U-1206's Toilet Disaster

the type 7 u-boat was the workhorse of the u-boat fleet although they did not have the reign to the larger type 9 u-boats the medium-sized submarine was easy to build required a relatively small crew and yet had the range in armament to effectively carry out submarine warfare in the Atlantic this functionality made it popular with the Kriegsmarine and it became the most produced submarine class in history with 730 type 7 u-boats built while they had their limitations the type 7 u-boats were powerful attacks that brings with some of the best all-around performance characteristics of the war but every design requires trade-offs and sacrifices and on the type 7 u-boat crew habitability was low on the priority list and one of the places this showed was in the boats toilet a type 7 you won't had only two toilets or in navy slang heads for the 50-person crew and as one was near the galley it was often needed for food storage leaving only one place for the Submariner to do his business but the number of toilets wasn't the only problem submarine heads are notoriously difficult plumbing because the water pressure keeps you from easily just dumping the waste into the ocean as you would usually do on a normal boat most allied submarine designs of the war used holding tanks to carry crew waste until it could be dumped it was still complex to manage the plumbing without it backing up and clogs in the system were and in fact still are on modern submarines common the head on the American s-class submarine was notoriously difficult to operate but even then storage requires space and weight and both of those are limited commodities on a submarine thus German u-boats use a system that flushed the waste directly into the sea without a storage tank but the limitation was that the system could only be used when the submarine was on the surface or in relatively shallow water a summering that dive in deep water to protect itself from attack therefore would not have a functional toilet well that is never a good thing the problem grew more acute as the war wood along while the type 7 u-boat was produced throughout the war the service in large numbers came mostly after the early war period that period that was called the happy time type 7 u-boats mostly operated in the period after the Allies had improved their anti-submarine techniques and increased the number of planes and chips designed to hunt you boats a u-boat in 1943 was obliged to spend much more time undersea in deep water than one in 1940 and running at a depth shallow enough that it allowed the use of the head increased the risk that the submarine would be detected and attacked criminal with us forced to relieve themselves in buckets which would sit and hopefully not spill until the boat could safely surface and dump the waste World War two submarines were already a smelly affair notoriously poorly ventilated they tended to stink of diesel fuel cigarettes and body odor but adding open buckets of human waste made it a whole lot worse when you boats would return from patrols the stench would often be so bad that dock workers have got on the boat would be cost to vomit but German engineers do like a challenge and in 1943 started issuing a new high-pressure toilet on its submarines in simple terms the system uses a series of valves that directed the waste towards a hole to an airlock which then ejected the waste out using air pressure essentially a sewer torpedo well that allowed the use of the head at greater depths it was a complex system the system was in fact so complex that specialists had to be trained in the operation of the toilet the valve said to be open and closed in exact order to keep the system all going in the right direction entered the you 1206 built in Danzig Poland the type seven C model submarine was launched on December 30th 1943 and commissioned on March 16th 1944 sixty seven point two three metres long and displacing 769 tons while surfaced mounting five torpedo tubes four in the bow and one on the stern an 8 point 8 centimeter deck gun in a robust anti-aircraft array of 220 millimeter and 137 millimeter guns the you 1206 who was one of the last you boats to be commissioned during the war and was fitted with the both the new snorkel underwater breathing device and the new high-pressure toilet the boat participated in maneuvers through the summer and then was assigned to a flotilla it was not ready for patrol until the spring of 1945 and after two training patrols on April 6 1945 left on its first combat patrol under the command of 28-year old captain lieutenant a doff slit from a base in Norway just eight days later on April 14th the submarine was cruising at a depth of 200 feet off the coast of Scotland there were eight nautical miles off the easternmost tip of the coast of Scotland at Peter head and Aberdeen sure the boat was stopped working on an issue where the engine was failing to recharge the batteries according to Captain slit as they were working on the repairs he received news that there was a leak in the forward part of the boat someone by some accounts the captain himself although it may have been another officer and tried to use the high-pressure system head without consulting the toilet specialist unable to work the system the specialist was called and misjudging the problem the specialist opened the sea valve while the toilet valve was still open the pressure from the depth caused the seawater to pushed in through the toilet spewing the saltwater as well as the toilet contents into the boat the bilge pump failed to operate and water started filling inside the pressure hole some point down unto the boats batteries the mixture of sea water and the high-capacity battery started producing poisonous chlorine gas the toilet malfunction had suddenly imperiled the boat and her crew the crew managed to get the boat to the surface despite it being flooded with seawater and begin venting the boat to clear the gas but so close to the coast they were quickly spotted by RAF planes and who started attacking the boat killing a crew member and doing enough damage that the boat would be unable to dive captain lieutenant Schlitt realized their situation was hopeless he threw his codebooks overboard and ordered the crew to open the flood valves and abandon ship according to Schlitz report the crew reached the Scottish coast in rubber dinghies but in the attempt to negotiate the steep coast and heavy seas three crew members tragically died several men were taken aboard a British sloop the remaining 46 members of the crew were taken prisoner 16 days later on April 30th Adolf Hitler committed suicide and eight days after that Germany surrendered the wreck of the U 1206 the famous new boat that was sunk by its own toilet was not discovered to tell may of 2012 finally found by divers at a depth of about 86 metres some 12 miles from the coast of Scotland captain lieutenant slit survived the war passed away in 2009 the age of 90 if you enjoyed this history guy short then feel free to click that like button subscribe to our Channel and check us out on patreon Twitter Instagram Facebook and our merchandise on teespring com [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 846,472

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Keywords: history, the history guy, world war ii, Germany, submarine, u 1206, military history, wwii, history guy

Id: Pfr0nsh0Ghc

Length: 7min 8sec (428 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 28 2019