U-boats of the Kaisers Navy by Gordon Williamson

Author:Gordon Williamson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: U-boats of the Kaiser’s Navy
ISBN: 9781780965710
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2012-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

KEY

1. Bollards

2. Folding mast

3. Conning tower

4. Navigating periscope

5. Attack periscope

6. Commander’s attack position

7. 8.8 cm deck gun

8. Antennae cables

9. Forward torpedo room

10. Capstan

11. Net cutter

12. Torpedo tubes

13. Lower ratings accommodation

14. Warrant officer and officer accommodation

15. Control room

16. Petty officer accommodation

17. Diesel engine

18. Electro motor

19. Aft torpedo room

20. Stern torpedo tube

21. Rudder

U-21, one of the first diesel-engined boats, powered by an 850bhp MAN diesel. These engines were far from perfect but were a vast improvement over the older paraffin-burning power units.

It must have seemed to some that those in the anti-U-boat lobby who, like Tirpitz, had once insisted that ‘Germany has no need of submarines’ might be proven right. Events were about to take a dramatic turn for the young U-Bootwaffe, however, presaged by a spectacular success scored by Leutnant zur See Otto Hersing on 3 September 1914.

Hersing, in command of U-21, encountered the British cruiser HMS Pathfinder. Carefully positioning his U-boat he launched a single torpedo. As fate would have it, the torpedo struck Pathfinder just by her magazine and the resultant explosion destroyed the ship. It was a historic event, the first destruction of a modern warship by submarine attack.

This was followed by another success, so dramatic that it finally convinced the world that the submarine was truly a weapon to be reckoned with. On 22 September 1914, Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen was on patrol in U-9, one of the smaller, early U-boats. His tiny boat being battered by heavy seas, he had decided to escape the storm and spent the night on the sea bed. This, of course, all but drained his boat’s batteries and in the calm seas of the following morning, he was moving along on the surface charging his batteries when three enemy warships were spotted. Taking U-9 below, Weddigen positioned his boat for an almost point-blank shot, at a distance of only 500 metres, with a single torpedo. The light cruiser HMS Aboukir suffered a direct hit and quickly sank. Both the Aboukir’s crew and those on the two cruisers accompanying her assumed she had struck a mine. Believing that there were no enemy ships in the vicinity, they stopped to pick up survivors. Below the surface, Weddigen’s crew toiled to reload the empty bow tube before launching two torpedoes at HMS Hogue. Even in later, more advanced submarines, the sudden loss of weight from the launch of two torpedoes could seriously affect the boat’s trim. On a more primitive early boat such as U-9, which, at periscope depth, was barely below the surface, the effect was chaotic and U-9 broke the surface. If any doubt remained in the mind of the enemy as to the cause of the Aboukir’s sinking, it was swiftly removed and both Hogue and the third cruiser, HMS Cressy, opened fire on the diminutive U-boat just as the two torpedoes struck home, mortally wounding the Hogue.

Weddigen slipped below the surface once again, but was in a precarious position himself, with the remaining enemy cruiser aware of his presence and his batteries still not fully charged.

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