Capture
The difference between Fehler's reported course to Halifax and his true course was soon realized by US authorities who dispatched two destroyers to intercept U-234. On 14 May 1945 she was encountered south of the Grand Banks, Newfoundland by the USS Sutton. Members of the Sutton's crew took command of the U-boat and sailed her to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where U-805, U-873, and U-1228 had already surrendered.
News of U-234's surrender with her high-ranking German passengers made it a major news event. Reporters swarmed over the Navy Yard and went to sea in a small boat for a look at the submarine. The fact that she had a half ton of uranium oxide on board was covered up and remained classified for the duration of the Cold War; a classified US intelligence summary of 19 May merely listed U-234's cargo as including "a/c, drawings, arms, medical supplies, instruments, lead, mercury, caffeine, steels, optical glass and brass." The uranium subsequently disappeared, most likely finding its way to the Manhattan Project's Oak Ridge diffusion plant. It has been calculated that it would have yielded approximately 7.7 pounds (3.5 kg) of U-235 after processing, around 20% of what would have been required to arm a contemporary fission weapon.
Dr. Velma Hunt, a retired Penn State University environmental health professor, has suggested U-234 may have put into two ports between her surrender and her arrival at the Portsmouth Navy Yard: once in Newfoundland, to land an American sailor who had been accidentally shot in the buttocks, and again at Casco Bay, Maine. The US Navy reportedly unloaded about 1,200 pounds (540 kg) of uranium oxide from U-234 at Portsmouth.
Read more about this topic: German Submarine U-234
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