German submarine Deutschland

For other ships with the same name, see Deutschland (disambiguation).

File:Submarine Deutschland.png
History
German Empire
Name:	Deutschland
Port of registry:	Bremen
Ordered:	27 October 1915
Builder:	Flensburger Schiffbau
Launched:	28 March 1916
Fate:	Converted into U-155
History
Name:	U-155
Commissioned:	19 February 1917
Fate:	Surrendered 24 November 1918. Broken up at Morecambe in 1922.
General characteristics
Class & type:	German Type U 151 submarine
Displacement:	1,512 t (1,488 long tons) (surfaced) 1,875 t (1,845 long tons) (submerged) 2,272 t (2,236 long tons) (total)
Length:	65.00 m (213 ft 3 in) (o/a) 57.00 m (187 ft) (pressure hull)
Beam:	8.90 m (29 ft 2 in) (o/a) 5.80 m (19 ft) (pressure hull)
Height:	9.25 m (30 ft 4 in)
Draught:	5.30 m (17 ft 5 in)
Installed power:	800 PS (590 kW; 790 bhp) (surfaced) 800 PS (590 kW; 790 bhp) (submerged)
Propulsion:	2 × shafts, 2 × 1.60 m (5 ft 3 in) propellers
Speed:	12.4 knots (23.0 km/h; 14.3 mph) surfaced 5.2 knots (9.6 km/h; 6.0 mph) submerged
Range:	25,000 nmi (46,000 km; 29,000 mi) at 5.5 knots (10.2 km/h; 6.3 mph) surfaced, 65 nmi (120 km; 75 mi) at 3 knots (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph) submerged
Test depth:	50 metres (160 ft)
Complement:	6 officers, 50 enlisted
Armament:	6 × 50 cm (20 in) torpedo tubes 18 torpedoes 2 × 15 cm (5.9 in) deck guns with 1688 rounds
Service record
Part of:	Kaiserliche Marine U-Kreuzer Flotilla 19 February 1917 – 14 November 1918
Commanders:	Kptlt. Karl Meusel 19 February – 5 September 1917 K.Kapt. Erich Eckelmann 6 September 1917 – 31 May 1918 K.Kapt. Ferdinand Studt 1 June 1918 – 14 November 1918
Operations:	3 patrols
Victories:	42 merchant ships sunk 121,328 GRT 1 merchant ship damaged 1,338 GRT

Deutschland was a blockade-breaking German merchant submarine used during World War I. It was developed with private funds and operated by the North German Lloyd Line. She was one of the first of seven U-151 class U-boats built and one of only two used as unarmed cargo submarines.

After making two voyages as an unarmed merchantman, she was taken over by the German Imperial Navy on 19 February 1917 and converted into U-155, armed with six torpedo tubes and two deck guns.

Construction

Deutschland was built together with her sister ship Bremen in 1916 by the Deutsche Ozean-Reederei, a private shipping company created for the enterprise, a subsidiary company of the North German Lloyd shipping company (now Hapag-Lloyd) and the Deutsche Bank. She was constructed without armaments, with a wide beam to provide space for cargo. The cargo capacity was 700 tons (230 tons of rubber could be stored in the free-flooding spaces between the inner and outer hulls), relatively small compared to surface ships.

File:German submarine Deutschland.jpg

Deutschland in an image from the New International Encyclopedia

Deutschland was one of seven submarines designed to carry cargo between the United States and Germany in 1916, through the naval blockade of the Entente Powers. Mainly enforced by Great Britain's Royal Navy, the blockade had led to great difficulties for German companies in acquiring raw materials which could not be found in quantity within the German sphere of influence, and thus substantially hindered the German war effort.

Five of the submarine freighters were converted into long-range cruiser U-boats (U-kreuzers) equipped with two 150mm deck guns, and only two were completed according to the original design: Deutschland and Bremen, which was lost without a trace on her maiden voyage.

Britain and France soon protested against the use of submarines as merchant ships, arguing that they could not be stopped and inspected for munitions in the same manner as other cargo vessels. The US, under diplomatic pressure for supposedly showing favoritism while having declared itself neutral, rejected the argument. Even submarines, as long as they were unarmed, were to be regarded as merchant vessels and accordingly would be permitted to trade.

Merchant service

File:Merchant Submarine New London.jpg

Deutschland unloading in New London, 1916.

First journey

Deutschland departed on her first voyage to the US on 23 June 1916 commanded by Paul König, formerly of the North German Lloyd company. She carried 750 tons of cargo in total, including 125 tons of highly sought-after chemical dyes, mainly Anthraquinone and Alizarine derivatives in highly concentrated form, some of which were worth as much as $1,254 a pound in 2005 money. She also carried medical drugs, mainly Salvarsan, gemstones, and mail, her cargo being worth $1.5 million in total.

