Mediterranean submarine flotilla

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The U-Flotilla Mediterranean , until June 1917 U-Flotilla Pola , was a flotilla of submarines of the German Imperial Navy , which was stationed in Pola and Cattaro on the Adriatic Sea during World War I and operated in the Mediterranean Sea .

history

1915

On April 1, 1915, the Imperial Navy formed the "U-Boot-Sonderkommando Pola" in the Austro-Hungarian naval port of Pola in order to monitor the assembly of the submarines transferred from Germany to Pola by rail or to be transferred. It started with the small UC - minelayer boats used UC 12 , UC 13 , UC 14 and UC 15 and the even smaller, but also with two torpedo tubes equipped UB 14 . They were divided into sections, transported by train to Pola for assembly there and were ready for use in June or July. UB 14 , UC 13 and UC 15 were then almost immediately relocated to Constantinople in order to support the Ottoman Empire in the battle for the Dardanelles from there. At the same time, U 21 was the first deep-sea submarine to be sent to the Mediterranean on April 25, 1915; it reached Cattaro on May 13th.

On July 1, 1915, the “Pola U-Boot-Halbflottille” (U-Boot-Halbflottille Pola) was formed from the Sonderkommando Pola and the submarines that had meanwhile moved into the Mediterranean Sea, and the two deep-sea submarines U 34 and U 35 were through the street in August marched from Gibraltar to the semi-flotilla. U 33 , U 38 and U 39 followed in September . At the beginning of October there were already five large and two small UC boats in Pola and in Cattaro further south, where the large boats were stationed that only went to Pola for maintenance and repair work. The kuk torpedo boat escort ship SMS Gäa now served both the kuk submarines and the German boats as a mother ship . To avoid confusion between German and kuk submarines with the same numbers, the German submarines operating from Pola and Cattaro were listed with kuk numbers. Until Italy declared war on the German Reich , which came into effect on August 28, 1916, the German boats also carried the kuk naval flag for reasons of secrecy.

On November 18, 1915, the U-Half Flotilla Pola was renamed "U-Flotilla Pola". The first chief of the flotilla was Corvette Captain Waldemar Kophamel , who led it until July 1917 and had been the commander of U 35 up to that day .

1916-1917

As it quickly became apparent that a trade war against ships of the Entente in the Mediterranean was very promising, the number of German boats operating in the Mediterranean soon increased considerably and by the end of 1916 had already reached two dozen. First, U 73 ran through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Adriatic Sea in April 1916, and in April and May 1916 UB 42 , UB 44 , UB 45 , UB 46 and UB 47 were transported to Pola by rail. UB 42 and UB 45 moved to Constantinople in August 1916, UB 46 in October 1916. UB 43 and UB 47 were bought by the Austro-Hungarian Navy on July 30, 1917 and put into service as U 43 and U 47 , respectively.

After Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière sank a total of 54 ships with 90,350 GRT with the U 35 he had taken over from Kophamel on just one patrol in July / August 1916 , the Imperial Navy Office was so impressed that it immediately dispatched more boats. From September to November 1916 the deep-sea submarines U 32 , U 63 , U 64 , U 65 and U 72 and the small UC 22 came to the Adriatic. UC 20 , UC 23 , UC 35 and SM U 47 followed in December and UC 34 , UC 37 and UC 38 in January 1917 . Further reinforcements were added in February ( UC 24 ), March ( UC 74 ), April ( UC 25 ), June ( UC 53 , UC 73 ) and July 1917 ( UC 52 , UC 54 ).

