SM U 55
| SM U 55 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
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| O 3 | ||
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 SM U 55 in Yokosuka (Japan), 1919 |
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| Construction data | ||
| Submarine type: | Two-hull ocean-going boat | |
| Series: | U 51 - U 56 | |
| Builder: | Germania shipyard, Kiel | |
| Launch: | March 18, 1916 | |
| Commissioning: | June 8, 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: |
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| Crew (target strength): | 4 officers 32 men |
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| Calls: | 14th | |
| Successes: | 61 sunk merchant ships | |
| Whereabouts: | Delivered to Japan on November 26, 1918. In service there as O 3 from 1920–21 . Wrecked in Sasebo in 1922. | |
The SM U 55 was a diesel-electric submarine of the German Imperial Navy that was used in the First World War . After the war, the submarine was briefly operated as O 3 ( Japanese ○ 三 潜水 艦 , maru san sensuikan ) in the Imperial Japanese Navy .
Calls
U 55 ran on 18 March 1916, which Germaniawerft in Kiel from the stack and was put into service on 8 June 1916th The commanders of the submarine were Wilhelm Werner (June 9, 1916 - August 9, 1918), Alexander Weiß (August 10, 1918 - September 14, 1918) and Hans Friedrich (September 15, 1918 - November 11, 1918).
During the First World War, U 55 carried out 14 patrols in the North Sea and in the eastern North Atlantic . A total of 61 merchant ships from the Entente and neutral states with a total tonnage of 129,352 GRT were sunk.
The first and long-time commanding officer Wilhelm Werner is charged with several war crimes . He is said to have deliberately drowned the crew of the Belgian Prince, who was enraged northwest of Ireland on July 31, 1917 and sunk on August 1, 1917 . According to the survivors, the crew of the British four-masted steamer was ordered to go to the upper deck of the submarine. Then Werner had their life jackets removed and the lifeboats destroyed except for one dinghy . The submarine then dived and left the castaways to their fate without life-saving equipment. Only three sailors of the 42-man crew were later rescued by the sloop Gladiolus . On January 4, 1918, U 55 sank the hospital ship Rewa under Werner off the south-west coast of England. The sinking caused outrage in Great Britain and was officially denied by Germany.
On July 17, 1918, U 55 sank the former passenger ship Carpathia in the North Atlantic, about 170 miles northwest of Bishop Rock . In April 1912, the Carpathia was the first ship to take survivors of the sinking Titanic and bring them to New York .
Whereabouts
The submarine survived the First World War without being sunk itself. Shortly after the end of the war, on November 26, 1918, the U 55 was delivered to the Japanese Empire . Like U 46 ( O 2 ) and U 125 ( O 1 ), U 55 also served in the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1920 and 1921. The boat number was O 3 . In 1922 the submarine was scrapped in Sasebo .
Footnotes
- ↑ Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966 . Erlangen: Karl Müller Verlag, 1993, p. 68.
- ↑ The sinking of the Belgian Prince was initially erroneously attributed to U 44 under Paul Wagenführ.
- ↑ Bernd Langensiepen : Wilhelm Werner - Murderers to the Sea and Himmler's Speci, in: Marine-Nachrichtenblatt , March 2010, pp. 2-16. (Reading sample, pdf; 680 kB)
- ↑ 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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