Submarine C3

Francisco Maceira. -April 29, 2009 .- On December 12, 1936 Republican submarine C-3 was sunk in the waters of the Alboran Sea, four miles from Malaga. Best said it sank a torpedo fired from German submarine U-34, the operation named “Ursula”. A secret operation that benefited both the rebel side and Hitler, who could train his famous “Gray Wolves” to launch torpedoes against the Republican fleet. Although the first launch of the “Poseidon” (code name of the German submarine U-34) destroyers against Republicans had not been satisfactory, the C-3 was not as lucky.

The submarine crew was 40 men and there were only three survivors. The rest is still inside the wreck lies in 70 meters deep in the place where fishermen known as the “Lower submarine.” Various versions emerged about the incident. As stating that the Republican leadership ordered that leave to navigate to the C-3 was a traitor. I knew the Germans were waiting and that the deplorable state that it was without electricity for a dive and ailing engine (the other was to repair Almería) – would become a safe target. Also considering the hypothesis that given the low yield of the explosion (most of the witnesses agree on this) had not been torpedoed. That was the collapse of other causes and what was there was a chemical reaction of hydrogen batteries in contact with seawater.

But the message that the commander of U-34 sent the same day the German command leaves no doubt about the causes of the accident: “Sunken Red Submarine C  Class in Malaga”. Silence and darkness that surrounded the case was that families spend years without knowing that it was his own and became a C-3 in an underwater ghost. It was in 1996 when a few spots of oil and diesel fuel (even today emerge to the surface) led to a sport fisherman to the exact spot where the wreck lies. In 1998, 62 years after the sinking, a formation of warships, led by portaeronaves “Principe de Asturias”, paid for the first time in history, honors the C-3. A gesture but insufficient for these heroes of our navy. We have a moral obligation to revive the submarine. Not only as part of our history, but also to try to offset some families who have suffered throughout his life the stigma of being widows and orphans of “red.” Some families have never been able to bury their loved ones, to the passivity and lack of the Ministry of Defense. Let us not forget that Spanish navy who lost their lives defending their country. It is the duty of the Spanish Government to rescue the submarine C3. For its endowment can rest in peace and restore their dignity. Or, rather, to return who have never lost.