AN OPERATIONAL BIBER MIDGET U-BOOT - Brit TV show rebuilds, tests sub.

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The Biber, German midget U-boat at the Submarine Museum in Gosport, England was restored for a forthcoming TV show. The show is Salvage Squad and this was produced by Wall to Wall Television, Channel 4. The following URL gives you relevant discussions about this in the Forms in uboat.net.

http://uboat.net/forum/read.php?f=3&i=30386&t=30386

This show is interesting and unique 'cause it takes non-working antiques and makes them operational -- and does things with them! The electric motor propulsion only was activated, not the gasoline engine because of the dangers of CO poisoning experienced in WWII.

Don't knock yourself out trying to contact these people, they don't seem to answer their e-mails. And, although tapes of the shows are available, their website, to me, does not give adequate instructions about who to contact to order them.

Ergo, thus this info is for hard core Biber-types only.

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Apparently the Brits are not

Apparently the Brits are not as crazy as I thought. This is not a "Junkyard Wars" type of operation.

This restoration operation was done under the direction of Ian Clark. He did the restoration of Holland I. Interestingly they soaked the Holland I in 800,000 litres of sodium carbonate, to leach-out the chloride ions and minimize the uncontrollable corrosion.

http://www.rnsubmus.co.uk/holland/conservation.htm

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FROM THE PEOPLE IN ENGLAND

FROM THE PEOPLE IN ENGLAND --
IT WORKED!

last week our project successfully dived Biber 105 at HM naval base
Portsmouth. The dive was witnessed by an original German Biber pilot and was
an extremely emotional experience. The restoration programme involved
extensive historical and technical research with many operational systems
being accurately replicated to retain historical integrity. The result was
stunning and dispelled the myth that Bibers were useless in operation!!

Are you aware of
Holland 1 preserved in the UK, I was conservation Project Director during
the conservation programme which was completed Spring 2001. This Biber
contract was something completely different, restoring a historical sub to
fully operational condition tends to make you address very serious issues!!

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Biber TV Show Update

The Biber

Biber TV Show Update

The Biber TV programme will be transmitted next year, no date has been set. All the footage is of course the property
of the TV company, thus nobody will be able to video etc until after transmission.

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Yesterday I got an e-mail

Yesterday I got an e-mail from one of our British friends. A couple of nights ago the first in a series of TV shows "Salvage Squad" started. It shows the work done to restore a Biber, German midget sub to operational condition. And they actually operated (ran it on the surface and submerged).

FOR A FEW MORE DETAILS PLEASE CLICK ONTO.

http://www.fleet-support.co.uk/pr_biber105.html

http://www.ianclarkrestoration.com/Home/Newsmid.html

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Here are some good photos

Here are some good photos of the
Renovated Biber at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum
taken in November 2003.

http://www.uboatwar.net/biberrenovated.htm

Also one correction: from the lack of information on the "Salvage Squad's" website I'm guessing that the images of the Biber our friend saw on British TV were only part of a sneak peek announcement of a program to be aired sometime in the future. Also, in the Salvage Squad's website they make a big deal about not being able to tell you what their future programming is, that is beyond two weeks into the future. Their programming schedule is a closely held secret???