Diving the U-Boat That Never Fired a Shot | Exploring U-1063 at 62m

In April 1945, a German U boat made a fatal mistake. Her inexperienced captain raised the snorkel in an attempt to establish his position, allowing British warships to detect and attack her. Only 17 men survived. Remarkably, U 1063 had never fired a single torpedo in anger. In this video, I take you down to explore the wreck of U 1063, lying in 62 metres of water in the English Channel, accompanied by one of the world's leading U-boat historians, Dr Axel Niestlé. U 1063 was a Type VIIC submarine fitted with an experimental system intended to protect its vital equipment from depth-charge explosions. But technological innovation couldn't compensate for the problems facing Germany's U-boat crews in the final weeks of the Second World War. After struggling with faulty navigational equipment, her captain raised the snorkel to try to establish his position. Unfortunately for U 1063, the sounds he believed came from fishing vessels were actually a British escort group. HMS Loch Killin attacked using the formidable Squid anti-submarine mortar. Badly damaged, U 1063 was forced to surface, where she came under gunfire. Her crew abandoned ship into the cold waters of the English Channel. During our examination of the wreck, Axel explains not only the circumstances of her sinking but also the remarkable features that remain visible more than 80 years later. We explore the conning tower and the hatch through which the crew escaped, anti-aircraft gun platforms, torpedo tubes, rudders, rescue equipment and the unusual Balkongerät listening system. We also examine the surviving snorkel mechanism, which provides important evidence about the submarine's final moments, and discuss the damage that fishing activity has caused to the wreck. With Axel's historical knowledge and my underwater footage, we can piece together the story of this submarine and the men who served aboard her. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *Thanks* Special thanks to Dr Axel Niestlé for sharing his expertise and helping to bring the story of U 1063 to life. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ **CHAPTERS** 00:00 The U-boat that never fired a torpedo 01:53 Dr Axel Niestlé and the final months of the U-boat war 02:35 U 1063's experimental shock-resistant design 04:32 A fatal navigational mistake 06:39 HMS Loch Killin and the Squid attack 10:08 Diving the wreck of U 1063 11:53 The escape hatch and the fate of the crew 18:33 Anti-aircraft guns and debris on the seabed 23:29 The stern, rudders and torpedo tube 25:11 The terrible casualty rates of U-boat crews 31:37 Rescue equipment and the upper deck 33:58 The torpedo-loading hatch 36:55 Exploring the forward torpedo tubes 41:13 The Balkongerät listening system 45:17 What happened to U 1063's snorkel? 47:32 The submarine's final patrol 50:06 The periscopes and an inexperienced crew 51:44 What the wreck can still tell us ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *ABOUT THIS CHANNEL* Deep Wreck Diver explores shipwrecks, submarines, and sunken aircraft from around the world - combining technical diving with detailed wreck identification and historical storytelling. Every dive uncovers a piece of history lost to the depths. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *Kit I Use* Note, some of these are affiliate links so help support making my videos: - Gloves are Ansell Alphatec 87-063 - https://amzn.to/4jDHhX4 - Main torch is an Orcatorch D630 - https://amzn.to/4jlT4tA - Backup torch is an Orcatorch D710 - https://amzn.to/4jhddRk - Drysuit is an O-Three Ri200 - https://www.othree.co.uk/drysuit-range/ri-2-100-drysuit/ - CCR is an AP Diving Inspiration (XPD) - https://www.apdiving.com/ - Backup computer is a Shearwater Perdix v2 - https://amzn.to/42FXZOW - Reels are by Kent Tooling - https://www.divingproducts.co.uk/ - Cameras are Paralenz Vaquita - Video light is NiteScuba NSV60 - NiteScuba NSV60 - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_onHEKQZ - Phone housing is Divevolk Seatouch 4 Max - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_omJlNKL - Stickers for gear by Dive Signs - https://www.divesigns.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *Strobes* I use two different strobes (also affiliate links) -- Prozhaozhu 3000 Lumen Diving Strobe - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c3Qb99tF -- Prozhaozhu 4000 Lumen Diving Strobe - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c3KmWqCN - Jon clip - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_oDqq0RW ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📱Follow My Socials! Instagram 👉 https://www.instagram.com/deepwreckdiver/ Facebook 👉 https://www.fb.com/DeepWreckDiver Buy Me A Coffee 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/d33puk Email 👉 [email protected] #U1063 #WreckDiving #WW2