Ramming U-Boats During the Great War.

thank you you gov for sponsoring this video the submarine changed the very nature of Naval Warfare during the Great War navies had developed few weapons or tactics to effectively deal with them and in the early months of the first world war the U-boats of the Imperial German Navy proved that they could be a real threat to the ships of the royal Navy but on August 9 1914 the submarine u-15 encountered the light Cruiser HMS Birmingham and Birmingham used what was at the time the single most effective method for a warship to sink a submarine the tactic of ramming submarines during the Great War deserves to be remembered history deserves to be remembered but your opinion also deserves to be heard and that's why I love yougov yougov is an easy free to use market-based research firm you get invited to fill out surveys and all sorts of topics from politics to Brands to popular culture your opinion gets heard and you get paid you accumulate points then return the points for gift cards from all sorts of places and then you can buy Nifty things to put on your YouTube set yougov is free to join it's easy to use the surveys only take a few minutes you get to express opinions that actually matter and you get paid so what's not to love so sign up using my link in the description take surveys and get paid in his 2003 book the German submarine war author Richard Henry Gibson explains that on August 6th just two days after Britain declared war on Germany ten undersea boats of the Imperial German Navy set out on the first war Cruise Gibson writes no Cruz so adventurous so far-reaching had ever been attempted before the boats were you five seven eight nine thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen Seventeen and eighteen these represented nearly the whole the serviceable submarine Fleet of the Imperial Navy Dr Martin Gibson of Glasgow University explained on his blog war and Security in 2014. in 1914 Germany possessed only 24 operational boats another four were used for training and 16 were under construction only 10 of the operational boats had diesel engines the others using courting heavy fuel oil engines that produced a great deal of smoke and Sparks their mission was to understand the intentions of the royal Navy RH Gibson writes the U-boats were to advance up the North Sea as far as the Norway orkneys in an attempt to Divine the British Naval dispositions this was the first confrontation between the great ships of the royal Navy and the new threats of the under sea boats on August 8th near shetland's Fair Isle u-15 fired a torpedo at the battleship HMS Monarch at the time engaging in Gunnery practice Roger Keys commander of the Royal Navy's eighth submarine flotilla would later comment that the fact that the Monarch was performing such a task within 500 miles of Helga land was an example of the Navy's General ignorance of Submarine powers and limitations but the attack was unsuccessful the torpedo nearly missed Monarch and alerted the fleet that submarines were in the area r h Gibson describes the response the leviathans sheered out of the line to Ram but did not Crush their opponent with their bulk in this first Contact between the Royal Navy and the Kaisers submarines both sides failed to score a hit but the next day the u-15 would run out of luck the boat appears to have suffered engine failure was on the surface when through heavy fog it was cited By the Light Cruiser HMS Birmingham newspaper reports were heavily censored on August 14th the Kensington news and West London Times talked of the birmingham's fine Gunnery and reported that the Birmingham scored two hits with their six-inch guns one blowing off the submarine's Periscope and the second tearing off its conning Tower however the truth was somewhat different RH Gibson writes it would seem that no watch was being kept in the submarine and from the sounds of hammering which pierced the haze the crew was apparently trying to remedy an engine breakdown altering course in ensuring that the u-15 was within her turning Circle the Birmingham bore down opening a rapid fire at close range the submarine slowly began to move through the water but it was too late the bows of the light Cruiser caught her fair and square cutting her completely in two the Royal Navy was not able to spare Birmingham for immediate repairs sir H Gibson writes it for several months the Birmingham bore evidence of her success in the shape of two long scars almost exactly symmetrical in length and pattern which to face her bowels if the newspaper reports were not forthright on the tactics they did not miss the significance the Birmingham was the first warship to sink a submarine in the Great War Cruz turns out to have been a disaster for the Imperial German Navy in addition to the u-15 the U13 failed to return presumed had been lost to a mine all right Gibson notes dryly not even the hardiest optimists could pretend that the submarine had Vindicated its War value by this Expedition the attack by HMS Birmingham certainly