WW I U-boat documentary tonight on History Channel

[Regulus]

Hi Zeppelin,

In fact in the late UBIII class, such as the UB104 or UB107, these masts were laying on the deck, but in fact in a sort of gully, especially constructed for these when they were in horizontal position. So no hiding below deck or anything, which makes it easy to make speculations, but not to proof anything at all.
Yes it could be that they were about to transmit, yes it can be that they were spotted by enemy planes at that hour (I've seen such reports before), yes it could be that they saw enemy military shipping, and yes it could be that they were diving and ran into a mine.
The only thing clear in the whole story to me is that they probably ran into a mine, the most important reason concerning losses that late in the war. But in what circumstances, that is something we will never know, due to the extensive damage to the rest of the wreck by explosives after the war.
Mostly it is rather easy to find the reason why a sub was sunk when surveying the wreckage. In this case it is pure guessing...

And halt : UB107 did not sink the Malvina, this was the work of the UB104, again probably, and UB104 found it's end in not specificly clear circumstances. They still made contact with U57 on the 11th September 1918, and sank some ships after which she probably was sunk by a mine on the 19th September. Which is one and a half month after the end of the Malvina.

Hope this makes things a bit clearer.

Best from Johan

[Zeppelin]

Something else mentioned on the show: they said that by the end of the war, there had been 274 German uboats launched. Of those, they sank about 13,000,000 tons of allied shipping, and about 1/3 of the uboat crews were lost.

My question is, I'm aware that the Germans lost about 1/4 of their WW2 crews, so if this information is correct, then the WW1 uboat service lost a greater percentage of crews than their WW2 brethren. However, was the WW1 loss smaller in number than the WW2 losses?

Regards,
Zeppelin

[Regulus]

Hi Zeppelin,

Will have to check the WW II numbers, something I'm not very good at, as the only sub interesting to from the period is the type XXI, and a bit the Type VII.

Concerning WW I, 13 million BRT is a bit large, it was a big 12 million. This equals about 5000 ships of which 2554 were sunk by the Marinekorps Flandern units operating from Brugge, Zeebrugge and Oostende harbour and losses of personnel on these ships were about 15.000 men. The U-boat weapon lost about 1/3 of it's men and that is almost 5.000 men in 178 U-boats that were lost (this number is being discussed, give or take one more or less)

Will see what I can find on the WW II losses.

Best from Johan

As far a I found till now, 751 U-boats were lost to various causes in WW II.

No number on the personnel losses.

Johan

Here's more :

During the war the U-boats sank about 2,779 ships for a total of 14.1 million tons GRT. This figure is roughly 70% of all allied shipping losses in all theatres of the war and to all hostile action. The most successful year was 1942 when over 6 million tons of shipping were sunk in the Atlantic.

On the German side, roughly 30,000 men perished (30,003 is a figure often used). The bulk of this figure comes from the roughly 400 U-boats that were lost in action with all hands and with them about 20,000 men.

Best from Johan

[Zeppelin]

I remember that the first time I heard about the WW2 uboat losses was from the movie Das Boot; incidentally, that was the movie that really got me "into" submarine history. I remember thinking how amazing those losses were. Considering the relatively fewer losses sustained in WW1 naval warfare, which however led to the German naval mutiny in 1918, I'm amazed that the WW2 Uboat service didn't collapse before war's end. Of course, the effeciency of the service was severely affected by the loss of so many veterans.

Now that I think of it, the WW1 uboat service did not participate in the naval 1918 mutiny, did they?

Best regards,
Zeppelin

[Regulus]

There's one thing that can be said about the U-boat weapon that is the same for both wars : they never had shortness of volunteers to serve with them.
In both wars these U-boat crews were also given the best food possible, however better circumstances in WW I then WW II.

No they didn't participate in the revolution as you said. The mutiny or revolution within the Kaiserlicha Marine had much to do with the fact that these men had never seen any real action after Skagerrak and were bored to death on the ships. Which could not be said of the U-boats. The destroyer flottilla's also had seen a lot of action, but that was about it !

Das Boot remains one of my favourite U-boat movies, although In enemy hands or Below wasn't bad either, bud they were still far from Das Boot which was rather realistic. I have been inside a number of subs in the last ten years and always found it an interesting visit. The photobook I've launched wil regularly be updated with U-boat photo's.

Best from Johan

[ww1 ace]

Also consider the program WWI In Color.It is very fascinating and yet I have not seen the aviation one.