Spanish submarine C-3 (1936): Shipwreck Map, Location & Facts

Name	Spanish submarine C-3	Wikidata label
Year lost	1936	Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier
Era	Interwar	derived from year
Ship type	submarine	Wikidata P31 instance of
Cause of loss	War action	Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence
Nationality / flag	Spain	Wikidata P8047 country of registry
Operator	Spanish Republican Navy, Spanish Navy	Wikidata P137 operator
Conflict	Spanish Civil War	Wikidata P607 conflict
Sea / ocean	Alboran Sea	Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon
Nearest coast	Spain	Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 6 km from land
Position	36.6667, -4.3500	Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0)

About the wreck

C-3 was a C-class submarine of the Spanish Navy in commissioned in 1929. She served initially under the Kingdom of Spain, then as a unit of the Spanish Republican Navy under the Second Spanish Republic. She took part in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Republican faction loyal to the government of the Second Spanish Republic. During the civil war, the German submarine U-34 sank her on 12 December 1936.

Diving & visiting

In 1997, Antonio Checa, a lawyer from Málaga, discovered a shipwreck, believing it to be that of C-3. Despite several dives by a remotely operated vehicle with a video camera, it proved impossible to positively identify the wreck owing to bad visibility.

In October 1998, the Spanish Navy sent the submarine rescue ship Mar Rojo to the wreck site with a Spanish Navy dive team aboard. The divers identified the wreck as that of C-3, lying on a sand plain at position 36°40′N 4°21′W. The divers found C-3's hull had broken in two, with the smaller bow section eight metres (26 feet) from the rest of the wreck. The larger section sat upright on the seabed and the smaller section was inverted.

Location

Recorded position: 36.6667, -4.3500 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
Sea / ocean: Alboran Sea
Nearest coast: Spain

Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.

OpenStreetMap

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Spanish submarine C-3 (revision 1380715824), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Discovery of wreck”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.