Munitions sinking in the Neustädter Bucht

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In the 1940s, the United Kingdom armed forces dumped large quantities of unneeded ammunition and chemical weapons in Neustadt Bay . This happened under great time pressure for fear of National Socialist underground movements and retaliatory actions.

Ammunition dumping areas in Neustädter Bucht

background

When the victorious powers occupied the German Reich , they were confronted with a large amount of conventional ammunition and around 70,000 tons of chemical warfare agents. As early as 1944, War Office specialists had thought about how to deal with the ammunition and the manufacturing facilities. The only way, in their view, to make fast large quantities of chemical warfare agents harmless was the sinking at sea (deep sea dumping). Parallel to the British operations in the 1940s, there was Operation Davy Jones' Locker of the USA and Operation Sandcastle in 1955/56.

organization

The Continental Ammunition Dumping Committee (CADC) was founded in Bad Oeynhausen on July 15, 1945 . In Lübeck, a Port Commandant held the military command, subordinate to him were the Regional Port Control Teams (RPCT), to which the Movement Control (MC) teams and the respective Port Traffic Officer (PTO) reported.

Sinkings

Sinking points were made from Neustadt and Lübeck

  • Haffkrug up to 15 m water depth ⊙
  • Fur hook at 20 m water depth, covered with blast furnace slag ⊙
  • Travemünde stone reef at a depth of 5 m ⊙

approached.

Other suspected areas in Neustädter Bucht are:

  • from Neustadt to the Haffkrug sinking point
  • from Travemünde to Lübeck Bay Center

In addition to conventional ammunition, chemical ammunition was also sunk. On October 29, 1945, the British Captain LJ Hoppe held aboard the tug Travmünde as follows: "A dump barge loaded with enemy chemical ammunition was brought to the sinking site in the Bay of Lübeck. The dumping attempt with the aid of a dump barge was successfully carried out" ( Capt LJ Hoppe on board tug Travemunde accompanied hopper barge experimentally loaded with enemy CW ammo to dumping ground in Lubeck Bay. Experiment of dumping from hopper barge successfuIly carried out )

The exact amount of ammunition sunk is still unclear. 9 collapsible barges with a capacity of 50 to 300 t were stationed in Lübeck, so the amount should not be insignificant, a barge with 2 cm, 3.7 cm and 4 cm grenades was demonstrably sunk at the Travemünde Steinriff dump site alone . and in 1961 15 metal bottles with remains of ordnance, including phosgene, were sunk by the city of Lübeck in the Neustädter Bucht.

According to conservative estimates, around 65,000 tons of ammunition were sunk from 1945 to 1950, of which 15,000 tons were salvaged or blown up in the 1950s, so that an approximate remaining amount of 50,000 tons remains.

Salvages

In 1955 and 1956, the company Eisen und Metall AG, Hamburg, recovered a lot of ammunition. The recovery was stopped after various accidents and then continued for some time by the state ordnance disposal service with the ship Reiner Falko .

Today an evacuation only takes place when necessary. From 2008 to 2011, 15 torpedoes, 492 10.5 cm artillery shells, 7 drop containers and 20 bombs were cleared from Neustädter Bucht.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Small inquiry: Printed matter 13/2733
  2. ^ H. Lindsey Arison III: European Disposal Operations: The Sea Disposal of Chemical Weapons . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4699-1405-3 , pp. 159 .
  3. ↑ a b Manfred Messer: German Disarmament - The "destruction" of the German CW - ammunition stocks in SKAGERRAK in the years 1945 - 1947. (pdf) March 16, 2019, accessed on August 19, 2020 .
  4. ^ Stephan Nehring: Poison gas sinking by the Allies in the Bay of Lübeck - Pandora's Boxes . In: Waterkant . June 22, 2020, ISSN  1611-1583 ( stefannehring.de [PDF; accessed on August 18, 2020]).
  5. ↑ a b c d H. Burmeier, C. Poggendorf, V. Birke: Ecotoxicological hazard potential from compounds typical of explosives and tabun from old munitions in the Schleswig-Holstein North and Baltic Seas. (pdf) Working group “Old Armaments in the Sea”, 2011, accessed on August 19, 2020 .
  6. ^ Archives: The National Archives (UK). Holdings: WO 171.Document : War Diary of No. 21 Regional Port Control Team RE, October 1945, Lubeck, 29th. War Diary of No. 21 Regional Port Control Team RE, October 1945, Lubeck, 29th. . Signature: TNA WO171 / 5866.
  7. ↑ Investigation in Lübeck Bay has started. Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag GmbH & Co. KG, April 14, 2008, accessed on August 19, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Uwe Wicher: Research as a building block for the current risk assessment using the example of the Fehmarn Belt and Lübeck Bay. (pdf) Accessed August 19, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Claus Böttcher, Tobias Knobloch, Niels-Peter Rühl, Jens Sternheim, Uwe Wichert, Joachim Wöhler: Ammunition pollution in German marine waters - inventory and recommendations (status 2011). (pdf) Ammunition in the Sea, 2011, accessed on August 19, 2020 .