Scuttled Nazi treasure submarine

Bigdogdad said:
ECS-You keep insisting that ALL HANDS were accounted for. Do you and anyone else involved believe everything you read? If they wanted to sneak four guys and some diamonds onto the sub and onto shore I am sure they could have done it, and as far as I am concerned they did. I told you I don't know the whole story or do I need to know. I feel I know all I want to which is where the treasure is now hidden.


lastleg-I have no interest in going to a lot of trouble about the details.

I will repeat on here again, there are many details to this whole story that I have no intention of sharing. I will add this, there is every reason for me to believe that my friend's dad saw the guys bury the shells. After they left he dug them back up. He reburied some at the park and left with the rest. Years later he crashed his private plane and died.
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Yes,the devil is in the details.
Can a submerged U-boat traveling at top speed of 13.5km/h go from Point Judith,RI to Montauk,surface in broad daylight,load the shells into a raft in 2hrs 40mins,then proceed to Block Island?
All records,US NAVAL and post war German records state all hands went down.Why would both governments agree on this fact? U-853 crew rosters do exist.
You claim not to need to know the whole story of this event,is it because the facts of the event contradict you percieved version?
You have stated that you learned of the U-853 when you where 12 from an 8 year old friend,and that you never saw the shells or diamonds.Sometimes 8 year old boys exaggerate stories to impress thie friends.
 

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ECS-You are VERY determined to prove this story and everything I have put on Treasuenet to be wrong. So far you have proved nothing except you seem to spend a lot of time researching the "facts" that were written by others. I will ask again as I have on other threads, do you believe everything you read word-for-word? You go ahead and keep digging for facts and I am going to continue digging for treasure. Who does anyone reading this thread think will be the most likely one to actually find something?

ECS seems to like to repeat what he has read but he never seems to be able to comprehend what he is reading and continues to get the facts as I state them, wrong. I NEVER stated that I learned about the U-853 when I was 12. I was around 32. Oh well, what difference does 20 years make? If you can't keep what I post straight why should I or anyone else reading your endless "facts" believe anything you post? ECS has made some serious misquotes on other threads regarding what I have said.

I am really getting tired of getting the third degree about this story and everything else I have posted on Treasurenet. I have already quit posting on any other threads and am about done on this one. I have nothing to gain by telling everything I know to the whole world on the World Wide Web. ECS and anyone else doubting I know what I am talking about really don't matter to me AT ALL. I post on here to try to share REAL stories that I am a part of. I am about over it.
 

Dog, don't give up yet. Why not tell us some more stories we haven't heard yet? It's kind of hard to believe second or third hand
yarns, y'know. Haven't you got one that you witnessed first hand? Maybe you saw one of your kin carrying a bad of silver coins
out behind the barn and coming back without them? Everyone would believe a story like that.
 

Bigdogdad said:
There are many aspects of this story that I will not share at this time. 1. The diamonds, gold and currency were stuffed into the 88mm shells and sealed with wax before loading them onto the sub. 2. The sinking of the Blackpoint was probably a diversion to keep anyone away from the guys in the rubber raft.

3. I became aware of this story because my friend's dad found the 88mm shells. I think he was at the Mountauk Point State Park the night the guys came ashore. 4. He repeatedly told my friend the story of the sub and would fly him from New Jersey to show him where he had reburied some of the 88mm shells. My friend was 6 years old the first trip and 8 years old on the last trip. 5. I have been to Montauk Point twice, once with my friend and once with my wife.

6. There are plenty of stories about the U-853. If you dig deep enough you will possibly find info that gives my story more credibility.
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1. Now the 88 shells have gold and currency with the diamonds?Remember the only testimony given concernig this only mentioned traverlers checks,not diamonds,gold,or currency.
2. The sinking of the SS Black Point occurred off of Point Judith,RI,which is not near Montauk,and would not be an effective diversion.
3. If the four men in the raft incident did occur,it would have been in the daytime,not at night.
4. On one of the several threads where you mentioned the U-853,you stated that you knew your friend when he was 8 and you were 12.There have been many versions of your story.
5. If your friend had been shown the location of the buried 88's,why weren't they recovered when you and he were there? Also on your Pirate treasure-trying to get a permit cache thread "I had a friend who had a first hand account about the treasure from the sub...In the process I heard about an old man from North Carolina that was also after the sub treasure...I called him..." What was Ovid Arnold's belief concerning this?Did Ovid and you ever dowse the site?
6. The more one digs into the story of the U-853,the rumor of treasure has less credibility.
 

