interned, but a search of the sub disclosed locally bought bread and a bottle of soft drink." I'm thinking the ev
Forum: General Discussions

Given that official reports were being kept secret during the war I don't really see the need to censor the report. It wasn't being released to the public and there was no need for anyone to CYA inside the military. Civilian clothes could be a misinterpretation from some of the bodies being out of uniform. One of the reports on uboatarchive describes the Germans as wearing a variety
Forum: General Discussions

I didn't find anything in the reports under link that mentions civilian clothing or currency being found on any of the bodies from U-85. I recently came across the story of U-85 and possible spies while reading "Torpedo Junction." Hickam's book does NOT mention finding anything suspicious about the bodies. However, I came across mention on Wikipedia of the spy angle:
Forum: General Discussions

Most of the Enigma discussions I've found are focused on how the Enigma code worked and how it was decrypted. But how did the Allies get the encoded messages in the first place? Were HFDF shore stations also recording the messages they attempted bearings on and passing those messages to Bletchley Park or USN Intelligence? Were there dedicated (non-HFDF) intercept stations? Or was it so
Forum: Technology and Operations

Thank you! I see from that Wiki article: "Between February and March 1942, five Betasom submarines (along with six German U-Boats) took part in Operation Neuland, sinking 15 of the 45 Allied merchant ships destroyed during this operation." Was this the only time Italian submarines operated in the Americas?
Forum: General Discussions

Did Italian submarines get involved in the Battle of the Atlantic or did they stay in the Mediterranean?
Forum: General Discussions

I came across the following quote Linwood S. Howeth's "History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy" which is a 1963 government publication and also available online at "While the equipment was being installed on the battleships and cruisers, design of sets with smaller coils for destroyers was proceeding. In May 1917, Austin, of the Navy Radio Researc
Forum: WWI forum

I read that the British had a strategic plot/map for the whole Atlantic and Med at Bletchley Park where they tracked Allied convoys and known U-boat and raider activity. The U-boat locations were plotted based on Engima decoding, RDF intercepts, and sighting reports. Did the US ever implement a comparable strategic tracking system? If so, when did it start and where was it located?
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I have some unpublished reminisces written by an Army wife stationed in Florida during World War II. She worked a weekly morning shift as a coast spotter on Jupiter Island looking for aircraft and submarines. On her first watch shift in the summer of 1942 (exact date not given) she arrived not long after dawn and, before the previous watch left, she spotted a U-boat (identified because of the s
Forum: General Discussions

Other than the well-known 1942 captures of saboteurs landed from U-boats at Ponte Verde Beach, FL and Long Island, NY is there any evidence of U-boat crews or saboteurs/spies landed from U-boats being captured on land in the US? Stories continue to circulate through present day, especially here in Florida. I have heard Michael Gannon's books on the U-boat war dismiss all such stories as
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"Secret Weapon" looks like a very interesting book, although I see in the reviews that it is more focused on ship-based HF/DF and not so much about the land-based HF/DF systems.
Forum: General Discussions

Does anyone know of any good books or articles that address the use of the land-based Radio Directing Finding (RDF) network to locate U-boats on a strategic and tactical level? Curious to know how effective the system actually was, who came up with the idea for a RDF network against U-boats and when, at what point it started to become effective, etc. I understand the Navy and Army used a chai
Forum: General Discussions