HUGIN 3000 surveys possible shipwrecks Robert E Lee and U-166
The Robert E. Lee was a passenger freighter in route from Trinidad to New Orleans carrying American construction workers and survivors of U-boat attacks in the Caribbean.
As the Robert E. Lee and its escort vessel PC-566 neared Florida, the vessels attempted to make port in Tampa. Unable to get a pilot both vessels continued on to New Orleans. The patrol craft radioed its command center, Gulf Sea Frontier, of the intentions of both ships to carry on to New Orleans.
As the Robert E. Lee and PC-566 steamed towards New Orleans, the U-166, possibly alerted by the radio message from the patrol craft, waited along the shipping lanes to attack the Robert E. Lee. On the calm clear morning of July 30th the U-166 struck. A single torpedo from the U-boat tore open the side of the freighter. The Robert E. Lee sank quickly taking several passengers and crew to the bottom. As survivors struggle in the water and into lifeboats, the patrol craft rushed in and commenced a depth charge attack on the U-boat. Once the commander of the PC-566 was confident that the U-boat had been chased away the survivors were rescued.
Two days later approximately 100 miles off Houma, Louisiana a U-boat was sighted and bombed by a Coast Guard aircraft. The two Coast Guard Aviators noted an oil slick near where the sub had been attacked. At the end of the war records showed that the only boat not to return from the Gulf of Mexico was the U-166. Since that time it has been assumed that the boat bombed by the Coast Guard aircraft off Houma was the U-166, but this is no longer the case, the history of the U-166 has been changed!
In January 2001, C & C Technologies, Inc. (C & C) conducted a deep-water pipeline survey for British Petroleum (BP) Amoco and Shell International Exploration & Production, Inc. in the vicinity of the reported location of the Robert E. Lee. This survey was conducted using C & C's new HUGIN 3000 (High Precision Untethered Geosurvey and Inspection System), which was under contract to BP. The HUGIN 3000 is the world's first commercially operated Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) capable of surveying to 3000 meters water depth. It is untethered therefore it can operate even in rough seas at faster speeds with greater mobility and accuracy (to within 3 meters after post processing) than conventional towed arrays. The HUGIN utilizes a state-of-the-art multibeam bathymetry and imagery system, a dual frequency chirp side scan sonar, chirp sub-bottom profiler, and a inertial navigation system. This HUGIN's leading edge instrumentation coupled with the precision HiPAP (High Precision Acoustic Positioning) acoustic tracking system operated by the launch and retrieval vessel, make the HUGIN one of the most powerful commercial survey packages operating in the world.
The wrecks of the Robert E. Lee and another nearby vessel thought to be the Alcoa Puritan were known to be in this area from a 1986 survey conducted by Shell. Because of the proximity of the wrecks to the proposed pipeline, BP and Shell determined that C & C would conduct and investigation survey of the area using the HUGIN 3000.
C & C Marine Archaeologists Robert Church and Daniel Warren reviewed the new data collected by the AUV crew. From their analysis they noted two areas of wreck debris. One of the areas was determined to be with relative certainty the wreck of the Robert E. Lee. The other wreckage, thought to be the Alcoa Puritan, did not seem to match the characteristics of a nearly 7,000-ton freighter. Several possibilities were developed as what this target could be, including the wreckage of the U-166. The dimensions of the sonar contacts matched almost exactly to a type IX-C German U-boat (like U-166). Additionally, historical evidence indicated that no communications had been received from the U-166 following the attack on the Robert E. Lee.
With this evidence a new hypothesis regarding the loss of the U-166 was developed. The archaeologist surmised that the crew of the escort craft PC-566 were far luckier than they ever knew that July 30th and they had sunk the U-166. It was also their contention that the Coast Guard Aviators had bombed a different U-boat on August 1st. Further historical research in fact did indicate that another U-boat, U-171, had been bombed by a "flying boat" at about the same time, but had not been sunk.
Following the initial disclosure of the possibility that this could be the remains of the U-166, both BP and Shell sponsored further site-specific investigations of the Robert E. Lee and the suspected U-166 using the HUGIN 3000 AUV.
The results of this data provided further evidence supporting the U-166 hypothesis and stressed the need to verify the identity of this wreck using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
On May 31st and June 1st, 2001 a research team from BP, Shell, C & C, and the Mineral Management Service using a ROV set out to test the U-166 hypothesis. Through the combined efforts of this team the expedition verified the U-166 hypothesis and revealed new insights into last moments of the U-166 and the Robert E. Lee.
Source: C&C Technologies—Survey Services
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