SM UB-12 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

SM UB-12 was a German Type UB I

German type UB I submarine

The Type UB I was a class of small coastal submarines built in Germany at the beginning of the First World War. Twenty boats were constructed, most of which went into service with the German Imperial Navy. Boats of this design were also operated by the Austro-Hungarian Navy and the Bulgarian...

submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

or U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

in the German Imperial Navy during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The submarine disappeared in August 1918.

UB-12 was ordered in October 1914 and was laid down at the AG Weser

AG Weser

Aktien-Gesellschaft Weser was one of the great German shipbuilding companies, located at the Weser River in Bremen. Founded in 1873 it was finally closed in 1983. Altogether, AG Weser built about 1400 ships of different types, including many war ships...

shipyard in Bremen

Bremen

The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...

in November. UB-12 was a little under 92 feet (28 m) in length and displaced

Displacement (ship)

A ship's displacement is its weight at any given time, generally expressed in metric tons or long tons. The term is often used to mean the ship's weight when it is loaded to its maximum capacity. A number of synonymous terms exist for this maximum weight, such as loaded displacement, full load...

between 127 and 141 MT (140 and 155.4 ST), depending on whether surfaced or submerged. She carried two torpedo

Torpedo

The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

es for her two bow torpedo tube

Torpedo tube

A torpedo tube is a device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units installed aboard surface vessels...

s and was also armed with a deck-mounted machine gun

Machine gun

A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....

. UB-12 was broken into sections and shipped by rail to Antwerp for reassembly. She was launched and commissioned as SM UB-12 in March 1915."SM" stands for "Seiner Majestät" (His Majesty's) and combined with the U for Unterseeboot would be translated as His Majesty's Submarine.

UB-12 spent her entire career in the Flanders Flotilla and sank 22 merchant ships, about half of them British fishing vessels. The U-boat was also responsible for sinking the British destroyer in 1917. By early 1917, UB-12 had been converted into a minelayer

Minelayer

Minelaying is the act of deploying explosive mines. Historically this has been carried out by ships, submarines and aircraft. Additionally, since World War I the term minelayer refers specifically to a naval ship used for deploying naval mines...

with the replacement of her torpedo tubes with four mine chutes. UB-12 disappeared after 19 August 1918.

Design and construction

After the German Army's

German Army (German Empire)

The German Army was the name given the combined land forces of the German Empire, also known as the National Army , Imperial Army or Imperial German Army. The term "Deutsches Heer" is also used for the modern German Army, the land component of the German Bundeswehr...

rapid advance along the North Sea coast in the earliest stages of World War I, the German Imperial Navy found itself without suitable submarines that could be operated in the narrow and shallow seas off Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

. Project 34, a design effort begun in mid-August 1914, produced the Type UB I

German type UB I submarine

design: a small submarine that could be shipped by rail to a port of operations and quickly assembled. Constrained by railroad size limitations, the UB I design called for a boat about 92 feet (28 m) long and displacing about 125 metric tons (137.8 ST) with two torpedo tube

Torpedo tube

s.A further refinement of the design—replacing the torpedo tubes with mine chutes but changing little else—evolved into the Type UC I

German Type UC I submarine

The Type UC I submarines were a class of small coastal minelaying U-boats built in Germany during the early part of World War I. They were the first operational minelaying submarines in the world . A total of fifteen boats were built...

coastal minelaying

Minelayer

submarine. See: Miller, p. 458.

UB-12 was part of the initial allotment of seven submarines—numbered to —ordered on 15 October from AG Weser

AG Weser

of Bremen

Bremen

, just shy of two months after planning for the class began. UB-12 was laid down by Weser in Bremen on 7 November. As built, UB-12 was 91 in 6 in (27.89 m) long, 10 in 6 in (3.2 m) abeam

Beam (nautical)

The beam of a ship is its width at the widest point. Generally speaking, the wider the beam of a ship , the more initial stability it has, at expense of reserve stability in the event of a capsize, where more energy is required to right the vessel from its inverted position...

, and had a draft of 9 in 10 in (3 m). She had a single 60 bhp Körting

Körting Hannover

Körting Hannover AG is a long-standing industrial engineering company in Hanover.At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the company played a leading role in the development of injector pumps in Germany and Europe.Körting still produces pump and pump-based vacuum technology, but...

4-cylinder diesel engine

Diesel engine

A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...

for surface travel, and a single 120 shp Siemens-Schuckert

Siemens-Schuckert

Siemens-Schuckert was a German electrical engineering company headquartered in Berlin, Erlangen and Nuremberg that was incorporated into the Siemens AG in 1966....

electric motor

Electric motor

An electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy.Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors to generate force...

for underwater travel, both attached to a single propeller shaft. Her top speeds were 7.45 knots, surfaced, and 6.24 knots, submerged. At more moderate speeds, she could sail up to 1500 nautical miles (2,778 km) on the surface before refueling, and up to 45 nautical miles (83.3 km) submerged before recharging her batteries. Like all boats of the class, UB-12 was rated to a diving depth of 50 metres (164 ft), and could completely submerge in 33 seconds.