required law to have the submarine copped unaware on the surface but the tactic of ramming at least with the vessel as large as the 5 500 ton Birmingham certainly proved deadly for the Kaiser's U-boats HMS Birmingham would not be alone in her choice of tactic journalist Patrick Boniface noted in a 2018 edition of military history magazine during the first world war 19 German submarines were dispatched with the use of ramming at the time the technology to detect localized and Destroy submarines was rudimentary at best and one of the quickest ways to deal with the threat of a periscope was to turn and run over the enemy at top speed but the U-boats would certainly get their revenge for the loss of the u-15 on September 5th the submarine u-21 became the first submarine to sink a ship with a self-propelled torpedo seeking the Scout Cruiser HMS Pathfinder and on September 22nd the u9 encountered in sank three older Royal Navy armored Cruisers HMS abukir Hogue and Cressy for a loss of nearly 1500 lives a month later the u9 sank the protected Cruiser HMS Hawk the U-boats were suddenly demonstrating their or value the October newspaper reported another U-Boat sunk This Time by The Destroyer HMS Badger the crediting chronicle and North Devon Gazette reported that a German submarine has been rammed and sunk by the Destroyer Badger off the Dutch Coast the Badgers balls were somewhat damaged and the Staffordshire Sentinel reported that her commander and crew had an enthusiastic reception cheer after cheer being given by the warship Cruise in the harbor while this time the newspapers reported the ramming again the reality was different than what was in the newspaper the badger which struck the u19 in what Gibson called pitch Darkness was at 990 tons fairly larger than the 837 ton submarine by November the Bristol times and mirror asked did the HMS Badger destroy the German submarine shirayunk that is still the subject of heated discussion among some argumentative people the reason for the question the paper reported was that the Badger's bow was crumpled and the crew believed the submarine sank to rise no more but the Germans say she has returned safely to Port but the paper was skeptical of the German claim noting that Germans do not give her number or end any details and it is to be noted that the Collision is almost always fatal to a submarine when it is she who was struck the paper concludes that putting two and two together it would seem that the admiralties very pleased telegram to the badger was justified but the admiralty and the Bristol times and mirror were wrong the submarine struck was the u19 and well severely damaged the boat made it back to its base for repairs Gibson notes that the u19 made many and amazing escapes during the Great War surviving to be surrendered after the armistice the survival of u19 and damage to HMS Badger demonstrated the risks involved as well Boniface notes that it was by no means a one-way Affair since submarines were built strongly to resist water pressure at Great depth that risk was demonstrated in May of 1918. the Aged Destroyer HMS Ferry was escorting a convoy off of Britain's East Coast when the Convoy came under attack by the submarine uc75 the 22 year old Destroyer actually displaced less than the mineling submarine but nonetheless sorry it's Gibson writes the submarine failing to take precautions was rammed by the Destroyer the commander of HMS Ferry Lieutenant Jeffrey barnish reported that the Convoy was steaming in darkness 205 I heard a heavy Crash from the direction of the Convoy like the detonation of a torpedo the officer of the watch Lieutenant Bennett had sounded the alarm when increased speed and headed for the source of the noise the men poured up on deck and a few seconds later a surface submarine was cited off the port bow at a distance of 300 yards I ordered the Cox into port to helm in order to hit her in a more vital spot but we were too close for them to have any effect and quickly passed over the stern of our enemy there was no obvious force of impact at this time and I fear we probably damaged ourselves more than we did him however I'm passing over him I determined to renew the attack by RAM and sending the Gunner aft to open fire with our after gun proceeded to turn the ferry round the submarine fired her gun but we shelter from point-blank range with the after six pounder and all 40 direct hits were made the Germans on the submarines bridge now jumped into the waters we came up again with our Ram the destroyer's bows struck the Yuba close beside the gun it was a brave action but too much for the small Destroyer barnish reported how far our Stern buckled is uncertain but within seconds R4 deck was underwater and the submarine had disappeared leaving two Germans commonly standing on our suburged foxtel with their hands held up signals were sent reporting our damage Boats were put over the side and the prisoners were taken charge of and searched the artificer engineer Lieutenant Palmer reported extensive damage to the hull and it was