SM U 53
| SM U 53 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| Construction data | ||
| Submarine type: | Two-hull ocean-going boat | |
| Series: | U 51 - U 56 | |
| Builder: | Germania shipyard, Kiel | |
| Launch: | February 1, 1916 | |
| Commissioning: | April 22, 1916 | |
| Technical specifications | ||
| Displacement: | 715 tons (above water) 902 tons (under water) |
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| Length: | 65.20 m | |
| Width: | 6.44 m | |
| Draft: | 3.64 m | |
| Pressure body ø: | 4.05 m | |
| Max. Diving depth: | 50 m | |
| Dive time: | 55-105 s | |
| Drive: | Diesel engines 2400 PS E-machines 1200 PS |
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| Speed: | 17.1 knots (above water) 9.1 knots (under water) |
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| Armament: | 2 bow and 2 stern tubes, 8 torpedoes 1 or 2 × 8.8 cm deck gun (s) 1 × 10.5 cm deck gun (from 1916/17) |
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| Mission data | ||
| Commanders: | ||
| Crew (target strength): | 4 officers 32 men |
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| Calls: | 13 | |
| Successes: | 85 sunk merchant ships 1 sunk warship |
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| Whereabouts: | Delivered to Great Britain on December 1, 1918. Wrecked in Swansea (Wales) in 1922. | |
SM U 53 was a diesel-electric submarine of the German Imperial Navy that was used in the First World War . It was the first German submarine to wage a trade war off the American east coast .
Calls
U 53 was launched on February 1, 1916 at the Germania shipyard in Kiel from the stack and was put into service on 22 April 1916th The commanders of the submarine were Hans Rose (April 22, 1916 - August 17, 1918) and Otto von Schrader (August 18, 1918 - November 29, 1918).
U 53 carried out 13 enemy voyages in the North Atlantic during the First World War , including one transatlantic voyage . A total of 85 merchant ships from the Entente and neutral states with a total tonnage of 217,508 GRT were sunk. In addition, a warship was sunk. This makes U 53 one of the militarily most successful submarines of the First World War. Measured in terms of the sunk gross register tons, it ranks fifth among the German submarines with the highest sinking rates in the First World War.
U 53 was the first military submarine to cross the Atlantic in September and October 1916. The trip was supposed to secure the route of German merchant submarines and demonstrate the fighting power of the German submarine weapon. Previously, some of the submerged tanks at U 53 at the Germania shipyard had been equipped as fuel bunkers for the outward and return journey. Lieutenant Rose did a great job when he entered Newport , Rhode Island , for 2½ hours on October 7, 1916 . There members of the Navy of the then still neutral United States visited the submarine. On the following October 8, 1916, Rose waged a trade war outside of US territorial waters under the price order . Seven ships were stopped and five sunk in quick succession.
On February 3, 1917, U 53 sank the US merchant ship Housatonic about 20 miles south of Bishop Rock . Although there were no fatalities in the sinking, it contributed to the deterioration of German-American relations.
On December 6, 1917, the crew of U 53 sank the American destroyer Jacob Jones southwest of Bishop Rock . Rose scored a torpedo hit at a distance of around 2,700 meters. The sinking, in which 64 people were killed, was the first loss of a US Navy destroyer by enemy action.
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Selected dumping sites (ships with more than 1,000 GRT, if coordinates are known) |
Whereabouts
On December 1, 1918 U 53 was extradited to the United Kingdom and scrapped in Swansea in 1922 .
Footnotes
- ↑ Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966 . Erlangen: Karl Müller Verlag, 1993, p. 68.
- ↑ Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966 . Erlangen: Karl Müller Verlag, 1993, p. 107.
- ↑ www.uboat.net: Ships hit during WWI - Housatonic (Engl.)
- ↑ uboat.net: Ships hit by U 53 (Engl.)
- ↑ Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966 . Erlangen: Karl Müller Verlag, 1993, p. 90.
literature
- Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966 . Erlangen: Karl Müller Verlag, 1993, ISBN 3-86070-036-7 .
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