A submarine snorkel is a device which allows a submarine to operate submerged while still taking in air from above the surface. British Royal Navy personnel often refer to it as the snort. A concept devised by Dutch engineers, it was widely used on German U-boats during the last year of World War II and known to them as a schnorchel.
USS U-3008 (former German submarine U-3008) conning tower, with the snorkel raised
Head of the snorkel mast from German type XXI submarine U-3503, scuttled outside Gothenburg on May 8, 1945 but raised by the Swedish Navy and carefully studied for the purpose of improving future Swedish submarine designs
U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. The term is an anglicised version of the German word U-Boot, a shortening of Unterseeboot, though the German term refers to any submarine. Austro-Hungarian Navy submarines were also known as U-boats.
U-995, a typical VIIC/41 U-boat on display at the Laboe Naval Memorial
The first German submarine, the SM U-1.
The German submarine U-14, showing the kerosene vapour trail.
Sea mines are loaded in a UC coastal submarine in the harbour of Zeebrugge