Unterseeboot 39 (1915)
Encyclopedia
SM U-39 was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Type U 31
German Type U 31 submarine
U 31 was a class of U-boats built during World War I by the Kaiserliche Marine.U 31 U-boats carried 6 torpedoes and were originally armed with one geck gun, which was replaced in 1916/17 by a deck gun...
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...
which operated in the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
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...
. It ended up being the second most successful U-boat participating in the war, sinking 157 ships for a total of 404,478 tons.
Its longest-serving captain was Walther Forstmann
Walther Forstmann
Captain Walther Forstmann was one of the most successful and highly decorated German U-boat commanders in the Kaiserliche Marine during World War I...
, who was awarded the Pour le Mérite
Pour le Mérite
The Pour le Mérite, known informally as the Blue Max , was the Kingdom of Prussia's highest military order for German soldiers until the end of World War I....
during command on U-39.
From January to mid-1917, Martin Niemöller
Martin Niemöller
Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller was a German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor. He is best known as the author of the poem "First they came…"....
served as U-39's coxswain. He is known as the author of the poem "First they came" which is inscribed at the New England Holocaust Museum. As an enemy of the Reich he was imprisoned from 1938-1945 in Sachenhausen and Dachau. In 1917 and 1918 Karl Dönitz
Karl Dönitz
Karl Dönitz was a German naval commander during World War II. He started his career in the German Navy during World War I. In 1918, while he was in command of , the submarine was sunk by British forces and Dönitz was taken prisoner...
served as watch officer on this boat. He later became Grand Admiral and Commander in Chief of the German Navy, and, for three weeks, the 4th President of Germany.
Fate
On 27 April 1918, U-39 sailed from Pola under command of Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Metzger, for operations in the Western Mediterranean.On 17 May, together with UB-50
SM UB-50
SM UB-50 was a German Type UB III submarine or U-boat in the German Imperial Navy during World War I. The U-boat was ordered on 20 May 1916. She was commissioned into the Pola Flotilla of the German Imperial Navy on 12 July 1917 as SM UB-50....
, U-39 operated against a convoy North of Oran, from which it sank the British steamer SCULPTOR (4,874 tons) in a submerged attack.
At 13:50 hrs on 18 May, when in a position 36.36N 00.02W, U-39 was attacked by two French seaplanes. It crash-dived, but when reaching a depth of 12 meters two bombs exploded very close; the after torpedo room flooded, the diving planes were destroyed, and the boat began sinking by the stern. KL Metzger ordered the tanks blown and U-39 surfaced, but the heavy damage suffered prevented diving again. Metzger was forced to lay a course for the nearest Spanish harbour, Cartagena. At about 17:00 U-39 was attacked again by two seaplanes; it fought back with gun and machine-guns, and the enemy bombs caused no damage, but during the action two crewmen (sailor Schulz and stoker Hausottl) fell overboard and were lost.
In the evening U-39 reached Cartagena and was interned for the remainder of the war.
It was surrendered to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
on 22 March 1919 and was broken up at Toulon
Toulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
in 1923.