decided to steam very slowly towards the beach however this was too much strain for the bulkhead forward and efforts were then made to steam her Stern first this was very soon useless as both propellers were out of the water engines were then stopped the crew embarked into the boats in order to lie off at a safe distance a last message was sent to Captain D by Wireless informing him we were about to abandon the ferry the attack demonstrated the danger of ramming in Sinking UC 75 the ferry was sunk herself Lieutenant varnish received the distinguished service order for the action but being just too darn small was not an issue and one of the most extraordinary examples of a royal Navy ship ramming a submarine during the Great War HMS Dreadnought was the pride of the fleet when she was commissioned in 1906. BBC noted in 2013 Dreadnought brought together for the first time a series of Technologies which have been developing over several years most important was her Firepower she was the first all big gun Battleship with 10 12-inch guns the BBC quoted John Roberts of the museum of natural Firepower Dreadnought really transformed Naval Warfare rather like the tank did on land Warfare in fact Dreadnought was described at the time as the most deadly fighting machine ever launched in the history of the world and yet for the ship whose radical design transformed Naval Warfare and started the naval arms race that some argue was instrumental in starting the Great War King George the fist Pride only sank a single vessel at sea Robert Farley wrote in the National interest in 2018. on March 18th u-29 encountered a portion of the grand Fleet on exercise in pentland Firth in the orkney islands u-29 fired a torpedo at the battleship HMS Neptune but missed and as was often the case with World War One submarines the boat inadvertently broke the surface after firing the torpedo which gave HMS Dreadnought and another Battleship HMS Timur a chance to cite her it might have been dangerous for the 35-ton HMS ferry to ram a U-Boat but not so much for the twenty thousand ton Dreadnought Farley rights after a chase that lasted only a few minutes and almost involved a collision between Dreadnought and Timur the former Ram 229 and cut the submarine in half to illustrate the risk on both sides u-29 was lost with all hands including its Captain Otto vettigan it had been vettigan who commanded the u9 in 1914 when it sank the abakir Hogue and Cressy dreadnoughts a little other action during the war but the vessel once designated the most deadly fighting machine ever launched in the history of the world did have the distinction of being the only battleship in history to sink a submarine but Dreadnought was not the largest vessel to RAM and sink a submarine during the Great War when she was launched in October 1910 RMS Olympic sister shipped to the Titanic was at more than 45 000 gross registered tons the largest ship in the world requisitioned as a troop ship in 1915 having Naval guns mounted Boniface explains in the early hours of 12 May 1918 u-103 targeted the sistership of Titanic the RMS Olympic the Great Liner was carrying American troops to France the crew of u-103 were unable however to flood the two Stern torpedo tubes and tragically as it turned out for the submarine they decided to surface to attack the liner u-103 immediately came under Fire from the Olympics Gunners while the captain swung his ship round to try and run the submarine down u-103 crash dive to a depth of 30 meters but almost immediately the liner's port propellers sliced through the submarine's pressure hole with the boat surely sinking the crew of the submarine blew the ballast tanks and scuttled the boat nine crewmen lost their lives in another irony in 1911 Olympic had survived a collision with HMS Hawk the same vessel that was sunk by the u9 in 1914. the submarine really came of age during the Great War but so did weapons to counter them far more U-boats were sunk by mines than by ships and by the end of the war depth charges have become much more reliable and deadly still ramming was used throughout the war the sinking of u15 by HMS Birmingham in 1914 represented the first U-Boat sunk but the sinking of the ub-110 after being rammed by the Destroyer HMS Gary in 1918 was among the last and the strategy of ramming submarines continued to be a common strategy throughout the Second World War I hope you enjoyed watching this episode of the history guy and if you did please feel free to like And subscribe and share the history guide with your friends and if you also believe that history deserves to be remembered then you can support the history guy as a member on YouTube a supporter on our community at locals or as a patron on patreon you can also check out our great merchandise shop or book a special message from the history guy on cameo [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 186,604

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: F76xG5ObwXQ

Length: 15min 36sec (936 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023