The flotilla was renamed “U-Flotilla Mediterranean” in June 1917. At the end of 1917 it comprised about two dozen boats of various types. On January 1, 1918, she was transferred to the “I.” under the newly appointed “ Leader of the Submarines in the Mediterranean ”, Captain of the Sea and Commodore Theodor Püllen , to whom the boats stationed in Constantinople and grouped in the “U-Halbflottille Konstantinopel” were subordinate . U-Flotilla Mediterranean "(in Pola) and the" II. U-Flotilla Mediterranean ”(in Cattaro) divided. Six more boats joined them in September and October 1917: UB 48 , UB 49 , UB 50 , UB 51 , UB 52 and UB 66 . Even in the last year of the war, boats were still added to compensate for losses suffered: UB 67 (as a training boat ), UB 68 , UB 105 , UB 128 , UB 129 and, the last one on October 21, UB 130 . UB 132 was to follow, but then no longer went to Pola due to the impending departure of Austria-Hungary from the war, as did UB 131 , which was to be taken over by the Austro-Hungarian Navy as U 57 .

Three deep-sea boats dispatched in December 1917 and April 1918 were already lost on their transfer voyage: UB 69 on January 9, 1918 due to depth charges near Bizerta , UB 70 in early May 1918 east of Gibraltar for unknown reasons and UB 71 on January 21 , 1918 . April 1918 by depth charges immediately after passing the Strait of Gibraltar.

1918

In March 1918, Püllen always had an average of ten boats in action at sea. The focus was increasingly on the smaller boats, and large ones were no longer replaced when they were no longer operational or when they returned to Germany for overhaul. The increasing threat from enemy air attacks made the use of the large boats in Cattaro more difficult. In September and October 1918 there were still an average of five to nine boats in service, and by the end of October there were still seven or eight.

Captain Kurt Graßhoff followed Püllen on August 28, 1918 as commodore and leader of the submarines in the Mediterranean, but he fell ill with typhus in October , and Püllen took over again on October 9.

The flotilla had a maximum strength of 32 boats throughout the war. Between 1915 and 1918 it belonged to a total of 46 boats, 18 of which were lost. The boats got relatively easily through the Otranto Barrier from the Adriatic Sea into the Ionian Sea and also through the Strait of Gibraltar, and were very successful. The German boats mainly attacked ships of the Entente in the western Mediterranean basin, while those stationed in Constantinople and the boats of the Austro-Hungarian Navy mainly operated in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. In total they sank around 3.6 million GRT of shipping space, i.e. H. 30% of the total tonnage sunk by German submarines during the war.

resolution

In October 1918, it was foreseeable that Austria-Hungary would soon leave the war. On October 24th, 1918, Püllen recommended and on October 25th, Admiral Scheer , Chief of Staff of the Naval War Command , ordered all boats ready to go home to avoid falling into enemy hands during the upcoming Austro-Hungarian armistice. The remaining boats were to be sunk. Pola was evacuated on October 28, and on October 30, Corvette Captain Ackermann left Cattaro on the Cleopatra with the staff of the I. U-Flotilla and the remaining boat crews , in order to travel from Pola to Germany by train.

Nine boats left Pola and three from Cattaro to start their journey home, and the U 34 , UC 73 and UC 74 still in service were also ordered to Germany. Thirteen of them reached Norway or German ports. On the way home, UB 50 succeeded in sinking the British liner HMS Britannia on November 9, 1918 near Cape Spartel . UC 74 , coming from the coast of Asia Minor , only reached Barcelona , where it entered and was interned due to lack of fuel . U 34 remained missing after leaving for its last patrol on October 18, 1918; if it was not already lost in an accident, it was probably sunk on November 9, 1918 in the Strait of Gibraltar by the British submarine trap HMS Privet .

A total of ten boats were blown up and sunk: seven off Pola on October 28 and 30 ( U 47 , U 65 , U 73 , UB 48 , UC 25 , UC 34 and UC 53 ), one off Fiume on October 31 ( UB 129 ), one near Trieste on October 28th ( UC 54 ) and one in front of Cattaro ( U 72 ). The four boats of the Constantinople U-Flotilla, still stationed in Constantinople, under their boss, Kapitänleutnant Hans Adam , ( UB 14 , UB 42 , UC 23 and UC 37 ) had no choice but to be disarmed in Sevastopol in November .