Passing undetected through the English Channel she arrived in Baltimore on 9 July 1916 (some sources say 7 July) after just over two weeks at sea. A photograph by Karle Netzer dates the arrival 10 July (erreichte Baltimore Hafen 10 Juli 1916). During their stay in the US, the German crewmen were welcomed as celebrities for their astonishing journey and even taken to fancy dinners. American submarine pioneer Simon Lake visited the Deutschland while she was in Baltimore, and made an agreement with representatives of the North German Lloyd line to build cargo submarines in the US, a project which never came to fruition.

She stayed at Baltimore until 2 August, when she sailed for Bremerhaven, arriving on 24 August with a cargo of 341 tons of nickel, 93 tons of tin, and 348 tons of crude rubber (257 tons of which were carried outside the pressure hull). Her cargo was valued at $17.5 million, several times the submarine's construction costs. She had traveled 8,450 nmi (15,650 km; 9,720 mi), having been submerged for 190 nmi (350 km; 220 mi) of them.

Second journey

File:U Deutschland.jpg

Crew of the Deutschland in Baltimore, 1916

Deutschland made another round trip in November 1916 to New London, Connecticut with $10 million of cargo including gems, securities, and medicinal products. At the same time the submarine U-53 also crossed the Atlantic to visit Newport, Rhode Island, and sank five Allied freighters just outside US territorial limits before returning home.

On 16 November as she was trying to put to sea, Deutschland accidentally rammed and sank the tugboat T.A. Scott, Jr., with the loss of five men aboard the tug. Her bows were damaged, and she had to return to New London for repairs, which delayed her departure by a week. She finally left New London on 21 November 1916, with a cargo that included 6.5 tons of silver bullion.

Following his last voyage, captain Paul König wrote a book (or possibly had it ghost-written) about the journeys of Deutschland, entitled Voyage of the Deutschland, the First Merchant Submarine (Verlag Ullstein & Co, Berlin 1916). The book was heavily publicized, as it was intended to sway public opinion in both Germany and the US.

War service

A third voyage, planned for January 1917, was aborted as German-US relations had worsened following the sinking of shipping bound for the United Kingdom, often just outside US territorial waters. Deutschland was taken over by the German Imperial Navy on 19 February 1917 and converted into U-155, part of the U-Kreuzer Flotilla, being fitted with 6 bow torpedo tubes with 18 torpedoes, and two 15 cm SK L/40 naval gun taken from the pre-dreadnought battleship SMS Zähringen. She made three successful war cruises, sinking 42 ships and damaging one.

1917

During the summer of 1917 U-155 made a 105-day cruise, commanded by Kptlt. Karl Meusel, leaving Germany around 24 May and returning on 4 September. During her traverse of the Northern Passage around the northern end of the British Isles and out into the Atlantic Ocean, she was stalked and nearly sunk by U-19 near Utsira Island, Norway.

During this patrol, the boat fired on the port city of Ponta Delgada in the Azore Islands on 4 July at 3 a.m. with its deck guns. Portuguese army units did not respond due to being equipped with obsolete artillery. The coal collier USS Orion happened to be in port at the time under going repairs. Its company returned U-155's fire and dueled with the German boat for about 12 minutes. U-155 submerged without being hit and eventually retired. While the raid was light in damage (it killed four people), it alarmed Allied naval authorities about the defenseless nature of the Azores and their possible use as a base by boats like U-155 in the future. Allied naval forces, led by the U.S. Navy, began to send ships and establish a naval operating base in Ponta Delgada as a result.

During her patrol she sank 19 merchant ships, most by either scuttling or gunfire. She attacked 19 Allied armed merchantmen but only succeeded in sinking 9 of them. Upon her return to Germany she had covered a distance of 10,220 nmi (18,930 km; 11,760 mi), of which 620 nmi (1,150 km; 710 mi) had been travelled submerged, one of the longest voyages made by a U-boat during World War I.

1918

U-155 sailed from Kiel on 11 August 1918 commanded by Ferdinand Studt. Studt's orders directed him to cruise off the US coast in the region of the Nantucket lightship and lay mines off St. John's, Newfoundland and Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was also directed to cut telegraph cables off Sable Island, 80 km (50 mi) southeast of Nova Scotia. His orders, however, proved problematic, and Studt came to believe that the St. Johns where he was to lay mines was actually Saint John, New Brunswick, in the Bay of Fundy.

