By David Siddall

Last updated 15:52, Wednesday, 23 April 2008

ON a normal day the team at Holemasters Cumbrian are diamond drilling and cutting openings in reinforced concrete. But when they were set the challenge of carefully cutting a World War II U boat into five sections they eagerly took up the unique challenge.

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At work on the boat

The U boat in question was U534, built in Hitler’s Germany and launched in 1942. It was part of the sinister fleets of sea wolves that almost brought Britain to her knees in what became known as the Battle of the Atlantic. But it was U534’s final voyage that was most fascinating. She was in a pod of three subs that appeared to have defied a fateful order from Admiral Donitz to surrender at 0800 on May 5 1945.

Andrew Doyle, technical manager for Holemasters at their Sellafield depot at the former Beckermet ore mine, near Egremont, takes up the story. “It was at the Kattegatt Straits, off Denmark, that an RAF Liberator aircraft attacked the subs. Two got away but a depth charge lodged on the deck of U534 and went off. Amazingly all the crew escaped, some through the torpedo tubes as she dropped to the bottom in 60 metres of water .

“It was suspected the U boats had been fleeing with Nazi gold and they had been trying to get to a neutral country. The other subs were never found... so maybe they did get away!”

He explained that the prospect of gold or other valuables stolen by the Nazis led to a dramatic salvage effort that ultimately saw U534 recovered from the depths by Carston Young in 1993. But a search of the sub revealed only standard equipment and personal artefacts which will form part of the exhibition.

Eventually the menacing and rusting U boat ended up somewhat neglected on a Merseyside quayside with an uncertain future. But Andy is full of praise for the chief executive of Mersey Travel, Neil Scales, who “had the idea of making it a star attraction for visitors, just across the river from Liverpool. By hopping on the famous ferry across the Mersey visitors will get to see U534 and be able to actually look inside through the cut away sections.”

The historic connection with the Mersey ferries is also echoed by the fact that the ferries the Iris and Daffodil took part in the little known Zeebruge raid to attack the earliest U boats at the end of the World War I. Both vessels acted as troop carriers and came under fire, as a result to this day the Mersey Ferries are allowed to fly the royal insignia.

When Andrew first went to inspect U534 he was in awe of how the German crew of some 52 coped with life in the cramped and claustrophobic pressure vessel. His colleague Archie, who is now an avid watcher of the German Das Boot television drama, worked for three years underground as a miner at the Beckermet iron ore mine and says he found it hard to believe how, for example, “24 men were supposed to live in the aft section which is only some 12 feet wide.”

Andrew recalls using just a headtorch to enter the menacing and cramped interior of U534.

“It was very eerie and hard to credit how people coped. The seat that the helmsman must have used to control this sinister killer was still in place and looked just like an old fashioned leather bicycle seat. It was the same up in the conning tower where the man looking through the periscope would have been crammed in. He must have had to shout down his orders to the helmsman underneath him.”

Andrew’s inspection also showed the buckled stern plates where the RAF’s depth charge had led to U534’s sinking.

Holemasters were chosen for the job of slicing up the U boat because conventional oxy acetylene cutting would have left the sections unfit to display as an exhibit due to the large number and differing types of steel layers and internal components. The answer was to use diamond wire sawing. The diamond bearing wire used to neatly slice a way through the submarine like a cheese wire slicing into a block of cheddar.

But before this could start Andrew and the team had to cut away an ak ak gun, upper superstructure and a mass of rotten and rusted steelwork.

Andrew said: “Looking at the revealed cross section only the top half of the circular pressure vessel was occupied by the crew and its width was no more than our small office.

A huge floating crane lifted each of the massive U boat sections for transhipping a short distance to the display areas.

Later this summer the U boat and many historic artefacts will take centre stage at a new visitor centre at Woodside ferry terminal, Birkenhead. This will be a ferry boat ride across from Liverpool’s famous Pierhead.

The Holemaster team were Andrew, Peter Connelly, John Jenkinson and John Jenkinson junior.