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Praetorium Honoris

Saturday, January 26, 2019

Submarine Warfare

Sinking of the Linda Blanche out of Liverpool by SM U-21 - Willy Stöwer
U-572 was running on the surface, her diesels straining to give her captain her top speed of nearly 18 knots. Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Hofer could barely discern the silhouette of a British tanker out on the horizon through his binoculars. They had been tracking this convoy since before sundown, fortunately they were ahead of the slow moving ships, placed in position as part of a newly formed wolf pack.

As the sun set, they had surfaced and begun to run at speed to put themselves on the convoy's starboard flank. Another boat had already radioed the convoy's position back to Lorient. Wolf Pack "Donau" was moving in for the kill, already the Wolf Pack commander, Kapitän zur See Thomsen had ordered "freie Jagd," free hunting, every U-Boat to drive in and start killing ships.

As the tanker loomed larger, Hofer barked into the voice tube, "Prepare to fire torpedoes!"



The first time a submersible vessel was used in wartime was during the American Revolution. When I was a school boy, Bushnell's Turtle was well known in New England. The attack on HMS Eagle by Sergeant Ezra Lee in the Turtle was unsuccessful, but the attempt went down in history as the first submerged attack on a warship.

The second attempt, by the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, actually succeeded in sinking the USS Housatonic about five miles offshore of Charleston, South Carolina. Unfortunately the primitive weapon, explosives mounted on a spar attached to the bow of the Hunley not only sank the Housatonic but sank the Hunley as well. Evidence suggests that the explosion probably killed the crew of Hunley at the same time it killed Housatonic*.

I've visited the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston (where The Nuke used to live) to see Hunley in the process of being preserved and studied. Such a small boat, the men who crewed her were very brave, not sure how the small vessel managed to stay afloat with all that brass aboard.

World War I saw the first large scale use of the submarine in warfare and the German Imperial Navy were masters of the weapon. At first the German crews were under orders to surface and allow the crew of their intended target, merchant ships of course, no way they would surface near a warship, to take to their lifeboats before sinking the ship with gunfire.

Once the British began arming merchant ships and creating decoy ships loaded with material to make them more buoyant should they take a hit below the waterline and hiding guns behind collapsible bulkheads to open fire on the unsuspecting U-Boats, the Germans ordered unrestricted warfare. No more surfacing and warning the enemy, they would stay submerged and sink the enemy with torpedoes. Which led to the infamous sinking of the RMS Lusitania, which was actually carrying a significant military cargo in addition to its innocent civilian passengers.

The Germans had actually warned passengers away from travel in the war zone they said was in effect around the British Isles in a newspaper ad. Apparently no one took the Germans seriously. Lusitania was thought to be fast enough to get away from any U-Boat wishing to attack her so she was not in convoy.

In the open ocean she could avoid submarines, but a ship always has a destination and as a passenger liner, that destination was no secret.
On 7 May 1915 Lusitania was nearing the end of her 202nd crossing, bound for Liverpool from New York, and was scheduled to dock at the Prince's Landing Stage later that afternoon. Aboard her were 1,266 passengers and a crew of 696, which combined totaled to 1,962 people.[70] She was running parallel to the south coast of Ireland, and was roughly 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale when the liner crossed in front of U-20 at 14:10. Due to the liner's great speed, some believe the intersection of the German U-boat and the liner to be coincidence, as U-20 could hardly have caught the fast vessel otherwise. There are discrepancies concerning the speed of Lusitania, as it had been reported travelling not near its full speed. Walther Schwieger, the commanding officer of the U-boat, gave the order to fire one torpedo, which struck Lusitania on the starboard bow, just beneath the wheelhouse. Moments later, a second explosion erupted from within Lusitania's hull where the torpedo had struck, and the ship began to founder much more rapidly, with a prominent list to starboard. (Source)
Now as a kid we were taught that the United States, led by Woodrow (he kept us out of war -not) Wilson entered World War I because of the sinking of Lusitania and the deaths of the 128 American citizens aboard her. Yet, we declared war on Germany on the 6th of April 1917, nearly two years after Lusitania was torpedoed.

Hhmm.