ECS said:
1. Now the 88 shells have gold and currency with the diamonds?Remember the only testimony given concernig this only mentioned traverlers checks,not diamonds,gold,or currency.
2. The sinking of the SS Black Point occurred off of Point Judith,RI,which is not near Montauk,and would not be an effective diversion.
3. If the four men in the raft incident did occur,it would have been in the daytime,not at night.
4. On one of the several threads where you mentioned the U-853,you stated that you knew your friend when he was 8 and you were 12.There have been many versions of your story.
5. If your friend had been shown the location of the buried 88's,why weren't they recovered when you and he were there? Also on your Pirate treasure-trying to get a permit cache thread "I had a friend who had a first hand account about the treasure from the sub...In the process I heard about an old man from North Carolina that was also after the sub treasure...I called him..." What was Ovid Arnold's belief concerning this?Did Ovid and you ever dowse the site?
6. The more one digs into the story of the U-853,the rumor of treasure has less credibility.
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ECS-I feel like I am on trial here and you are the prosecuting attorney. I will reply to your incessant line of questioning this time but that will be the end of this for me. I have repeatedly told you that I have information about this treasure that I will not put on here and you don't seem to be able to understand what that means. I will never win this arguement with you unless I took you to the treasure sites and dug up the diamonds while you watched. That will not happen.

The following are my answers/rebuttal to your points of contention.

1. You base what you think is in the shells on what a German admitted to during a trial. Whether he knew more or that was all he saw is hard to say. My information is that the 88mm shells contained diamonds, gold, and currency(paper/coins). When I have refered in the past to the 88mm shells I have just usually mentioned diamonds. My friend only remembers seeing the diamonds. There is more to this.

2. The sinking certainly got the U-853 lots of attention. In fact it got so much attention it was sunk. Of course it was a little ways away from Montauk. Why would they want to bring anyone near the Montauk site? They "diverted" the attention to themselves and it cost them their lives.

3. There is no proof that the raft would have had to have been launched in the daytime. Period.

4. I met my friend when he was 8 and I was 12. He had recently moved to Florida full time. Your point? He was traumatized by his father's death and the trips to the lighthouse were not that important to him at the time. Seeing a photo 20 years later jogged his memory. I tested and researched his memory for details of his childhood and parts of this story and he was very accurate.

5. When we found out where the diamonds were at the park I realized we were not prepared to recover them. We had thought it would be easy. I had bought plane tickets to there and back ahead of time. We rented a car. We ran out of time. He never wanted to go back. Long story. As far as Ovid goes, he had a friend named the "Duke of Pahokee". The Duke was the one that talked to the two Americans that had traveled to Germany and met with the sailor that was on the rubber raft. He told the Americans where the 88mm shells were buried. If this all sounds a little complicated or far-fetched, so be it. Ovid attempted to dig where the shells had been hidden next to the parking lot. That was how I came to know of him.
I never took Ovid to the park. I was going to but we didn't make it. That was on the trip where he showed me the location of the Beale treasure. I know, more BS.

6. As far as the rumor of treasure from the U-853 goes, to me it is not a rumor. My friend's dad found it.

lastleg-Me give up? Are you kidding? I am just getting started.

I am now done commenting or replying to this thread. I have assembled a team and we are going to go after the treasures one by one. I want to extend a thanks to Treasurenet as this would not have gone as well for me without this site.
 

I am more confused than ever. You might have at least got those traveller cheques. They are probably worthless now.
 

Why the confusion,Lastleg? BDD has the 20 year jogged memory of someone that was told a story when he was 8,then there is Ovid the dowser ,who discovered the ATOCHA for Mel Fisher and attempted to dig at the parking lot,and the third hand tale of the Duke of Pahokee.Evidence and research like that trumps official and historical records of the incident.
 

