the voyage was when the Kriegsmarines Goliath transmitter stopped transmitting, soon followed by the Nauen station. Fehler did not know it, but Germany's naval HQ had fallen into Allied hands. Then, on 4 May, U-234 received a fragment of a broadcast from British and American radio stations announcing that Admiral Karl Dönitz had become Germany's head of state following the death of Adolf Hitler. U-234 surfaced on 10 May for better radio reception and received Dönitz's last order to the submarine force, ordering all U-boats to surface, hoist white flags and surrender to Allied forces. Fehler suspected a trick and managed to contact , whose captain convinced him that the message was authentic. At this point, the U-boat was almost equidistant from British, Canadian, and U.S. ports. Fehler decided not to continue his journey, and instead headed for the east coast of the United States. Fehler thought it likely that if they surrendered to Canadian or British forces, they would be imprisoned and it could be years before they were returned to Germany; he believed that the United States would probably just send them home. Fehler consequently decided that he would surrender to U.S. forces, but radioed on 12 May that he intended to sail to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to surrender to ensure Canadian units would not reach him first. U-234 then set course for Newport News, Virginia. During the passage Fehler disposed of his Tunis radar detector, the new Kurier radio communication system, and all Enigma machine related documents and other classified papers. On learning that the U-boat was to surrender, the two Japanese passengers committed suicide by taking an overdose of Luminal, a barbiturate sedative and antiepileptic drug. They were buried at sea. Capture The difference between Kptlt. Fehler's reported course to Halifax and his true course was soon realized by US authorities who dispatched two destroyers to intercept U-234. On 14 May 1945, she was encountered south of the Grand Banks, Newfoundland by . Members of Sutton's crew took command of the U-boat and sailed her to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where U-805, U-873, and U-1228 had already surrendered. Velma Hunt, a retired Penn State University environmental health professor, has suggested U-234 may have put into two ports between her surrender and her arrival at the Portsmouth Navy Yard: once in Newfoundland, to land an American sailor who had been accidentally shot in the buttocks, and again