At any rate, the U-Boats in World War I caused great consternation in the British government, they were effective, and deadly. There just weren't enough of them to turn the tide. Especially after the Allies adopted the convoy system, a group of merchant ships escorted by warships.

In World War II, the German U-Boat arm was highly effective once again. Seems the Brits had forgotten the use of escorted convoys and perhaps relied too much on their early versions of ASDIC - what we Americans called (and still call) sonar, an acronym standing for SOund NAvigation Ranging.

In the end the Allies prevailed (again), the German U-Boat arm suffered 75% casualties during the war, losing 793 boats. The U.S. Navy's submarine fleet made a large contribution to victory in the Pacific War, virtually destroying Japan's entire merchant fleet.

The submarine still patrols the oceans of the planet, they are the real capital ships of a modern navy, which is probably why the U.S. Navy names their latest attack boats after states, rather than cities. (American battleships have traditionally been named after states, smaller warships, like cruisers, were named after cities.) Then there are the silent boats of the nuclear triad, quieter than quiet, the Ohio-class ballistic missile nuclear powered submarine has been described as so quiet that it is like a "hole in the ocean."

While the aircraft carrier projects power, it is the submarine that keeps its silent watch, patrolling the seas, escorting the carrier groups, waiting to unleash the nuclear fire, unseen and deadly. And causing politicians and admirals sleepless nights.


A note on that opening painting, it's inaccurate. The artist depicts the Linda Blanche as a rather large merchant ship, she wasn't. You can read more about that here. The same artist did a famous (and inaccurate) painting of the sinking of RMS Titanic.

As to the man who commanded U-21, Kapitänleutnant Otto Hersing, he and his boat had a stellar career in World War I. His boat was the first to sink a ship using a self-propelled torpedo. He had two rather impressive nicknames, Zerstörer von Schlachtschiffe (Destroyer of battleships) and Retter der Dardanellen (Saviour of the Dardanelles) for his feat of sinking two British battleships (HMS Triumph and HMS Majestic during the Gallipoli campaign. You can read more about him here. You can read more about his boat, U-21, here. The captain and his boat both survived the war.

Submariners, they're a breed apart no matter who's navy they serve.


Hofer watched as first one, then a second torpedo exploded against the side of the British tanker. Nearly instantaneously, the German captain was nearly blinded by a bright flash, across the water came a deep "woof" and then a colossal "boom" as the big tanker blew itself to atoms.

"Aviation fuel!" the First Watch Officer, Helmut Franken exclaimed.

Hofer felt sick, he could not imagine what that crew had experienced. First the torpedo impacts, each sailor knowing their cargo, then oblivion. He hoped that there had been no pain for those brave men.

Yes, they were the enemy, but they were fellow sailors as well.

Snapping back to the present, Hofer ordered the bridge crew below, he had seen a low dark shape turning towards their position. Damned destroyer must have seen the wake of their torpedo. Time to run!





* After signaling, Dixon's plan would have been to take his submarine underwater to make a return to Sullivan's Island. Although at one point the finders of Hunley suggested she was unintentionally rammed by USS Canandaigua when that warship was going to rescue the crew of Housatonic, no such damage was found when she was raised from the bottom of the harbor. Instead, all evidence and analysis eventually pointed to the instantaneous death of Hunley's entire crew at the moment of the spar torpedo's contact with the hull of Housatonic from the explosion's shock wave which destroyed their lungs and brain tissue in milliseconds. (Source)

50 comments:

  1. I am glad they died fast. I have never liked the idea that they died of asphyxia, in a sunken sub. Just like i am glad that the Argentinian sub crunched, rather than staying intact. People should not die slowly.

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    1. ...died of asphyxia, in a sunken sub. Unlike the first two crews of the Hunley.

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    2. Yeah, two crews dead, and guys still volunteered to go into battle...

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    3. Scott - You're right, if the boat is deep enough and the pressure hull gives way, it's pretty quick end.

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    4. Larry - Yup, two crews lost and men still volunteered. Brass ones, great big brass ones.

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    5. a bear - That's bravery right there.

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  2. U-572 was not a sub with a happy history. The CO committed suicide, after being court marshaled for cowardice, for not pressing forward into the Med. He was awaiting execution. U-572 met a PBM off Trinidad, on 3 August 1943, and was lost, with 47 fatalities.