Flotilla chiefs and submarine leaders in the Mediterranean

  • Corvette Captain Waldemar Kophamel (November 1915 - July 1917)
  • Captain of the Sea / Commodore Theodor Püllen (June 1, 1917 - August 28, 1918 and October 1918), flotilla commander and from January 1, 1918 leader of the submarines in the Mediterranean
  • Captain of the Sea / Commodore Kurt Graßhoff (August 28, 1918 - October 1918), leader of the submarines in the Mediterranean
    • Corvette Captain Otto Schultze , Chief I. U-Flotilla Mediterranean (January - October 1918)
    • Corvette Captain Rudolf Ackermann, Chief of the Second U-Flotilla Mediterranean (January - October 1918)

Known commanders

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The chief was Lieutenant Captain Hans Adam .
  2. ↑ They were not really renamed, but only included in a special list under these names.
  3. ^ The World War on August 27, 1916: Italy declares war on Germany
  4. ↑ Gaetano V. Cavallaro: The Beginning of Futility: Diplomatic, Political, Military and Naval Events on the Austro-Italian Front in the First World War (1914–1917) , Volume 1, Xlibris, Bloomington, Indiana, 2009, ISBN 978- 1-4010-8425-7 , p. 499.
  5. ^ Charles W. Koburger Jr .: The Central Powers in the Adriatic, 1914-1918: War in a Narrow Sea. Praeger, Westport, Conn., 2001, ISBN 0-275-97071-X , pp. 89-90.
  6. ↑ Gaetano V. Cavallaro: The Beginning of Futility: Diplomatic, Political, Military and Naval Events on the Austro-Italian Front in the First World War (1914–1917) , Volume 1, Xlibris, Bloomington, Indiana, 2009, ISBN 978- 1-4010-8425-7 , p. 500.
  7. ↑ The UB 67, which was temporarily used as a training boat in the Adriatic, is not included.
  8. ^ Paul G. Halpern: The Naval War in the Mediterranean: 1914-1918, Routledge, London / New York, 1987/2016, pp. 567-568
  9. ^ Edwyn A Gray: The U-Boat War: 1914-1918, Leo Cooper, London, 1994, ISBN 0-85052-405-9 , p. 222
  10. ↑ Adam was transferred to this position in April 1918.
  11. ^ In Constantinople a total of ten boats were temporarily stationed during the war, five of which were lost.

literature

  • Harald Bendert: The UC boats of the Imperial Navy 1914–1918: Mine warfare with U-boats. Mittler, Hamburg, 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0758-7 .
  • Gaetano V. Cavallaro: The Beginning of Futility: Diplomatic, Political, Military and Naval Events on the Austro-Italian Front in the First World War (1914–1917) , Volume 1, Xlibris, Bloomington, Indiana, 2009, ISBN 978-1 -4010-8425-7 .
  • Wilhelm Donko: A brief history of the Austrian Navy. e-publi - Holtzbrinck, Berlin, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8442-2129-9 (pp. 107-108: German U-Boats operating under the Austro-Hungarian flag)
  • Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 3: Submarines, auxiliary cruisers, mine ships, net layers, barrier breakers. Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1985, ISBN 3-7637-4802-4 .
  • Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966. Karl Müller, Erlangen, 1993, ISBN 3-86070-036-7 .
  • Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes, Graefelfing, 1998, ISBN 3-924896-43-7 .
  • Charles W. Koburger Jr .: The Central Powers in the Adriatic, 1914-1918: War in a Narrow Sea. Praeger, Westport, Conn., 2001, ISBN 0-275-97071-X , pp. 89-90.
  • Eberhard Möller & Werner Brack: Encyclopedia of German U-Boats: from 1904 to the present. Motorbuch, Stuttgart, 2002, ISBN 3-613-02245-1 .

Web links