For 63 years the Nazi U-boat U778 has lain intact in Irish waters, but if a Northern Ireland politician gets his way it will soon be raised and turned into a tourist attraction as part of efforts to commemorate the city of Londonderry's crucial role in the Battle of the Atlantic.

During the Second World War the U-boat fleet menaced wartime Atlantic convoys and threatened Britain with starvation. Winston Churchill wrote later: “The only thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.”

At the end of the war the entire German North Atlantic U-boat fleet surrendered and most of the vessels were taken to an area off Malin Head and scuttled or used for target practice after being stripped of their valuables.

U778, however, is different. Dives already undertaken suggest that she is in good condition and the best candidate for being brought to the surface and towed back into Londonderry, a key naval base during the war.

Shaun Gallagher, of Derry City Council, wants to use U778 as the focus for a maritime museum that would tell the city's role in a story that he regards as having been overlooked because of the more recent legacy of the Troubles.

U778 was launched in May 1944 under the command of Ralf Jurs, but she carried out only one patrol before the war ended and did not report sinking or damaging any ships. She surrendered at Bergen, Norway, in May 1945 and was transferred to Loch Ryan in Scotland before being towed, crewless, to the scuttling grounds. The vessel lies about 230ft (70m) down, 11 miles off Inistrahull Light, Malin Head.

“We hope that a dive will take place on U778 in the coming weeks,” Mr Gallagher told The Times. “I have never come across such interest in a project. I have received literally thousands of calls about it. U778 was on her way here when she sank intact and, while we cannot be entirely sure, there is every possibility that the interior is well preserved.”

His plan is to raise the U-boat and bring her into the city, via Lough Foyle, to Lisahally, a former military base where 19 U-boats surrendered en masse in 1945.

Diving experts say that the vessel is sitting on a gravelly sea bed rather than having sunk into mud, making a recovery operation easier. A salvage platform could be erected, from which slings would be lowered and secured beneath the craft. In 1993 another U-boat was raised from the sea bed between Sweden and Denmark at a cost of about £3 million.

Lisahally was the command post for British naval patrols on convoy and anti-submarine duty. Under Operation Deadlight, the Royal Navy destroyed the surviving U-boats to ensure that they could never again endanger international shipping. Between November 1945 and February 1946 the U-boats were towed out of Lisahally and sunk.

Mr Gallagher, a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, said he believed that U778 could become the centrepiece of a new maritime museum in Ireland. “It's an opportunity for the city. Before now it was probably too sensitive to highlight the city's role in the Second World War because of the Troubles. I think that now is the appropriate moment.”

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