All At Sea

      The close of World War Two, saw 158 German U-Boats surrendered to the Allied Forces. Of this number, ten were deemed seaworthy and allocated to the UK US and USSR Navies and one to the French Navy. Four were given to Norway, who scrapped a further three which had surrendered in Norwegian ports, a further two were sunk by the US Navy, the remaining total, some 116 vessels were sunk by the Royal Navy, to the North West of Ireland in an operation known as "Deadlight."
       The original plans for captured war materials was that they should be divided up between the three major allied powers, in the case of the U-Boats, this was decided to be too much of an expense, at the time to move the vessels from the UK so they were sunk rather than dispersed or scrapped. There was also a question of manpower, needed in matters of scrappage, as many ports were already laden with such war damaged ships. A further matter considered by the UK and US was their not wanting the USSR to gain too much naval hardware.
      As it turned out, the scuttling of so many craft proved a difficult and time consuming task, with 36 boats ending their days as gunnery targets for The Royal Navy.