ROBERT VAN DER VEEN
Back in '93 I was 35 and a leutenant senior grade working as the head
of the Dive and Demolition Group, part of the Mine Counter Measure
Service based at Den Helder.
Being busy with on the one hand with diving operations and on the other
hand explosive ordnance disposal, both very interesting and satisfactory
to work in.
At a certain moment there came a request from Smit Tak if the
Netherlands navy was willing to give support in the salvage. Raising
the sub was no problem for them, but they were a bit anxious about the
possible ammunition on board. Finally the navy gave permission to
assist.
To do a job right from the start we (a collegue and I) joined the
personnel of Smit Tak at Schiphol Airport and flew to Aarhus, from
there by car to Grena where a supplier was waiting to bring us to the
salvage platform allready waiting at the position of the sunken U-boat.
The first couple of weeks personnel of Smit Tak was busy getting the
steel plates and hoisting wires in place to lift the sub.
Meanwhile a remote controlled submersible was brought in have a first
investigation of the U-boat. At the video we saw the first grenades
lying on the deck of U-534 and also that both chambers of the 37mm Flak gun
were loaded.
At that time we were going once more through our books on what we
could expect on board the U-boat.
After U-534 was raised and secured on a barge our main task began...
