U-boat disposal
It wasn’t only the fate of the German
surface fleet that had to be decided.
Some 100 U-boats survived the war to be
appropriated and shared out between the
Allies. Many were simply sold for scrap;
others were used in various trials before
being scrapped.
Submarines are remarkably unstable
to tow, and there are many stories of
them breaking tow and washing ashore.
Both U-118and UB-131washed ashore
at Hastings, and U-118became a
summer tourist attraction. YouTube
carries an old Pathé News clip from 1919.
For those wanting to dive a sub,
UB-130sank in 1921 while under tow off
Beachy Head. The wreck lies broken in
38m.
UB-122suffered a similar fate while
under tow up the River Medway in Kent
but, at a tricky location on the mudflats,
was never salvaged. Remains can be seen
at low tide, but it’s not the sort of wreck-
site you would want to dive.
A small flotilla of seven U-boats was
taken to Falmouth to be evaluated. After
various trials these were hauled ashore to
check for damage. The wrecks were
subsequently salvaged for scrap, leaving
a scattering of debris from the lower
parts of the hulls in shallow water among
the rocks. Mark Milburn provided the
detailed history in diver, August 2018.
Much of the German U-boat
knowledge and strategy in WW2
originated in the earlier conflict, and
former U-boat commanders went on to
play major roles.
Commander of the German Navy
Admiral Karl Doenitz had commanded
a WW1 U-boat, as had the head of the
Abwehr, German military intelligence,
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.M-class submarines
Having begun WW1 sceptical about the
value of submarines, by the middle of the
war Britain was developing new concepts
in their design and tactics. One such
innovation was the M-class, a large sub
armed with a 12in battleship gun. The
operational role was to pop up with only
the gun showing close to a battleship,
and put a shell through its side.
Four were ordered, but only M1was
completed before the Armistice, and saw
no action. M-class was not a success.
The cumbersome gun armament was
a liability, and improvements in torpedo
technology made the gun obsolete.
M1was lost in a collision with the
Vidaroff Start Point in 1925 as the
steamship ran across the gun-turret,
tearing it from its mounts and flooding
the submarine. The wreck is diveable
in 73m.
In 1925 the M2was converted to carry
a seaplane, with a hangar replacing the
gun-turret.
On 26 January, 1932, M2sank during
a training accident, diving when the
hangar doors were not fully closed. The
wreck is now a popular dive in Lyme Bay,
rising 10m from a 35m seabed.
M3was converted to a mine-layer in
1927, then scrapped in 1932. M4was
broken up before completion.Trains &
Train ferries
Getting supplies from Britain to the
trenches was a complicated process.
Freight trains would carry them to the
docks; dockers would shift the supplies
into the holds of cargo-ships; then, on
the other side of the Channel, the process
would be reversed for onward shipment
by train.
All that loading and unloading formed
a bottleneck in getting supplies to the
front. The concept of the shipping
container did not exist. One way to speed
the process was to unhitch freight
wagons from the locomotives, roll them
onto ferries, then hitch them up to form
a new train on the other side.
With this in mind, the British Army
ordered three train ferries: TF1, TF2and
TF3. All saw service in 1918 carrying
freight wagons from Southampton and
Richborough. After the war, they were
sold to civilian ferry companies and ran
cross-Channel services.
TF2was lost off Normandy in 1940
during the evacuation of France, struck
by onshore German artillery.
TF1and TF3were requisitioned back
into military service and renamed
respectively HMS Irisand HMS Daffodil.
Both were converted to carry landingAbove:Control linkage where it
passes through the hull of UB-130.Right:Torpedo tubes on the M2
submarine.Right:Winch by traversing cradle
on HMS Daffodil, a rail ferry
converted into a landing ship.divEr 30 divErNEt.com