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    1. No it was. Not sure why I chose that number, perhaps remembering in the dim memories of all the stuff I've read over the years that the boat had a bad history.

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  3. Clay Blair has a very good two volume set, "Hitler's U-Boat War, 1939-42 and 1942-45". Boy, already over twenty years old. Nice change of pace posting Sarge.

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    1. Lots of good info, but a bit of slog at times. A Reader's Digest abridged version would be nice. Same with his one-volume book about the US sub campaign in the Pacific. It was interesting to that Germany had had the exact same issues with magnetic exploders for their torpedoes that we had. Pretty much for the same reasons, too -- minimal testing in a restricted environment. However, their contact exploders were better, and there wasn't the extended pissing match between the designers and the users. That was a disgrace on our part.

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    2. Good point on the torpedo problems. Careers and egos were involved with the torpedo failures and I'll venture the same problem has happened with the LCS program. Read that the USN will phase out the 26 ships and 30 helos tasked with MCM and replace those 56 platforms with 8 LCS platforms equipped for MCM. Now there's a winning strategy eh folks?(dripping with sarcasm) And there's the money wasted on the Zumwalt class, another fiasco.

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    3. Nylon12 - Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while. I read Silent Victory, never got to Hitler's U-Boat War. Submarine histories can be a bit of a slog at times.

      '

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    4. Larry - I remember the debacle with the magnetic exploders in the U.S.Navy - boffins vs operators, we get the same crap nowadays.

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    5. Nylon12 - Don't get me started on the LCS fiasco. At least the Zumwalts were limited to three, very expensive, ships. Those, unlike the LCS actually have some useful capabilities. DAMHIK.

      The AGS though was, and continues to be, a cluster fire truck.

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    6. Murphy - Color me not surprised.

      ;)

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    7. Nylon12 - from what I have heard, our fleet of mine warfare ships is very old and very ill-maintained, so eliminating them might actually be necessary. Tuna would know more. Tuna? Paging Tuna?

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    8. Problem is, there are no mine warfare modules in production for LCS. I guess they could be minesweepers once.

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  4. "they are the real capital ships of a modern navy, which is probably why the U.S. Navy names their latest attack boats after states, rather than cities. (American battleships have traditionally been named after states, smaller warships, like cruisers, were named after cities.) "
    According to our most accurate source, Wikipedia (!), looks like the Unterseeboots named after states are mostly SSBNs and SSGNs. The SSN attack boats are mostly named after cities, although the USS Dallas (SSN 700) might be considered to be named after a state, given Dallas' size and importance (yes, I'm from Big D originally, so very biased). And I like that there is an SSN named after Asheville, NC, which must horrify a lot of the trustafarian inhabitants of that fair city. Kind of like having one named after Austin, aka Moscow on the Brazos.

    But you are certainly spot on about the subs being the modern equivalent of battleships. I know carrier folks might dispute that, but in terms of nuclear deterrence and ability to project lethal, overwhelming destruction, the subs are probably the most equivalent to the BBNs. But subs vs carriers is a bit like .45 vs. 9 mm .

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    1. Actually, The People's Republic of Austin is located on the Colorado, not the Brazos. I'd leave in a heartbeat, but the Wife has Grandkids here, so here I'll stay.

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    2. The older Los Angeles-class boats are named after cities, the newer (more capable, again DAMHIK) Virginia-class boats are named after states. I was at the commissioning ceremony of USS Colorado (SSN-788) last year.

      Subs and carriers both have their place. But if you want to control the sea, the submarine is the way to go.

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    3. Mike - Too bad about Houston, juvat bemoans the state of that city often. When the progs run out of other peoples' money maybe Texas can take it back.

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    4. Austin....We're talking abut Austin. Houston, for all intents and purposes, IS a river, although it is in the flood plain of the San Jacinto River. The Brazos river basin is the next one west, so Houston will expand to be in that basin shortly. The Colorado River Basin is the next one West. Austin straddles that river, hence Moscow on the Colorado.

      As for taking it back, look at Venezuela. What IS there to take back? Yet they still never learn.

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    5. Wall them off?

