"During the attack von Arnauld was at the periscope, the 1.AO was under the tower hatch and the Obersteuermann and the combat helmsman were in the turret. After looking through the periscope, the 1.AO remarked, 'Damn close.' The commander replied, 'It doesn't matter - shoot - go quickly to 50m.' The tower hatch was pushed open by the impact of the sinking steamer, but the 1.AO was able to close it again against the flooding water. However, water continued to splash into the tower through the cracked rivets..."
SM UB-73 in Brest following the war.
SM UB-73 served in the North Sea from November 1917 to 1918 and was surrendered to the French.
Her career was unremarkable (just over 18,000 tons sunk in 6 patrols), but her camouflage paint is incredible. I posted a close up of her conning tower (under the pilotage of the French Navy) awhile back that is worth checking out.
#uboot #uboat #submarine #camouflage #camopaint #brest #ww1 #history #navalhistory #kaiserlichemarine
SM U-29 (Kplt. Weddigen) as seen from the deck of the British cargo ship, "Headlands" (2988 GRT) in 1915. The steamer, carrying fruit from Marseille to Bristol, was sunk ≈ 8 miles south of the Scilly Islands.
According to a survivor's testimony:
"at 9 o' clcock they were eight miles south of the Scillies, when they sighted a steamer on fore - the "Indian City." He made for her, and half an hour later saw a submarine ahead being chased by a patrol boat. 'We got out of the way as fast as we could,' said Captain Lugg, 'but when the submarine got out of the range of the patrol boat's guns he came after us. He soon overhauled us, and fired rockets [flares] for us to stop. But we did not stop for a long time.' Coming up again, the captain of the submarine gave them five minutes to get out of the ship. Then a torpedo was fired at her... From his position on the bridge Captain Lugg took a photograph of the submarine as she came close up to his ship. The Plymouth 'Herald' says members of the crews spoke in high terms of the courtesy of the skipper, who stated that he was in charge when he sank the [HMS] Cressy, Aboukir, and Hogue."
#submarine #uboat #uboot #headlands #steamship #sunk #survivorstories #weddigen #u29 #torpedo #wreck #ww1history #ww1 #navalhistory #kaiserlichemarine
Period postcard titled "U-boat peace."
Its caption translates to:
"Just have patience, we'll bring you peace."
No, you aren't seeing things, nor have I lost my mind. These are all items relating to the surface fleet of the Kaiserliche Marine, specifically the Helgoland-class dreadnought, SMS Thüringen. So what are they doing on an account about "U-boat history?"
A topic often ignored in the study of the High Seas Fleet is the cannibalization of its best officers and men when it became apparent that it was going to be the U-boats doing most of the fighting. Men aboard the large surface vessels were regularly being approached to volunteer for the U-boat service and, not surprisingly, most jumped on the opportunity as it was a welcome change from scraping paint, loading coal, or any of the other mundane duties being performed regularly on a vessel that wasn't going out to battle.
In Richard Stumpf's (SMS Helgoland) memoirs, he regularly noted how his good officers were being transferred into the submarine service and as a result, he was left with exceedingly poor, green officers, or others pulled from the reserves who weren't fit enough for more important roles. We don't have to take his word for it though, by 1918 there are numerous records of such cases, such as the gunnery officer of the SMS Thüringen, Adolf Franz.
Serving since 1901, he was on board the Thüringen during the Battle of Jutland, earning the Iron Cross 1st Class and Saxe-Ernestine House Order for his actions. In 1918, he switched to submarines, first commanding SM U-47 and later the U-Kreuzer U-152. During the latter's engagement with the USS Ticonderoga, his experiences with the surface fleet proved valuable, as noted:
"It was still so dark that the scaled sights on the gun attachments could not be seen; a ban on the use of torches for adjusting the sight attachment was yelled from the turret on deck by the commander [himself] and the artillery officer. Answer: 'I can't see anything on the guns!' Command: 'Night distance and aim toward the top edge of the smoke stacks!' According to our artillerists instincts, that had to 'stain' and it did!"
Continued in comments
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SM U-35 departing from Pola (then in Austria-Hungary) for a patrol in the Mediterranean. Kapitänleutnant von Arnauld de la Perière can be seen in the launch and boarding the U-Boat.
View of the forward mine chutes on SM UC-77 sometime in 1917.
* Yes I posted this image earlier and accidentally deleted it (stupid) when I wanted to edit it. I'm not retyping the whole caption again...
Another shot of Vulkan Werke in Hamburg in early 1918 that does a much better job of showing U-boats under construction.
In this case, we can see two UEII-type minelayers (U-118 and U-120) and two U-139-class U-cruisers (U-145 and U-146) in various states of assembly.
At this point in the war, material shortages and labor strikes resulted in very poor finished products that failed both on trial runs and patrols.
#hamburg #maritimehistory #shipyard #vulkanwerke #submarine #uboot #uboat #germanengineering
Photo from my collection with a misidentified caption. The publisher claimed this was SM UB-17, but this definitely isn't a UBI submarine or even one converted to a minelayer.
Instead, I believe it's UB-29, a UBII boat commissioned in 1916 and lost the same year.
