SM UB-13
Encyclopedia
SM UB-13 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 was probably sunk by a British mine net
Anti-submarine net
An anti-submarine net is a device placed across the mouth of a harbour or a strait for protection against submarines.-Examples of anti-submarine nets:*Lake Macquarie anti-submarine boom*Indicator net*Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign...
in April 1916.
UB-13 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-13 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-13 was broken into sections and shipped by rail to Antwerp for reassembly. She was launched in March 1915 and commissioned as SM UB-13 in April."SM" stands for "Seiner Majestät" (His Majesty's) and combined with the U for Unterseeboot would be translated as His Majesty's Submarine.
UB-13 spent her entire career in the Flanders Flotilla and sank 11 merchant ships, about half of them British fishing vessels. In March 1916, UB-13 was responsible for sinking the Dutch ocean liner , raising the ire of the Dutch public. Tubantia was the largest neutral vessel sunk during the war and among the 30 largest ships sunk by U-boats. On 24 April 1916, UB-13 was sunk with all hands.
Design and construction
After the German ArmyGerman 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...
's 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
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...
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
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.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
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...
submarine. See: Miller, p. 458.
UB-13 was part of the initial allotment of seven submarines—numbered to —ordered on 15 October from 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...
of 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...
, just shy of two months after planning for the class began. UB-13 was laid down by Weser in Bremen on 7 November. As built, UB-13 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-13 was rated to a diving depth of 50 metres (164 ft), and could completely submerge in 33 seconds.
UB-13 was armed with two 45 centimetres (17.7 in) 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 in 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. She was also outfitted for a single 8 millimetre (0.31496062992126 in) 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....
on deck. UB-13s standard complement consisted of one officer and thirteen enlisted men.
After work on UB-13 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-13 were shipped to Antwerp for assembly in what was typically a two- to three-week process. After UB-13 was assembled and launched on 8 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-13 on 6 April 1915 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Walter Gustav Becker, a 29-year-old first-time U-boat commander.Becker 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, and Hans von Mellenthin. See: On 26 April, UB-13 joined the Flanders Flotilla , which had been organized on 29 March. When UB-13 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 flagFalse 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...
.
Dunston
Dunston may refer to one of the following places in England:*Dunston, Derbyshire*Dunston, Lincolnshire**Dunston Pillar, a nearby landmark**Nocton and Dunston railway station*Dunston, Norfolk*Dunston, Staffordshire*Dunston, Tyne and Wear...
for Le Havre
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
with a load of coal when Becker torpedoed her 6 nautical miles (11.1 km) east of Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. Located on the River Alde, the town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily, and the Aldeburgh Yacht Club...
. One man on Dulcie lost his life in the attack. Dulcie was the only ship sunk by UB-13 in June.
On 27 and 28 July, Becker and UB-13 sank three British fishing vessels while patrolling between 15 and 30 nmi (27.8 and 55.6 km) off 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 three 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-16, and sunk with explosives.
In response to American demands after German submarines had sunk the Cunard Line
Cunard Line
Cunard Line is a British-American owned shipping company based at Carnival House in Southampton, England and operated by Carnival UK. It has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the North Atlantic for over a century...
steamer in May 1915 and other high profile sinkings in August and September, the chief of the Admiralstab, Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff
Henning von Holtzendorff
Henning von Holtzendorff was a German admiral during World War I who became famous for his Dec 1916 memo to Kaiser Wilhelm II about unrestricted submarine warfare against the United Kingdom...
, issued orders suspending the first offensive on 18 September. His directive ordered all U-boats out of the English Channel and the South-Western Approaches and required that all submarine activity in the North Sea be conducted strictly along prize regulations. On 20 February 1916, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Karl Neumann, who replaced Becker in December 1915, UB-13 captured a Belgian ship named Z10 David Marie and retained her 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...
. There are no further details about where Z10 David Marie was taken or her final disposition, but other ships captured as prizes by Flanders boats were sailed into 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:...
by prize crew
Prize crew
Prize crew is a term used to indicate a number of crew members of a ship chosen to take over the operations of a captured ship.In the early days of sailing and up into the American Civil War, capturing enemy ships was quite common...
s.
Second submarine offensive
By early 1916, the British blockade of Germany was beginning to have an effect on Germany and her imports. The Royal Navy had stopped and seized more cargo destined for Germany than the quantity of cargo sunk by German U-boats in the first submarine offensive. As a result, the German Imperial Navy began a second offensive against merchant shipping on 29 February. The final ground rules agreed upon by the German Admiralstab were that all enemy vessels in Germany's self-proclaimed war zone would be destroyed without warning, that enemy vessels outside of the war zone would be destroyed only if armed, and—to avoid antagonizing the United States—that enemy passenger steamers were not to be attacked, regardless of whether in the war zone or not. The day after the beginning of the second offensive, Neumann and UB-13 sank four more fishing smacks northeast of Lowestoft. All four ships were boarded and sunk in the same manner as the three sunk the previous July. Shortly after, Neumann was transferred to command in early March,Uboat.net reports Neumann in command of UB-13 until 11 March 1916, but also lists him in command of from 8 March, a four-day overlap. and was replaced by Oberleutnant zur See Arthur Metz, who had been in command of for the preceding month.SS Tubantia
Ocean liner
An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...
