"When most think of German submarine achievements, they think of World War II with the Battle of the Atlantic, the great "aces" like Kretschmer, Topp, Schepke, Prien and so on and the famous words of Winston Churchill who said that the u-boat menace was the only thing that made him worry Britain might lose the war. However, while the German submarine fleet of World War II was larger and faced a more experienced foe, it was the u-boats of the Imperial German Navy in World War I that set most of the records, that developed the first weapons which the most successful of World War II were built upon, where the tricks of the trade were first developed and the Kaiser's u-boats actually came much closer than most people realize to winning the First World War all on their own. This is all the more remarkable considering that, at the outset of World War I, not many people saw the submarine as possessing much potential. The leadership of the German High Seas Fleet tended to look down on submarines as being of little practical value and at the start of the war Germany actually possessed far fewer submarines than the British did. The Germans had never shown much interest in submarines compared to the Americans, French, British or Italians. However, it was the Kaiser's submarines who would show the world, for the first time, what submarines were capable of.
At the start of the war, doubts about the viability of the u-boats seemed to be confirmed. The early models were all small, coastal boats which handled poorly and were driven by kerosene-powered engines that produced a telltale column of smoke that made them easy to spot. The first boats to be equipped with diesel engines were also so innovative that they were initially fairly unreliable as they were still working the bugs out. Their first war patrols were a complete failure, some being forced to return to port with engine trouble, one being sunk and none having any success against the British. The naysayers, which included Grand Admiral Tirpitz, seemed to have been proven right. However, they soon had reason to doubt that assumption when, on September 5, 1914, U-21 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Otto Hersing became the first submariner to sink an enemy warship with a free-swimming torpedo when he successfully attacked the British cruiser HMS Pathfinder, sending her to the bottom with a single torpedo that hit near the magazine causing a massive explosion that quickly sent the ship plunging beneath the waves. This got some attention but many could still dismiss it as a lucky shot.
However, the next victory for the u-boats would be so spectacular that everyone, in Britain and Germany, had to start taking them more seriously. That same month, on September 22, Oberleutnant zur See Otto Weddigen in the elderly, kerosene-powered U-9, encountered three British cruisers off the Dutch coast. He had spent the night on the bottom, to give his men a break from the heavy seas and his batteries were not fully recharged when he encountered the enemy but he submerged his boat and prepared for an underwater attack. After moving in to a hair-raisingly close range of 500 meters U-9 hit HMS Aboukir with a single torpedo, sending her to the bottom. The British all assumed the ship had hit a mine and stopped to pick up survivors. Weddigen then targeted HMS Hogue and soon hit her with two torpedoes, sending her to the bottom. However, the sub briefly broke the surface and was spotted by the remaining cruiser, HMS Cressy, which opened fire on the u-boat. However, Weddigen turned his boat around and fired the two torpedoes from his stern tubes. These were spotted by the British, but U-9 was so close that there was no time to avoid them and HMS Cressy was mortally wounded. Weddigen then brought his boat around to finish off the enemy cruiser with his remaining torpedo after which he returned to port to reload. He and his crew of the U-9 had sunk three British cruisers in less than an hour!…"
Full article here
link
Amicalement
Armand