A PENSIONER living in the North-East could hold the key to unlocking the secrets of a Nazi terror weapon designed to change the course of the Second World War.

Italian Claudio Pristavec is carrying out historical research into a secret German base which housed mini-submarines the Nazis sent into action against Allied shipping.

The 30 Molch mini-submarines were housed in pens on the Bay of Sistiana, in the Gulf of Trieste, northern Italy.

The advancing British Army overran the base in August 1945, before the secret weapons could be deployed by the Nazis - and the researcher believes a serviceman from Marske, in east Cleveland, may have been among the detachment which captured the base.

According to information passed to him via a friend, an ex-serviceman who was stationed at Trieste at the end of the war returned to his native Marske and set up a driving school.

Claudio hopes the man may have seen the submarines and know what became of them.

"For me and my research it would be of enormous importance being able to find out this man and contact him,'' he writes in a letter to Marske town hall.

Anyone wishing to contact Mr Pristavec should contact Chris Brayshay at The Northern Echo on (01642) 247645