On U-155's outbound voyage she had captured and scuttled the Portuguese sailing ship Gamo, had attempted an attack on the SS France, and destroyed by gunfire the Norwegian Stortind. On 7 September U-155 found herself in a long range gun duel with the US steamer Frank H. Buck, the steamer later claiming to have sunk U-155.

On 13 September U-155 engaged in another gun fight with the British merchantman Newby Hall which managed to damage the submarine, denting her armour and causing serious leaks in her pressure hull which made diving temporarily impossible.

On 19 September, Studt tried and failed to locate and cut the telegraph cable near Sable Island, then headed for Nantucket.

Fate

U-155 in London after World War I

U-155 returned to Germany from her final cruise on 12 November 1918 and was surrendered on 24 November 1918 with other submarines as part of the terms of the Armistice. She was taken to Britain and exhibited in London and elsewhere and was eventually sold for scrap in 1921. On 17 September 1921 she was being broken up at Robert Smith and Sons, Birkenhead, when an explosion ripped the ship apart, killing five apprentices.

Summary of raiding history

Date	Name	Nationality	Tonnage	Fate
2 June 1917	Hafursfjord	Norway	1,669	Sunk
10 June 1917	Scottish Hero	Canada	2,205	Sunk
14 June 1917	Aysgarth	United Kingdom	3,118	Sunk
30 June 1917	Benguela	Norway	4,612	Sunk
30 June 1917	Siraa	Norway	1,938	Sunk
7 July 1917	Coblenz	United Kingdom	1,338	Damaged
8 July 1917	Ruelle	France	3,583	Sunk
12 July 1917	Calliope	United Kingdom	2,883	Sunk
14 July 1917	Chalkydon	Greece	2,870	Sunk
18 July 1917	Ellen	Norway	3,877	Sunk
20 July 1917	Hanseat	Norway	3,358	Sunk
21 July 1917	Doris	Kingdom of Italy	1,355	Sunk
21 July 1917	John Twohy	United States	1,019	Sunk
21 July 1917	Willena Gertrude	United Kingdom	317	Sunk
31 July 1917	Madeleine	France	2,709	Sunk
31 July 1917	Snowdonian	United Kingdom	3,870	Sunk
1 August 1917	Alexandre	France	2,671	Sunk
2 August 1917	Marthe	France	3,119	Sunk
7 August 1917	Christiane	United States	964	Sunk
7 August 1917	Iran	United Kingdom	6,250	Sunk
16 February 1918	Tea	Kingdom of Italy	5,395	Sunk
18 February 1918	Cecil L. Shave	United Kingdom	102	Sunk
23 February 1918	Sardinero	Spain	2,170	Sunk
4 March 1918	Antioco Accame	Kingdom of Italy	4,439	Sunk
10 March 1918	Wegadesk	Norway	4,271	Sunk
15 March 1918	Joaquina	Spain	333	Damaged
18 March 1918	Prometeo	Kingdom of Italy	4,455	Sunk
18 March 1918	Reidar	Norway	3,574	Sunk
24 March 1918	Avala	Kingdom of Italy	3,834	Sunk
24 March 1918	Jorgina	United Kingdom	103	Sunk
25 March 1918	Rio Ave	Portugal	179	Sunk
27 March 1918	Watauga	United Kingdom	127	Sunk
1 April 1918	Lusitano	Portugal	529	Sunk
7 April 1918	Sterope	Kingdom of Italy	9,500	Sunk
13 April 1918	Harewood	United Kingdom	4,150	Sunk
16 April 1918	Nirpura	United Kingdom	7,640	Sunk
23 April 1918	Frances	United Kingdom	54	Sunk
31 August 1918	Gamo	Portugal	343	Sunk
2 September 1918	Stortind	Norway	2,510	Sunk
7 September 1918	Sophia	Portugal	162	Sunk
12 September 1918	Leixoes	Portugal	3,245	Sunk
20 September 1918	Kingfisher	United States	353	Sunk
3 October 1918	Alberto Treves	Kingdom of Italy	3,838	Sunk
4 October 1918	Industrial	United Kingdom	330	Sunk
12 October 1918	Amphion	United States	7,409	Damaged
17 October 1918	Lucia	United States	6,744	Sunk

See also

• Italian R class submarine, World War 2, Italian cargo submarines
• Italian submarine Barbarigo, World War 2, Marcello-class submarine that was converted into a transport
• Italian submarine Luigi Torelli, World War 2, Marcello-class submarine that was converted into a transport
• Submarine Cargo Vessel, modern Russian cargo submarine proposal

External links

• Video: Merchant Submarine Deutschland arriving in Baltimore, 9 July 1916.
• Video: Historic footage of submarine Deutschland departing New London, Connecticut, 21 November 1916, following repairs from tugboat collision.
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