Merseyside's U Boat

Sank 5th May 1945 - Raised 23rd August 1993 - Location: Wallasey Docks, Merseyside

February 2008. U 534 has left her home on Birkenhead Docks and is now be on Woodside Ferry Terminal Birkenhead.

Type IXC/40 - U534 - built 1942	Stern damage from depth charge evident
Looking along starboard side - dive plane prominent	Port Side Central - showing rebuilt conning tower
Port side central - 2 x 20mm AA guns	Rails added by Museum for safety

Rear port side	Port diving plane and front torpedo tube
Port Torpedo housing	Good indication of size
In this and the next image you can	see the AA Guns in attack position






Conning tower on her arrival in Birkenhead	Depth charge damage causing buckled plates
These two images are taken from the U Boat site	at www.uboat.net

These last three were taken on 10th July 2004 whilst I was in Liverpool attending the 60th Anniversary of Capt Walker's death at the laying up of the standard of Captain Walker's Old Boys Association

http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/walker7.html

	Later on I revisited the U534. Externally there appears to have been little done, except for the addition of a safety conscious public stairway leading to the port deck
	which can be seen to the right of this image. The "new" conning tower has now got itself covered in rust as has the rest of the boat. Sunlight shone through glaring holes in her outer casing.
	The diving planes in the surfaced or level sailing configuration. This image makes U534 look almost shark like, a mechanical predator, which she was!
	The bows, torpedo doors closed. They look cleaner than they did on the first visit
	and looking back down starboard side. Lets hope she can get some protective paintwork before its too late.

These three were taken by me on 14th June 2006 where U534 is resting in her "temporary" home about 250 yards away from what is not a developers building site

Clearly showing the damage done to the stern (right) by the attacking Liberator's depth charge

The following images were taken by Colin Davis in December 2006, my thanks to him for sending them on

These two give you an idea of the cramped conditions of which up to 50 men would live and work

When we see how carefully preserved the subs in the USA are, its a disgrace that we cannot get this historical monument sorted out!

John Nightingale, a gent from Canada, who has been of help to me in the past on image refinement, has sent me this compilation image of the U534.
Its taken from various images and made into one panoramic view. He tells me it is something new from the Artificial Intelligence people
at the University of British Columbia.

The following images were taken by Colin Davies. Please note 4th from left central row - evidence that the U534 is disintegrating

Des Alcock of www.hylift.co.uk promised me some images of the U-534 that he took, here they are:

On February 18th 2008, I travelled up to Liverpool to present the original metal ships crest of HMS Wild Goose to the Maritime Museum, on the way back I went back to the U-534 to see what was
happening with the proposed move to Woodside - here are some images.

May 30th 2008. A Visit To Woodside Ferry Terminal to find the U-534 in her new home; I wasn't disappointed. She has been cut up into 4 sections, aft, aft of tower, tower, and forward. Whilst I am sorry to see such a beautiful submarine reduced to sections, it is the only way that people can fully appreciate the cramped conditions these men worked in. The outer hull is but part of the casing, the inner pressure hull was obviously much smaller and this contained the men.