German submarine U-862 was a Type IXD2 U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. After Germany's surrender in May 1945, U-862 put into Singapore and was taken over by the Imperial Japanese Navy under the name I-502. U-862 was laid down on 15 August 1942 by DeSchiMAG AG Weser of Bremen, she was commissioned on 7 October 1943 with Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Timm in command. Timm commanded U-862 for her entire career in Kriegsmarine, receiving a promotion to Korvettenkapitän on 1 July 1944. U-862 conducted two patrols. German Type IXD2 submarines were larger than the original Type IXs. U-862 had a displacement of 1,610 tonnes when at 1,799 tonnes while submerged; the U-boat had a total length of 87.58 m, a pressure hull length of 68.50 m, a beam of 7.50 m, a height of 10.20 m, a draught of 5.35 m. The submarine was powered by two MAN M 9 V 40/46 supercharged four-stroke, nine-cylinder diesel engines plus two MWM RS34.5S six-cylinder four-stroke diesel engines for cruising, producing a total of 9,000 metric horsepower for use while surfaced, two Siemens-Schuckert 2 GU 345/34 double-acting electric motors producing a total of 1,000 shaft horsepower for use while submerged.

She had two 1.85 m propellers. The boat was capable of operating at depths of up to 200 metres; the submarine had a maximum submerged speed of 6.9 knots. When submerged, the boat could operate for 121 nautical miles at 2 knots. U-862 was fitted with six 53.3 cm torpedo tubes, 24 torpedoes, one 10.5 cm SK C/32 naval gun, 150 rounds, a 3.7 cm Flak M42 with 2575 rounds as well as two 2 cm C/30 anti-aircraft guns with 8100 rounds. The boat had a complement of fifty-five. U-862 was one of the most travelled of all U-boats, she sailed from Germany in May 1944 and reached Penang, in Japanese-controlled Malaya, in September 1944. Penang was the base for code-named Monsun Gruppe. On the way there, she launched a T5/G7es Zaunkönig I acoustic homing torpedo at a tanker; the Zaunkönig came around full circle to home in on U-862. Only an emergency crash dive saved the U-boat from her own torpedo, she shot down an Allied Consolidated PBY Catalina aircraft H of No. 265 Squadron RAF on 20 August 1944 and escaped an intense search for her.

She sank several merchant ships in the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar. U-862 departed for her second war patrol from Batavia in the Japanese-occupied Netherlands East Indies in December 1944, she sailed down the west coast of Australia, across the Great Australian Bight, around the southern coast of Tasmania and north towards Sydney where she sank the U. S.-registered Liberty ship Robert J. Walker on 25 December 1944, she travelled around New Zealand and entered the port of Napier at night undetected. This has given birth to an urban legend in New Zealand, where it is said that the captain of U-862 sent sailors ashore at night to steal fresh milk from a farm; this may arise from a joke made by Captain Timm to Air Vice Marshal Sir Rochford Hughes in the late 1950s. U862's voyage to New Zealand was portrayed in a stage comedy U Boat Down Under, written and directed by Peter Tait and performed at Downstage Theatre, Wellington from 27 July to 5 August 2006. U-862 returned to the Indian Ocean.

On 6 February 1945, about 1,520 km south-west of Fremantle, U-862 sank the U. S.-registered Liberty ship, Peter Silvester, loaded with mules bound for Burma. U-862 was a trial boat for the FuMo 65 Hohentwiel radar system; this rose on a mast. The aerial was hand trained onto targets; the radar had a range up to 7 nmi and was effective where there was little risk from air attack on the U-boat. When Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, she put into Singapore and was taken over by the Imperial Japanese Navy. On 15 July 1945 she became the IJN submarine I-502; the I-502 surrendered at Singapore in August 1945 and was scuttled in the Strait of Malacca at 03°05′N 100°38′E on 13 February 1946. The German crew of U-862 suffered no casualties, some returned to Germany several years after the war. Others who were interned at Kinmel Camp, North Wales, remained in Wales and settled in the neighbouring communities of Rhyl and Prestatyn, due to the risks of returning to the Soviet occupied areas of Germany after the war.

Two of the crew are buried at the new cemetery at North Wales, on nearby plots. Axis naval activity in Australian waters Axis naval activity in New Zealand waters Helgason, Guðmundur. "The Type IXD2 boat U-862". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 7 December 2014

The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana'Independence' was raised by Eugene B. Smalley and Donald T. Lester at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from a crossing of the American Elm cultivar Moline and American Elm clone W-185-21, to become one of the six clones forming the American Liberty series, the only one to be patented. Identical to the species. No specific information available, but the species as a whole is susceptible to Dutch Elm Disease and Elm Yellows. U. americana is the most susceptible of all the elms to verticillium wilt. The tree is not known to be in cultivation beyond North America. U S National Arboretum, Washington, D. C. United States. Acc. no. 62001 http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/SUL4.pdf Summary, inc. photographs, of elms resistant to Dutch elm disease

Elliot Melville Offner was an American sculptor, painter and typographer, longtime professor of art at Smith College. Offner was born in New York in 1931, the second of three brothers, his parents Samuel and Helen had emigrated from Eastern Europe. He studied at Cooper Union before receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts from Yale University, where he was a protege of Joseph Albers, he joined the faculty at Smith College in 1960 and was appointed Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities in 1974. Offner taught at Smith until his retirement in 2004. During his artistic career, Offner was the subject of 27 solo exhibitions, numerous group exhibitions, his public works include "Loon, Great Blue Heron and Grouse", at the Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN. His creative output peaked from 1964 until 2007, during which time Mr. Offner won many awards such as the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award. In 2003, Offner was named 2003 Master Wildlife Artist and given International Master Wildlife Sculptor Medal and Exhibition, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI.

After retiring from Smith College in 2004, he following year he was given an Honorary Doctorate from Converse College in Spartanburg, SC, was named one of four Kenan Master Sculptors for 2005. In 2007, for the first time in a decade, the National Sculpture Society granted its Medal of Honor to Offner, featured the artist in its Sculptor Profile. In 2007, Brookgreen Gardens in Pawley's Island, SC, opened the Elliot and Rosemary Offner Sculpture Learning & Research Center. Brookgreen Gardens is a National Historic Landmark with the most significant collection of figurative sculpture in an outdoor setting by American artists in the world. Offner served as a Visiting Artist at Brandeis University, Yale University, Royal College of Art, Cambridge University. Offner served as president of the National Sculpture Society. Elliot Melville Offner died in 2010 in Massachusetts, he was survived by daughters Helen and Emily and son Daniel. Rosemary passed a year in 2011