German U-boat may be at bottom of Labrador river
Baku, July 27 (AZERTAC). An important piece of history from the Second World War may be sitting in a river in Labrador.
Searchers believe they`ve found a German U-boat buried in the sand on the bottom of the Churchill River. The discovery has yet to be authenticated.
Two years ago, searchers scoured the bottom of the Churchill River with side-scanning sonar. They were looking for three men lost over Muskrat Falls. When they reviewed the footage from that search, they made an unexpected discovery.
At first glance, it can be hard to spot the submarine on the sonar image of the riverbed.
The length is about 30 metres, or "exactly what our side-scan sonar shows," Corbin said.
The area, though, was strategically important during the Second World War. An air force base, which the U.S. military used extensively during the war, was built in the early 1940s, and operates still as 5 Wing Goose Bay.
He notes that a Second World War-era, battery-operated weather station was found decades after being left in Labrador by a U-boat. It is now on display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
More than a dozen U-boats may still be unaccounted for, he said.
If the mystery find is proven to be a submarine wreck, the German government does not favour bringing it to the surface.
According to Juergens, the Newfoundland and Labrador government is now involved in efforts to authenticate the possible wreck.
If the German government agrees, Corbin wants to head back out onto the Churchill River.
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