UB-12 was armed with two 45 centimetres (17.7 in) torpedo

Torpedo

es in two bow torpedo tube

Torpedo tube

s. She was also outfitted for a single 8 millimetre (0.31496062992126 in) machine gun

Machine gun

on deck. UB-12s standard complement consisted of one officer and thirteen enlisted men.

After work on UB-12 was complete at the Weser yard, she was readied for rail shipment. The process of shipping a UB I boat involved breaking the submarine down into what was essentially a knock down kit. Each boat was broken into approximately fifteen pieces and loaded on to eight railway flatcar

Flatcar

A flatcar is a piece of railroad or railway rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck on four or six wheels or a pair of trucks or bogies . The deck of the car can be wood or steel, and the sides of the deck can include pockets for stakes or tie-down points to secure loads...

s. In February 1915, the sections of UB-12 were shipped to Antwerp for assembly in what was typically a two- to three-week process. After UB-12 was assembled and launched on 2 March, she was loaded on a barge and taken through canals to Bruges

Bruges

Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....

where she underwent trials.

Early career

The submarine was commissioned into the German Imperial Navy as SM UB-12 on 29 March 1915 under the command of Kapitänleutnant (Kapt.) Hans Nieland, a 29-year-old first-time U-boat commander.Nieland was in the Navy's April 1905 cadet class with 36 other future U-boat captains, including Hermann von Fischel, Carl-Siegfried Ritter von Georg, Kurt Hartwig, Hans von Mellenthin, and Wilhelm Werner. See: On 18 April, UB-12 joined the Flanders Flotilla , which had been organized on 29 March. When UB-12 joined the flotilla, Germany was in the midst of its first submarine offensive, begun in February. During this campaign, enemy vessels in the German-defined war zone , which encompassed all waters around the United Kingdom, were to be sunk. Vessels of neutral countries were not to be attacked unless they definitively could be identified as enemy vessels operating under a false flag

False flag

False flag operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own...

On 24 July, Nieland and UB-12 sank four British fishing vessels while patrolling between 30 nautical miles (55.6 km) east-northeast of Lowestoft

Lowestoft

Lowestoft is a town in the English county of Suffolk. The town is on the North Sea coast and is the most easterly point of the United Kingdom. It is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and south-east of Norwich...

. All four of the sunken ships were smack

Smack (ship)

A smack was a traditional fishing boat used off the coast of England and the Atlantic coast of America for most of the 19th century, and even in small numbers up to the Second World War. It was originally a cutter rigged sailing boat until about 1865, when the smacks became so large that cutter...

s—sailing vessels traditionally rigged with red ochre sails—which were stopped, boarded by crewmen from UB-12, and sunk with explosives. UB-12 similarly sank a pair of smacks off Lowestoft on 4 August, and another trio from 23 to 25 August.

On 21 November, Nieland was succeeded by Oberleutnant zur See (Oblt.) Wilhelm Kiel in command of UB-12. Under Kiel's command, UB-12 sank three ships on 21 February 1916: the 100-ton Belgian fishing ship La Petite Henriette, the largest sunk to-date by UB-12, and another pair of British smacks, Oleander and W.E. Brown.

UB-12 sank her largest ship, Silksworth Hall of , on 10 April. The British-registered ship was en route from Hull

Kingston upon Hull

Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...

to Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

in ballast when Kiel torpedoed her without warning a little more than one nautical mile (two kilometers) from the Corton Lightvessel. Other ships picked up 31 survivors from Silksworth Hall, but 3 men were lost. Later in the month, Admiral Reinhardt Scheer, the newest commander-in-chief of the High Seas Fleet

High Seas Fleet

The High Seas Fleet was the battle fleet of the German Empire and saw action during World War I. The formation was created in February 1907, when the Home Fleet was renamed as the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was the architect of the fleet; he envisioned a force powerful enough to...

, called off the merchant shipping offensive and ordered all boats at sea to return, and all boats in port to remain there.

Grand Fleet ambush attempts

In mid-May, Scheer completed plans to draw out part of the British Grand Fleet. The German High Seas Fleet would sortie for a raid on Sunderland, luring the British fleet across nests' of submarines and mine-fields". In support of the operation, UB-12 and five other Flanders boats set out at midnight 30/31 May to form a line 18 nautical miles (33.3 km) east of Lowestoft.The other five boats for the May action were , , , , and . This group was to intercept and attack the British light forces from Harwich

Harwich

Harwich is a town in Essex, England and one of the Haven ports, located on the coast with the North Sea to the east. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the northeast, Ipswich to the northwest, Colchester to the southwest and Clacton-on-Sea to the south...