      Eventually the Venezuelans will rise up, or starve.

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    6. Credible reports are showing that the starved Venezuelans are actually starting to rise up, and the military has maybe fallen out of love with the dictator. One of the things President Trump did this week that got little notice over stupid carp was recognizing the head of the legislature as the legitimate interim leader of the country.

      As to ships and their names. Sorry. I want my attack subs named after fish, like they used to be. WWII naming rules. 100% down the line. No more politician names except for ones long dead. So, no ships named after a peanut farmer! Dangit.

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    7. With the exception of two Seawolf-class boats - USS Seawolf (SSN-21) and USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) - all attack subs are named for cities and states. Rickover was right, fish don't vote, fish don't support nuclear submarines named after fish, and frankly, that's so old school that it's way out of fashion.

      Semi-agree on not naming warships for politicians. Unless that politician was awarded the Medal of Honor or the Navy Cross. Naming them after naval heroes, even naming them for famous admirals/generals or Founding Fathers is acceptable. I'll take kick-ass president names as well.

      Naming a boat for Carter? Well, reasons. (Yes, I am thoroughly pissed off that the third Zumwalt is named for freaking LBJ, hawk, spit.)

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  5. Back in Undergrad in the 90's, I took a German language class. As part of the class, we had to write to someone in Germany and if we got a reply, give a report to the class about our new German friend. Most of us got paired up with some German kid with the same assignment but after seeing him mentioned in a news article, I wrote to Reinhard Hardegen. Much to my surprise, he wrote back, so I got to give a report to the class about my friend who came to the US in 1942, torpedoed 15 US ships from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, brought his boat into New York Harbor close enough to see and hear Coney Island Amusement Park (which wasn't blacked out at the time) and fought a gun battle with the Coast Guard off Florida before having dinner with Hitler then helping build the post-war Kriegsmarine. Oh--and he has grandkids too. Best. Class Report. Ever. I still have the letter. Come to New Orleans and I'll show ya.

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    1. Korvettenkapitän Reinhard Hardegen who died just last year at the age of 105? That Reinhard Hardegen? Damn!

      Another fine reason to visit New Orleans. Don't lose that letter!

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    2. FDR has much time in Hell to pay for not ordering the East Coast blackout, at least around port cities. One of the main reasons there are so many ships sunk by U-boats on our East Coast.

      And, dangit, Murphy, you just get cooler and cooler every day. Between The Museum, your collection of girls and you, there actually might be a reason to go back to New Orleans. Maybe. Depending on the day, your dogs might or might not contribute to the positive side. :)

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    3. Yeah, Murph is like a demi-god or something. I still think that after meeting him in person, in fact, that only cemented his coolness in my estimation.

      (Visit to Udvar-Hazy when he worked in that area and a visit to Battleship Cove once upon a time when he was still aviating.)

      Yeah, FDR has a lot to answer for...

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  6. I used to believe we entered World War I because of the Lusitania. There’s an excellent book on it by Erik Larson. I also enjoyed the movie das boot.

    Submariner‘s are a breed apart. I read a statistic from World War II somewhere about our submarine fleet that though they were very small in relation to the Navy they sunk something like half of the Japanese ships

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    1. Lusitania was part of the reason, one could make a better argument for the intercept and decoding of the Zimmermann Telegram in January 1917 as the most immediate reason for the U.S. entering the war. The Germans were proposing that they'd help Mexico "recover" the Southwest and Texas should the U.S. enter the war against Germany.

      But they taught the Lusitania reason when I was a kid. That ship was a valid military target, they skipped that part.

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    2. The Germans told the people via newspaper ads they were going to torpedo the ship. Some passengers heeded the message. The ship line scoffed at the warning.

      And then slowed down.

      It may not have been a direct cause of us going into WWI, but Woodrow Wilson and his cabinet sure used it to beat the drums of German Hatred and to instigate many of his more dark progressive policies even before the Zimmerman telegraph, such as official narc lines, his bully boys, preparing for internment camps and forcible seizures of property owned by German-Americans, and, well, a general smear campaign. There's a reason all the Bierhalls changed to pubs and houses before 1917.

      FDR took note and did better in a few years.