Interesting thread. My Dad was stationed at Montauck in the beginning of the war and was soon on a converted sailing yacht looking for U-boats along the east coast. Didn't last long as he was shipped to the Pacific soon after.

The treasure rumors about U-853 go way back and was what prompted a big search by divers to find her back in the 50's. Was divers Burt Mason and Dave Trisko who first found her in 1958 looking for the "treasure". Supposedly found none but did find 55 skeletons (brought up two) and brought up liferafts, food rations, helmets and weapons, though this is just what I read so can't confirm. Original rumor stated that 24 year old U-853 commander Helmut Somnersaid saidduring a 1948 war crimes trial that they had filled 14- 88mm shells with jewels. Since that was not the name of the real commander, you can make your own judgement on that rumor though maybe he was an officer on board or maybe never existed. Not far-fetched that a U-boat at the very end of a war they were losing would be smuggling valuables out of Germany, but would think they'd be heading to S. America, not the NE coast of the US. Should be documentation of how many crew were actually on board and how many skeletons were actually found on board.

Lots of rumors of U-boats sunk off Florida. There was one site in 500' off Pompano Beach that local fisherman called the "Sub" for years as a depth finder showed an image that looked just like a sub. We got the Navy interested and we all went out and they put a camera on it and turned out to be just a reef.
Met a retired Pratt & Whitney engineer who swore he dove on a U-boat off Palm Beach in 110' of water. Not the kind of guy who made up stories. We dove and magged the area briefely, but found nothing. Very heavy currents here, so if true, may have been moved by the currents, though research I've done shows no U-boats being sunk in this area.

U-boats still being found with a couple in Europe in just last year or two.
 

Kapitanleutnant Helmut Fromsdorf was captain of the U-853 and went down with all hands,May 6,1945.
If you track the timeline of the U-853 sinking the SS BLACKPOINT to the sinking of the U-853,the events,distances traveled in that time,DO NOT support the burying of 88 shells of diamonds that have been related on this thread.
 

From WhydahDiver
 

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If anyone is interested Eric Wiberg is writing a book at the moment ( comes out in early 2014) about the submarines, both German and Italian that operated in Bahamian waters in WW2. There were 113 patrols and merchant seamen had a 1 in 6 chance of perishing as 6,000 traversed the area with 1,000 lost.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were very instrumental in looking after the survivors in Nassau and this is well documented. I have seen a draft, it is a very interesting read. More info when I get a date from Eric about its release.

If you PM me I can send him your address or email address so you can correspond about getting a signed copy
 

Last edited:
I am discussing some of this on the cache hunting thread and wanted to post this old newspaper article.Document15.jpgDocument16.jpgECS posted to go to this thread for info.
 

lastleg said:
Since the sub was a maritime vessel I believe BDD should prove his case on this board, not on the Cache forum. However there are
interesting holes in the story. As I understand it the war in Europe had ended prior to the sinking of the Nazi sub? If "four guys" from
the sub were ashore and had no submarine to go back to why would they walk away leaving the diamonds on foreign soil?
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A lot of holes in this story that BDD keeps bringing up-but when he offers as proof the tale of his friend's father taking a toy submarine with pellets to the backyard pool to reinact what happened on the May night in 1945... :laughing7:
 

Steve or ECS,
I was wondering if you had any suggestions as to Gov’t offices that may do an FOIA on U-Boat/submarine encounters i.e. Patrol craft, Civil Air Patrol, Naval Training (2513) or other encounters off the coast of Florida? I’m not looking for treasure, but rather in tracking down some of the fascinating stories of U-Boats and submarines along this coast (expanded to the Caribbean) either during or after WWII. These vessels may have been transiting back to their homeland or on patrol along the Florida or Caribbean areas.

Are there any other sources you could tell me about on this subject? This thread started out in 2006 and from some calculation some of these gentleman may no longer be conversing due to age. Your help is appreciated…

Best Regards,
CaptSamuelJ
 

Read the book "shadow Divers" by Robert Kurson,theres a hell of a lot of info in it about Uboats that were sunk off the east. coast
 

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