Wilhelm Gustloff Shipwreck Expedition May 2003
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Analyses to the wreck of the Wilhelm Gustloff

For 48 years the wreck of the Wilhelm Gustloff had lie on the cold bottom of the Baltic Sea resting over to her port side and across a white sand and shingle sea bed makeup. The history of her visitors is as clear as her rumours of concealed precious cargo. Certainly the wreck has been examined by those other than sport divers as I was only to discover when I made my way around the counter stern to examine her props only to discover they were indeed missing. The Gustloff anchors were also missing which clearly indicates this wreck had at one time been visited by a commercial company of some description. Exactly who remains a mystery to me at present although team member Mike Cross will continue to follow this lead up on his visits to the Soviet Union hopefully his naval contacts will bring to light any evidence if at all it was a Soviet salvage job. Other than the very bow and the stern which remain incredibly intact the remaining amidships section has collapsed extensively perhaps through salvage. During my stay in Poland I asked several local people if they had heard of any such salvage attempts at the site, at least one or two strongly suggested they had reason to believe the Soviets had been to the site soon after the war had ended. My personal belief is that this is also the explanation to the missing phosphorus components of the wreck. Happy to rule out that the Polish would not have had the resources to salvage the wreck soon after the war nor could I imagine that the Germans would have aggressively attacked a site regarded as the countries largest war grave. It is no secret that the Soviets searched extensively for the Amber Room soon after the war had ended. Quite possibly therefore they searched the wreck for the Amber Room amidships where the damage appears and at the same time took valuable metals to justify the cost. Of course there holds no strong evidence in this theory but it could possibly explain the damaged areas in comparison to either end of the site.

The wreck lies in a shallow depth of 45m/150ft of seawater with ample ambient light to see a visiting diver across the site. The members of the 2003 expedition were not of the first sport divers to descend to the wreck, Ziemowit Kierkowski and his colleagues had dived the wreck on two previous occasions while a number of years previous a small team had descended to the wreck in conjunction with a documentary for Discovery Channel. Hopefully other people that may have dived the wreck will come forward and recoreds and true facts can be updated for future reference. Please contact here if you have dived the wreck we would love to hear from you. During that project surface filming was made of divers entering the water then at the tale end of the expedition an anchor line was recovered from the wreck along with it a section of the wreck itself. The incident was photographed by a journalist pictures of which then were published forcing the issue to arise which ultimately resulted in the Polish authorities putting an outright ban on diving the site.

The main masts of the Gustloff have now fallen across the wreck and now lie out across the seabed. Several lifeboat davits remain in position especially high above the wreck over on the starboard side then two over to port but still above the seabed level. The wreck lists 45º to port and amazingly her teak decking remain in excellent condition, more so at the very stern where the very stern poop deck remains intact. Here at the stern the safety rail also remains in remarkably condition as if new and complete with the original and delicately carved wood top rail. Behind the counter stern on the starboard side and just below the safety rail the steel letters spelling the words ‘Wilhelm Gustloff’ can clearly be seen in large gothic type design. When the ship was afloat there was a small exterior staircase that led down to the stern poop deck where passengers could traverse to the two differing deck levels. This staircase is still in place along with its top side safety rail, then below to the right as passengers step down onto the poop deck various winch machinery sits firm to the deck.

Amidships as the diver swims across the top of the wreck they will notice large sections of hull plates separated from each other which become confusing as to both navigation and general and original construction of the wreck. It is here that the wreck most likely took a tremendous amount of salvage work. As the ship sank at the very tail end of WW2 it is also highly unlikely that this damage could have been caused by depth charge material. Wreckage appears twisted and broken to a large extent.

The 2003 team led by Mike Boring will continue their survey work of the site and will carry out further dives in order to learn more of the wreck site; certainly the rate of decay is clearly less than that of shipwrecks located outside of the Baltic Sea. Analyses will hopefully be made especially of the preserved areas of wood to make suggestions as to why the site remains in such a way. None of the team made entry to internal areas of the wreck on the 2003 expedition although depending on conditions and oxygen levels it would be here that human remains would more than likely be found. It was not the intentions of the team to search for such remains or further to that disturb such remains however the haunting prospect of stumbling across them during exploration dives could not be ruled out. The team therefore agreed a photographic approach alone would suffice.
As a result of 27 man dives the team effectively made results in photographic terms both 35mm stills and digital video (that is represented on this site) as well as surveying the great majority of the after section of the wreck site.

Leigh Bishop June 2003.
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