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  7. "A note on that opening painting, it's inaccurate. The artist depicts the Linda Blanche as a rather large merchant ship, she wasn't. You can read more about that here. The same artist did a famous (and inaccurate) painting of the sinking of RMS Titanic."

    It seems to me that when an artist has a license ( artistic license, don'tcha know ), s/he paints the scene however he/she feels it should be, the facts be damned.

    Also, it feels as though we ( the USA ) spent much of the 20th century fighting ( or prepared to fight ) Germans of one stripe or another.

    Yet another fine tale.

    Thanks for the post.
    Paul L. Quandt

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    1. Artistic license, it's a real thing. Still a damned good painting, which is why I used it.

      And yes, Germans (of various stripes) in the 20th Century were rather a nuisance. Merkel wants to repeat that I guess.

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    2. If we had only sided with the Kaiser by 1915, well, 1939 wouldn't have happened. No Eastern Bloc, which would have resulted in no Merkel.

      Anyone got a spare time machine?

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    3. Well, the World War I Germans weren't as vicious as their WWII counterparts, unless you happened to be Belgian...

      A lot of towns in Belgium have monuments with lists of civilians who were Tiré par les Allemands with the dates 1914-1918 and 1940-1945.

      No siding with the Hun would have sullied our history forever. Letting the French and the English dictate the peace was our stupid move. Clemenceau and Lloyd George had a huge hand in the rise of Hitler.

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  8. Georg von Trapp (yes, that Captain von Trapp) wrote a memoir of his experiences in WWI commanding U-boats in the Adriatic. "To the Last Salute" is a terrifying read for a modern submariner. Gasoline powered for the most part and miserable under water, they were a different breed of sailor.

    No wonder the Nazis wanted him back in command.

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    1. "Under his command, the submarines SM U-5 and SM U-14 sank 13 Allied ships totaling about 45,669 gross register tons." - Wikipedia

      I think I need to read that book.

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    2. It is available on Amazon....

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  9. Your comment on "Hole in the ocean" took me back to my P-3 ASW days when we would have "Sub Time" training with US attack submarines. We could detect, track, and localize them for attack with PDCs. That is until they got tired of playing and then it was POOF, hole in the ocean.

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    1. I've heard that story, makes ya feel good about our boats.

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  10. Is it true that VIRGINIA's can hunt Holes in the Ocean? That their passage sonar listens 360 horizontal by 360 vertical, and the processes can hear the hole. That there is not noise coming from a direction, at the same levels in other directions, like maybe it is being blocked by a hill out there, in that direction?

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  11. I wish there was edit. I typed passive, and processor. Stupid autocorrect on this Kindle.

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  12. Scott - All of that is classified. Not even your favorite sergeant knows.

    Yes, I wish Blogger would give us a comment editor.

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  13. This iPhone with the update does some weird things. Can’t use reply. That you are right on the Lusitania. Although they Eric Larson book is very interesting. He noted by the second explosion that it was obvious they were carrying a lot of ammunition. I think besides the Zimmerman telegram additional sinkings of US ships helped tilt the balance storage entry in the war.

    Hey is far is someone thinking we should’ve sided with the Kaiser I read that the world is a lot better off that he lost. He did not promote democratic ideals as I recall.

    To me the beginnings of world war 1 Are still murky. I have heard that the Kaiser hated the English because of his arm. What a reason to go to war. Although I think in the long term Germany simply was ready to challenge Brit are still murky. I have heard that the Kaiser hated the English because of his arm. What a reason to go to war. Although I think in the long term Germany simply was ready to challenge Britain.

    I hope you had a chance to see that Peter Jackson movie they shall not grow old. They only showed it a few days but what a masterpiece.

    He replays the interviews with all of these veterans interviewed in the 60s and 70s. And one of them said something interesting. Not all the Germans from the regions were the same. They like the Bavarian is the best saying they were the most civilized. And the Saxons hated the Prussians. Absolutely hated them.

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    1. Remember Lusitania was not a U.S. ship, she was British.

      Another thing to keep in mind is that as of 1914, Germany had only been a nation for 44 years. Bavaria still had their own king and their own army even though in reality Prussia called the shots. The world does not need emperors or kings.

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