U-boat’s future is secure

Oct 22 2007 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

THE future of one of the last remaining German U-boats has been safeguarded on Merseyside after a new visitor attraction to house it was given the go-ahead.

The future of the submarine U-534 had become uncertain when the Warship Preservation Trust in Birkenhead closed last year.

Merseytravel has now been given planning permission by Wirral council to open a new attraction at Woodside Ferry Terminal where the World War II vessel will be kept.

Last night, the passenger transport authority released the first impressions of what the new tourist attraction will look like.

The submarine will be chopped into four pieces for transportation from the Warship Preservation Trust’s site at East Float Dock, in Birkenhead, to its new home by floating crane.

It is a move which has attracted some controversy but Merseytravel said the costs of moving the U-boat intact would have been prohibitive.

Huge glass panels will be installed over the end of each section to allow visitors to see inside the submarine from viewing platforms.

Work on the project will start next month for completion next year. It will include a visitor exhibition centre housing artefacts from the submarine along with its history.

Merseytravel already operates Spaceport at the Seacombe Ferry Terminal and has plans for more visitor attractions at the new £10m Pier Head ferry terminal.

Neil Scales, chief executive of Merseytravel, said: “This major attraction for Woodside will complement the wider regeneration of the area.

“U-534 will also play an integral role in a wider scheme we have to explain the links between the Mersey ferries and the history of underwater warfare. The Mersey Ferries are already the most popular paid-for attraction in our region and we intend to ensure the continuation of their success.”

Mr Scales said the arrival of U-534 will complement the Resurgam, one of the world’s first submarines, a full-scale model of which is located on the north side of the Woodside terminal.

He also defended the decision to cut the U-534 into four pieces.

“There is no other way we could move or display the vessel.

“She was originally brought to the Mersey on a bespoke barge and specialist transport – the cost of which today would be prohibitive.

“U-534 has lain semi-derelict since the demise of the Historic Warships Museum. No other organisation has volunteered to save her.”

The Historic Warships Museum was closed after the trust which ran it was placed into liquidation when it was told by Peel Holdings it would have to move site because of an apartment development nearby.

U-534 was launched in February, 1942, and it is thought that for the first year and a half of its life it was used as a training boat, kept in the Baltic.

In May, 1944, U-534 was released for operational duty but it was not sent on offensive patrols.

It was assigned the duty of weather reporting and ordered to avoid contact with the enemy to ensure regular reports.

On May 5, 1945, U-534 was sailing in the Kattegat, north-west of Helsingor, and although Admiral Dönitz had ordered all his U-boats to surrender that day, U-534 refused.

She was heading north towards Norway, without flying a flag of surrender, when she was attacked by a Liberator aircraft from RAF 547 Squadron which dropped depth charges.

U-534 took heavy damage and began to sink by the stern.

Three of the 52 crew members died, but five escaped via a torpedo hatch as she lay on the sea bed.

A Danish company retrieved it from the sea-bed between Sweden and Denmark in 1993.

davidbartlett