, should they sortie north to join the battle. Unfortunately for the Germans, the British Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

had intelligence reports of the departure of the submarines which, coupled with an absence of attacks on shipping, aroused British suspicions.

A delayed departure of the German High Seas Fleet for its sortie (which had been redirected to the Skagerrak

Skagerrak

The Skagerrak is a strait running between Norway and the southwest coast of Sweden and the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea area, which leads to the Baltic Sea.-Name:...

) and the failure of several of the U-boats stationed to the north to receive the coded message warning of the British advance caused Scheer's anticipated ambush to be a "complete and disappointing failure". In UB-12s group, only UB-10 sighted the Harwich forces, and they were too far away to mount an attack. The failure of the submarine ambush to sink any British capital ships allowed the full Grand Fleet to engage the numerically inferior High Seas Fleet in the Battle of Jutland

Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

, which took place 31 May – 1 June.

Kapitänleutnant Georg Gerth took command of UB-12 on 26 June, after Oblt. Kiel was assigned to command the new minelaying

Minelayer

submarine . Two months later, Admiral Scheer set up another ambush for the British fleet with plans for another High Seas Fleet raid on Sunderland (as had been the original intention in May). The German fleet planned to depart late in the day on 18 August and shell military targets the next morning. As in May, UB-12 was part of a group intended to attack the Harwich forces. As one of five boats forming the second line of boats from the Flanders Flotilla,The other four boats for the August action were UB-6, UB-16, , and . UB-12 was stationed off Texel

Texel

Texel is a municipality and an island in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the biggest and most populated of the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea, and also the westernmost of this archipelago, which extends to Denmark...

by the morning of 20 August. Once again, British intelligence had given warning of the impending attack and ambush, causing the Grand Fleet to sortie at 16:00 on 18 August, five hours before the German fleet sailed. Faulty intelligence caused Scheer initially to divert from Sunderland, and then to eventually call off the whole operation. Although U-boats to the north sank two British light cruisers, sank ; and teamed up to sink . UB-12 and her group played no part in the action.

In September, Gerth led UB-12 in sinking two more ships and capturing a third ship as a prize

Prize (law)

Prize is a term used in admiralty law to refer to equipment, vehicles, vessels, and cargo captured during armed conflict. The most common use of prize in this sense is the capture of an enemy ship and its cargo as a prize of war. In the past, it was common that the capturing force would be allotted...

. The 313-ton Norwegian steamer Rilda was sunk on 6 September, while the 55-ton Marjorie was sunk on the 28th. In between the Dutch ship Niobe was seized as a prize on the 7th.

Conversion to minelayer

UB-12 and three sister boats—UB-10, UB-16, and UB-17—were all converted to minelaying

Minelayer

submarines. UB-12 was at the dockyard from November 1916 to January 1917, and it is likely the boat was converted during this timeframe. The conversion involved removing the bow section containing the pair of torpedo tubes from each U-boat and replacing it with a new bow containing four mine chutes capable of carrying two mines each. In the process, the boats were lengthened to 105 feet (32 m), and the displacement increased to 147 metric tons (162 ST) on the surface, and 161 metric tons (177.5 ST) below the surface.

During this same time, Kapt. Gerth was transferred to , and replaced on UB-12 by Oblt. Friedrich Moecke in early November. Moecke was, in turn, replaced by Oblt. Ernst Steindorff in January 1917.

By March, the newly converted submarine had begun laying mines off the French coast. The French Navy

French Navy

The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

trawler Elisabeth struck one of UB-12s mines off Calais

Calais

Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....

on 13 March and sank. Five days later, the British auxiliary minesweeper

Minesweeper (ship)

A minesweeper is a small naval warship designed to counter the threat posed by naval mines. Minesweepers generally detect then neutralize mines in advance of other naval operations.-History:...

Duchess of Montrose

PS Duchess of Montrose

PS Duchess of Montrose was a paddle steamer launched in 1902 and operated by the Caledonian Steam Packet Company as a River Clyde excursion steamer. She saw active service during the First World War after being requisitioned by the Admiralty and converted into a minesweeper...

sank with a loss of 12 men after detonating a mine laid by UB-12 off Gravelines

Gravelines

Gravelines is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.It lies at the mouth of the river Aa 15 miles southwest of Dunkirk. There is a market in the town square on Saturdays. The "Arsenal" approached from the town square is home to an extensive and carefully displayed art collection....

