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Talk:German submarine U-305

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Sinking

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The fate of U-305 has obviously been disputed and I traced the source of that dispute to a book by Axel Niestlé called German U-Boat Losses During World War II: Details of Destruction but as I haven't read the book I have no idea what evidence he gives to back up the theory that she was sunk by one of her own torpedoes. I have however read Bob Whinney's account in his book The U-boat Peril of the attack on an unknown submarine which was later thought to be U-305 as it was in the same area and around the same date.

I would really love for someone to clarify how Axel Niestlé disproved the HMS Wanderer sank her. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LameCat (talkcontribs) 12:04, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify; Bob Whinney's account showed he was unable to identify the U-boat Wanderer destroyed. Post-war analysis found it was U-305; that is what is recorded in Kemp's book (from 1997) and Niestle's (in 1998), and everyone else's. Niestle seems to have looked at things again, in relation to the loss of U-305, U-377 and U-641, which all went down in the same area around the same time. He's published a revised account of these sinkings here, (basically he thinks Wanderer sank U-377 and it was U-305 that torpedoed herself) but unfortunately it's a dead link. U-boat.net have accepted his findings without demur, and tailored their information accordingly; I don't know if the RN's Naval History Unit have accepted his theory yet, but in any case, we aren't able to be so definite without reliable sources. I've edited this page and the others involved to allow for the uncertainty. Xyl 54 (talk) 02:07, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's great, thank you! LameCat (talk) 14:57, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]