One of the 703 (that’s seven-hundred three) Type VIIC U-boats completed in WWII, U-576 was commissioned 26 June 1941, the same week that Hitler brilliantly invaded the Soviet Union. In the next 13 months she conducted 5 war patrols in the North Atlantic bagging three four ships, all smallish freighters. Well on the night of 15 Juy 1942, off Cape Hatteras she encountered three ships and attacking all three, managed only to sink the smallest of the group, a beat up old 2000-ton Nicrauguan tramp named the Bluefields.
However just afterwards two Kingfisher floatplanes of VS-9D4, NAS Cherry Point, supported by naval gunfire from the armed merchantman Unicoi sent U-576 down for her final dive, carrying her 45 man crew including her skipper, plank-owner Kptlt. Hans-Dieter Heinicke.
Well it looks like NOAA found the long lost sub and her last victim 30 miles off the NC coast, just 240 yards apart.
Pretty groovy WaPost artcle here.