.
On 23 March, , a destroyer with the Dover Patrol

Dover Patrol

The Dover Patrol was a Royal Navy command of the First World War, notable for its involvement in the Zeebrugge Raid on 22 April 1918. The Dover Patrol formed a discrete unit of the Royal Navy based at Dover and Dunkirk for the duration of the First World War...

, struck one of UB-12s mines off Cape Gris-Nez and went down with the loss of 59 men.

In May, UB-12 was on a patrol with in the English Channel. On the night of 14/15 May while UB-12 was on the surface, Steindorff noted a large underwater explosion some miles away in a British minefield, and when UB-39 failed to return to Zeebrugge

Zeebrugge

Zeebrugge is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with hotels, cafés, a marina and a beach.-Location:...

, one of the bases for the Flanders Flotilla, reported what was likely the demise of UB-39 at the hands of a British mine.

April found two more victims added to UB-12s tally. On the 20th, Nepaulin, another British auxiliary minesweeper was lost on one of UB-12s mines near the Dyck Lightvessel. Six days later, the British steamer Alhama was mined while loaded with pit prop

Pit prop

A pit prop or mine prop is a length of lumber used to prop up the roofs of tunnels in coal mines.Canada traditionally supplied pit props to the British market...

s destined for Dunkirk. The 1,744-ton cargo ship was the largest ship sunk by UB-12 since the Silksworth Hall, sunk the previous April. UB-12 sank another two ships under Steindorff's command, one each in June and July. The steamer Dulwich—carrying coal from Seaham

Seaham

Seaham, formerly Seaham Harbour, is a small town in County Durham, situated south of Sunderland and east of Durham. It has a small parish church, St Mary the Virgin, with a late 7th century Anglo Saxon nave resembling the church at Escomb in many respects. St Mary the Virgin is regarded as one of...

for London—was mined and sunk with the loss of five men on 10 June. One month later, the French patrol vessel Jupiter I was mined off Calais. These were the last two ships credited to mines from UB-12 for the next fourteen months.

Fate

UB-12s activities over the next year are not well documented, and no specific record of her can be found in English-language sources. However, it is known that during this period, she was helmed by four different commanders, with the final officer, Oblt. Ernst Schöller, assuming command in May 1918. Under Schöller's command, UB-12 departed Zeebrugge on 19 August to lay mines in the Downs

The Downs

The Downs are a roadstead or area of sea in the southern North Sea near the English Channel off the east Kent coast, between the North and the South Foreland in southern England. In 1639 the Battle of the Downs took place here, when the Dutch navy destroyed a Spanish fleet which had sought refuge...

off the Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

ish coast, but never returned. According to one British source, UB-12 was herself mined off Helgoland sometime in August. Author Dwight Messimer considers this unlikely given that Helgoland is nowhere near the route that UB-12 could have taken to get to the Downs. A postwar German study concluded the two most likely fates for UB-12 were that she either struck a British mine or was destroyed by one of her own mines that malfunctioned during deployment. Messimer also considers it possible that UB-12 may have had a diving accident related to her conversion to a minelayer.

Some two months after UB-12s presumed loss, she was credited with the sinking of her final ship. On 27 October, two weeks before the end of the war, the 92-ton British ship Calceolaria struck one of UB-12s mines near the Elbow Lightvessel and sank.

Ships sunk or damaged

Ships sunk or damaged by SM UB-12
Name	Merchant ship tonnages are in gross register tons. Military vessels are listed by tons displacement Displacement (ship) A ship's displacement is its weight at any given time, generally expressed in metric tons or long tons. The term is often used to mean the ship's weight when it is loaded to its maximum capacity. A number of synonymous terms exist for this maximum weight, such as loaded displacement, full load... Tonnage	Nationality
Activity	56	British
Henry Charles	41	British
Kathleen	59	British
Prosper	45	British
Challenger	50	British
Heliotrope	28	British
Boy Bert	57	British
Integrity	52	British
Young Frank	49	British
La Petite Henriette	100	Belgian
Oleander	34	British
W.E. Brown	34	British
Silksworth Hall	4,777	British
Rilda	313	Norwegian
Niobe*	654	Dutch
Marjorie	55	British
Elisabeth	302	French
PS Duchess of Montrose PS Duchess of Montrose PS Duchess of Montrose was a paddle steamer launched in 1902 and operated by the Caledonian Steam Packet Company as a River Clyde excursion steamer. She saw active service during the First World War after being requisitioned by the Admiralty and converted into a minesweeper...	322	British
Laforey	995	British
Nepaulin	314	British
Alhama	1,744	British
Dulwich	1,460	British
Jupiter I	263	French
Calceolaria	92	British
Total:	11,896

* captured as a prize

Prize (law)

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