GyG1345
01-28-03, 10:39 AM
The sinking of the USS Eagle PE 56 April 1945
by Dick G (Login Dick Gaines)
Forum Owner
Jan 27 2003
Charlotte Sun Newspapers, Punta Gorda Florida www.sun-hearld.com
Subject: The sinking of the USS Eagle PE 56 April 1945
The US Navy's explanation for the explosion on board the USS Eagle was a boiler explosion splitting the hull. The Eagle is 200 foot submarine chaser that blew to pieces just south of Portland, Maine. Two brothers told the tale of a US Warship that had blown up late in World War ll and their father, a 32 year old seaman who perished in the blast. And they remembered the US Navy's explanation: A boiler explosion had split the hull of the 200 Submarine chaser, US Eagle PE 56 in two. Forty-nine seamen were lost and only thirteen survived A terrible accident the Navy said, all the more tragic because it happened just two weeks before Germany surrendered.
But their mother never believed the official explanation. Survivors had told her-moments after the explosion, as they were diving into the frigid waters, they glimpsed something dark and sinister. It rose to the surface for a instant, but they never forgot the site - a submarine conning tower painted with a mischievous red trotting horse on a yellow background.
A military historian and lawyer by the name of lawton who is obsessed by submarines and as a child spent hours drawing intricate replicas of U-boats. He has taught courses in U-boat history and can recite every detail of every battle in the Atlantic. But he had never heard this story before. Lawton new the trotting horse was the insignia of a German U-boat, U-835 which the records said had sunk just one ship in New England waters-a coal tanker called the Black Point. But the brothers insisted that the U-835 also sank the USS Eagle. Lawton tracked down records that supposedly disappeared and survivors who remembered being torpedoed by a sub. In Lawton eyes the US Navy officials new that the USS Eagle had been sunk by a German submarine. They just couldn't bring themselves to publicly admit it.
In late fall 2000 Lawton's research landed on the desk of Bernard Cavalante, a archivist who spent the 10 years working with German historian Jurgen Rohwar who was piecing together a detail list of all military activity on the Eastern Seaboard. The USS Eagle was on that list, along with its sinking by the U-835. Cavalante read Lawton's work in shock, Marveling at the research, appalled by the Navy's response. Whatever the justification in wartime, Cavalente thought it was time to set the record straight.
As a result of the research by Lawton the the Secretary of Navy Gordon England made a rare recommendation to change the record and state the USS Eagle was sunk as the result of enemy action.
by Dick G (Login Dick Gaines)
Forum Owner
Jan 27 2003
Charlotte Sun Newspapers, Punta Gorda Florida www.sun-hearld.com
Subject: The sinking of the USS Eagle PE 56 April 1945
The US Navy's explanation for the explosion on board the USS Eagle was a boiler explosion splitting the hull. The Eagle is 200 foot submarine chaser that blew to pieces just south of Portland, Maine. Two brothers told the tale of a US Warship that had blown up late in World War ll and their father, a 32 year old seaman who perished in the blast. And they remembered the US Navy's explanation: A boiler explosion had split the hull of the 200 Submarine chaser, US Eagle PE 56 in two. Forty-nine seamen were lost and only thirteen survived A terrible accident the Navy said, all the more tragic because it happened just two weeks before Germany surrendered.
But their mother never believed the official explanation. Survivors had told her-moments after the explosion, as they were diving into the frigid waters, they glimpsed something dark and sinister. It rose to the surface for a instant, but they never forgot the site - a submarine conning tower painted with a mischievous red trotting horse on a yellow background.
A military historian and lawyer by the name of lawton who is obsessed by submarines and as a child spent hours drawing intricate replicas of U-boats. He has taught courses in U-boat history and can recite every detail of every battle in the Atlantic. But he had never heard this story before. Lawton new the trotting horse was the insignia of a German U-boat, U-835 which the records said had sunk just one ship in New England waters-a coal tanker called the Black Point. But the brothers insisted that the U-835 also sank the USS Eagle. Lawton tracked down records that supposedly disappeared and survivors who remembered being torpedoed by a sub. In Lawton eyes the US Navy officials new that the USS Eagle had been sunk by a German submarine. They just couldn't bring themselves to publicly admit it.
In late fall 2000 Lawton's research landed on the desk of Bernard Cavalante, a archivist who spent the 10 years working with German historian Jurgen Rohwar who was piecing together a detail list of all military activity on the Eastern Seaboard. The USS Eagle was on that list, along with its sinking by the U-835. Cavalante read Lawton's work in shock, Marveling at the research, appalled by the Navy's response. Whatever the justification in wartime, Cavalente thought it was time to set the record straight.
As a result of the research by Lawton the the Secretary of Navy Gordon England made a rare recommendation to change the record and state the USS Eagle was sunk as the result of enemy action.