A Condor dropping?

[GrahamB]

Hi,

With posts on the Fw200, relics and Luftwaffe ordnance appearing on this site recently, I thought I might combine these themes with this offering:

During the period 23 July-7 August 1983 I was a participating scientist on a biological/oceanographic cruise to the Rockall Trough (NE Atlantic), on board the ‘R.R.S. Challenger’. The following is a transcript from the scientific log for the night of 3-4 August:

“The repaired Agassiz Trawl was deployed at 1956hrs. During deployment, the tension [on the wire] steadily increased and then dropped back to ‘normal’. The Agassiz Trawl was recovered at 0210hrs, 4th August, and found to contain bits of wooden decking, some corroded iron and the tail fin of a German 250kg bomb (identified by G. Bird). The Agassiz Trawl also contained a good faunal sample, including a number of Paragonaster and galatheids”.

Three images of the ‘250kg bomb tail-fin’ are attached (two are recent scans from colour-slides), one with a colleague giving the scale. The other shows some of the debris, including a piece of steel plate and a large piece of concrete-like splinter-cladding (applied to some Allied vessels around the bridge-works and other vulnerable positions for protection). Remarkably, even one of the bomb’s transverse bracing struts survives - visible on the close-up from the second photo, on the right – near the piece of rope). The surviving colour appears to be of a brick-red rust.

It is evident that the trawl passed through a debris-field associated with, if not a sinking, but a damaging hit on a vessel. The position of the sample station is in the central part of the Rockall Trough – the finger of deep-water extending northwards from the Bay of Biscay to the Wyville-Thomson Ridge, south of the Faeroes: 56o 25’N 11o 49’W, 2615 m. This is about 300km west of Tiree (Western Isles, Scotland).

The incident was reported to the authorities by the ship’s Master, but I have no knowledge of the outcome.

Knowing the minutiae of Luftwaffe operational records that many members of this site seem to be in possession of, someone might be able to identify the claim for this putative strike, and even what the crew had for breakfast!

Cheers

GrahamB