Norway’s longest shipwreck is just a few meters from the main power cable

This summer you will never forget Ole Petter Hobberstad. He works as a project engineer for Statnett and has just made a discovery that puts him in the history books. It started with him at work and finally got some time.

Finally, you will get clarity on a mystery that you have been wondering about for three years. A sonar shadow next to one of Norway’s foreign cables, at a depth of 490 meters, eleven nautical miles southeast of Kristiansand.

The weather has been bad, and the big special ship Olympic Taurus has had a mission canceled. The ship has a few extra hours before arriving at port.

Finally, Hobberstad has the small window of time it needs. The underwater robot is sent down. At a depth of 490 meters, he comes across the side of a ship. An infinitely long ship’s side.

– That’s when we realize that this is literally something big, what we have found, says Hobberstad.

It is 4:40 p.m. on June 30 of this year. An intense moment for the crew of the great special ship Olympic Taurus, where they look at something that no one has seen in 80 years.

Some people go online to try and Google what they have found. Ole Petter Hobberstad, Submarine Cable Engineer at Statnett, the man behind the search, is more concerned with getting all the Olympic Taurus has to offer high-tech sonar in the hours they have available. Because this is starting to smell historical.

Could it be Karlsruhe?

Of the great German warships, only one is missing. A ship that has not been found, the kind believed to have sunk in Norwegian waters during World War II. Kristiansand’s answer to Blücher, the cruiser Karlsruhe, the flagship to Kristiansand. The last great piece, at least physically speaking, on the most iconic day in Norwegian history, April 9, 1940. The day was also a milestone for the 174-meter long cruiser Karlsruhe. But shouldn’t it be there?

What is this shadow?

– I’m the cable protector, jokes Ole Petter Hobberstad. Statnett’s submarine cable engineer, responsible for the country’s submarine power cables abroad.

Three years ago, while on a routine assignment in April 2017, this story began.

Back

Everything is a bit of luck, like many other things in this story. Such an investigation is expensive, but the opportunity finally presented itself. They bring out advanced sonar equipment. A huge ship appears. It looks suspiciously like Karlsruhe. The length is correct, but shouldn’t it be here?

Destiny Day April 9

Early in the morning, the cruiser Karlsruhe, with 1,100 men on board, attacks Kristiansand. It carries torpedo boats, torpedo boats and other support ships. In three waves throughout the morning, Odderøya is fast and the city is attacked. In the last decisive attack, Karlsruhe stands wide-sided in the fjord, out of range of Odderøya’s cannons, and bombards the city.

Perhaps it is precisely the cannons of Karlsruhe that hit the spire of the cathedral. Finally, the Germans also receive support from their bombers. At 10.30 it is over. The German flag is hoisted at Fort Odderøya, Kristiandsand is captured, after German torpedoes and fighting ships finally pass the fort’s guns.

Fort odderøya

Next to Fort Odderøya stands May-Brith Ohman Nielsen, a history professor at Agder University, looking at where Karlsruhe must have appeared.

– I see it as a series of incidents, a cold gray April morning where the fog breaks through the fjord and delays the attack on Kristiansand relative to the attack on most other Norwegian cities. And a mixture of messages that arrive, people who improvise, people who do not believe in what they live and who have not been able to communicate well with each other. And right there there are heroic efforts and capital misunderstandings.

Torpedo english

It was already before the attack on Kristiansand that Karlsruhe had to return to Germany. She’s already left in the afternoon, after about half the crew had left in Norway. But on the outskirts of the Kristiansand skerries, the English submarine Truant lurks. A newly built 85 meter long submarine, which mostly resembled a whale.

The English fire a series of torpedoes at the German cruiser. One hits the bow and the other hits the ship in the middle of the ship, and the water cascades inside. Both the motor and the power generator are damaged. And when the PSU starts to cheat, the pumps start to cheat too. More water enters than they can drain. The ship begins to tilt.

The ship was not to be rescued, Capt. Friedrich Rieve said. Order the crew to other support ships. At 9:50 p.m. on April 9, the captain torpedoes his own ship.

It has been believed, according to historical sources, that the ship sank in a completely different position than the giant ship was found. There is a difference of almost ten nautical miles. The ship’s records of the support ships and the captain’s explanation of what happened in the time between the impact of the English torpedo and they themselves chose to sink the ship, are unclear and partly contradictory. Perhaps this shipwreck can give us more historical answers.

Definitely

The marine archaeologist at the Norwegian Maritime Museum, Frode Kvalø, looks at the underwater images for the first time.

– It is well preserved, it is on the keel and has a number of significant elements that are easy to recognize. This is Karlsruhe, he says.

If you compare the sonar image to an original image from Karlsruhe, there is little doubt.

Therefore, it is probably the longest shipwreck found in Norwegian waters in history. The German battlecruiser Scharnhorst was significantly larger, but was found outside the Norwegian territorial border in the Barents Sea. There are also longer and heavier shipwrecks in Norway, but strictly speaking, these are not shipwreck finds.

– Sunken ships like Dresden, Tirpitz, Blücher, Mercantil Marica and Arisan have known where they went since they sank therefore, it should not be considered a disaster, says Kvalø.

Can provide important answers

May-Brith Ohman Nielsen I think the shipwreck can give us new insights into what happened during the outbreak of war. And not least the hours after the ship was torpedoed. Because what we think we knew seems wrong.

– We can learn something about interpreting sources by looking at the relationship between information we have had for a long time about where the ship sank and where it was actually found.

Many unanswered questions

The Norwegian Coastal Administration will now be responsible for monitoring Karlsruhe. There are about a million liters of fuel oil on the ship. If it hasn’t leaked yet. The boat may also contain other chemicals that can pose a contamination risk.

Historical sources are also unclear as to whether the dead had to be left when the crew disembarked. In other words, it can also be the grave of a ship. At this depth, 490 meters, the wreck will remain, according to underwater archaeologist Frode Kvalø.

– It’s too deep and too big. It’s too big of a conservation task to lift a metal wreck of this size, he says.

15 meters from Sjøkabelen to Denmark

It was one of the largest and most expensive technology investments of the 1970s. The four cables between Kristiansand and Denmark supply electricity corresponding to Oslo’s total electricity consumption. They were the longest undersea power cables in the world when they were installed in 1977. Now it turns out that they were obviously very lucky. The cable could have been seriously damaged if it had become entangled in the huge wreck.

– This had not happened today, says Ole Petter Hobberstad.

Statnett’s submarine cable engineer laughs:

– When this cable was laid in the 70s, the technology for mapping was not so present. But now it’s there and it’s safe.