A group of wreck hunters, working off the Belgian coast, have discovered a pair of German U-boats that have been lost since World War I. The wrecks include the Kriegsmarine’s German Type U 5 submarine class leader, SM U5 (Kptlt. Johannes Lemmer), and the Type UC I minelayer submarine SM UC-14 (Oblt. (R) Adolf Feddersen).
SM U-5 was an early pre-war boat, commissioned on 2 July 1910, and was small even for her era (500 tons, 181-foot overall) but she was still capable, carrying a single 37mm deck gun and four 17.7-inch tubes with six fish.
German Imperial Navy submarines at Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein (Germany), before the First World War. The boats are: U 13, U 5, U 11, U 3, and U 16 (first row, l-r); U 9, U 12, U 6, and U ? (second row, l-r). To the left of U 9 are the torpedo boat S 99 and the hulk Acheron. The Acheron had been the frigate SMS Moltke (I), commissioned in 1878. After decommissioning she was renamed on 28 October 1911 and used as a barracks ship for submarine crews at Kiel. She was finally scrapped in 1920. A battlecruiser or battleship is visible in the background.
SM U-5 was lost very early in the war– on 18 December 1914– with no recorded sinkings of enemy ships on her two patrols. She took all of her 29 crew members to the bottom.
As for SM UC-14, she was even smaller, displacing just 183 tons (submerged) and having an overall length of 111 feet.
Carrying no torpedoes or large caliber guns, her very successful class used six 39-inch top-loaded/bottom dropping tubes, each with two 710-pound Type II mines, each filled with 290 pounds of guncotton, to sow minefields.
Type II mine being loaded into a UC minelaying submarine. IWM photograph Q 20345.
SM UC-5, of the class UC-14 was in. This image after she was captured by the British.
SM UC-14, a war baby that was commissioned on 3 June 1915 just five months after she was laid down, conducted 38 short war patrols, and her minefields were credited with sinking 16 ships the Italian battleship Regina Margherita (13,215 tons) — one of the largest ships claimed by U-boats during the war.
Italian pre-dreadnought battleship Regina Margherita passing through the Canale Navigabile, Taranto, 1912
UC-14, a boat that lived by the mine, also died by the mine, sunk on 3 October 1917 by what appears to be a British minefield off Zeebrugbee, taking her 17-man crew to the cold dark below.
See the below video of the wreckage. The wreck of U 5 is reported to be in good shape while UC 14 was lost in a heavy explosion and in a bad shape.
And so we remember.
Auf einem Seemannsgrab, da blühen keine Rosen
Auf einem Seemannsgrab, da blüht kein Blümelein
Der einz’ge Schmuck für uns, das sind die weißen Möwen
Und heiße Tränen, die ein kleines Mädl weint
Der einz’ge Schmuck für uns, das sind die weißen Möwen
Und heiße Tränen, die ein kleines Mädl weint