, which was at anchor near the North Hinder Lightship, about 50 nautical miles (92.6 km) off the Dutch coast. The Royal Holland Lloyd ship had been fully illuminated, with her name spelled out in electric lights between the twin funnels. Distress calls from Tubantia were heeded and all 80 passengers and 294 crew were rescued by three nearby ships before the ship foundered. Tubantia was the largest neutral ship sunk during the war, and among the 30 largest ships sunk by U-boats.
Germany initially tried to implicate British mines or torpedoes, but relented when confronted with evidence that it was one of their own torpedoes—which had been assigned to UB-13Sources almost invariably report the submarine as U-boat 13 or U-13. UB-13 was the only extant U-boat numbered 13 in March 1916; and had been lost in 1914 and 1915, respectively. See: Helgason, Guðmundur. "WWI U-boats: U-13", "UC-13". U-Boat War in World War I. Uboat.net. Retrieved on 17 March 2009.—that had sunk Tubantia. The Germans, however, presented a forged log from UB-13 that showed her nowhere near Tubantia at the time of the attack. Further, they reported, UB-13 had fired that specific torpedo at a British warship on 6 March—ten days before Tubantia was sunk—which would have been under her previous commander, Kapitänleutnant Neumann. The U.S. Minister to the Netherlands
United States Ambassador to the Netherlands
The United States diplomatic mission to the Netherlands consists of the embassy located in The Hague and a consular office located in Amsterdam.In 1782, John Adams was appointed America's first Minister Plenipotentiary to Holland...
, Henry van Dyke
Henry van Dyke
Henry Jackson van Dyke was an American author, educator, and clergyman.-Biography:Henry van Dyke was born on November 11, 1852 in Germantown, Pennsylvania in the United States....
, writing in Fighting for Peace in 1917, called this explanation "amazing" and derided it:
This certain U-boat had fired this particular torpedo at a British war-vessel somewhere in the North Sea ten days before the Tubantia was sunk. The shot missed its mark. But the naughty undisciplined little torpedo went cruising around in the sea on its own hook for ten days waiting for a chance to kill somebody. Then the Tubantia came along and the wandering-Willy torpedo promptly, obstinately, ran into the ship and sank her. This was the explanation. Germany was not to blame.
The Dutch public was furious at what they believed a hostile German act, which caused German diplomats to spread rumors of an impending British invasion of the Netherlands to divert the unwanted attention.In 1922, four years after the war had ended an international committee found that Germany was responsible for sinking Tubantia and ordered them to pay Royal Holland Lloyd £830,000. See: Pickford, p. 214.
Amidst all of the denials and diplomatic wrangling over Tubantias sinking, UB-13 continued to sink ships. On 31 March, off Lowestoft, Metz and UB-13 sank the Norwegian steamer Memento. The ship was carrying a load of coke
Coke (fuel)
Coke is the solid carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal. Cokes from coal are grey, hard, and porous. While coke can be formed naturally, the commonly used form is man-made.- History :...
destined for Porsgrunn
Porsgrunn
is a town and municipality in Telemark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Grenland. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Porsgrunn....
when she went down with one crewman. Twelve days later, in the Kentish Knock
Kentish Knock
Kentish Knock may refer to:* Kentish Knock, an area off the coast of Kent and Essex in England* Battle of the Kentish Knock, fought in October 1652* London Array, a wind farm near the Kentish Knock....
area, UB-13 sank the Danish ship Proeven. The 276-ton sailing vessel was the last ship sunk by UB-13.
Sinking
On the evening of 23 April 1916, UB-13 departed Zeebrugge for a patrol off the mouth of the ThamesRiver Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
and was never heard from again. Author Dwight Messimer, in his book Verschollen: World War I U-boat Losses, reports that the British had deployed a new explosive anti-submarine net
Anti-submarine net
An anti-submarine net is a device placed across the mouth of a harbour or a strait for protection against submarines.-Examples of anti-submarine nets:*Lake Macquarie anti-submarine boom*Indicator net*Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign...
at position 51°33′N 2°45′E in the early morning hours of 24 April. He suggests that it was possible UB-13 had set off some of the contact mines on the net, or possible that the submarine had struck a mine in one of the many British minefields off the Flemish coast. However, according to authors R. H. Gibson and Maurice Prendergast, in their book The German Submarine War, 1914–1918, UB-13 fouled the anchor cable of the British naval drifter
Naval drifter
A naval drifter is a boat built along the lines of a commercial fishing drifter but fitted out for naval purposes. The use of naval drifters is paralleled by the use of naval trawlers....
Gleaner of the Sea on 24 April, and was depth charge
Depth charge
A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare weapon intended to destroy or cripple a target submarine by the shock of exploding near it. Most use explosives and a fuze set to go off at a preselected depth in the ocean. Depth charges can be dropped by either surface ships, patrol aircraft, or from...
d by E.E.S.. Then for good measure, the British destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
deployed explosive sweeps against the submarine. Whatever the specific cause of her demise, all seventeen crewmen on board the submarine were killed.
Ships sunk or damaged
| Date | Name | Tonnage | Nationality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dulcie | 2,033 | British | |
| Iceni | 57 | British | |
| Salacia | 61 | British | |
| Young Percy | 45 | British | |
| Z10 David Marie* | unknown | Belgian | |
| Harold | 56 | British | |
| Reliance | 54 | British | |
| Trevose | 46 | British | |
| Try On | 46 | British | |
| 13,911 | Dutch | ||
| Memento | 1,076 | Norwegian | |
| Proeven | 276 | Danish | |
| Total: | 17,661 |
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...