It looks from the air like an enormous piece of driftwood, but a closer inspection shows this beached wreck to be a submarine. It’s almost as long as the parade of hotels and houses it has washed up in front of, and dwarfs the local pleasure boat. If the location wasn’t stamped on the image, one might guess this was an English seaside town from the cricket ground in the top right corner. The square to the left is called Denmark Place. The clock-tower at the back of the square is the town’s Albert Memorial, erected in 1862 to commemorate the death of a German prince. This postcard is one of many printed to commemorate the stranding of the German U-boat U-118 in April of 1919. This image is unique in being the only one that was taken from the air, presumably by an RAF or Royal Naval Air Service reconnaissance plane.
The most striking aspect of the photo, I think, is the U-boat’s size. During WW1, the German navy constructed a variety of U-boats from 200 ton coastal types to 2,000 ton merchant blockade-runners (later termed U-kreuzers). The U-118 belonged to the UE classes of ocean-going mine-laying submarines built in the later stages of the war. Weighing 1,100 tons and more than 80 metres long, the UEs were significantly larger than E-class submarines, which formed the backbone of the British submarine fleet. As well as giving them a range of 9,000 miles, their increased size allowed such vessels to carry up to 32 mines. In early coastal types, mines were ‘wet stored’ in flooded vertical chutes in the forward part of the vessel, and dropped beneath the hull. The UE classes ‘dry stored’ their mines in a horizontal space before ejecting them at the stern. This proved safer and more practical as it allowed mine settings to be altered by crewmen prior to laying. By war’s end, Germany had built 115 mine-laying submarines, which were its principle delivery system for mine warfare.
Initially, Germany had relied on surface minelayers converted from merchant ships, such as the SS Berlin, the vessel responsible for laying the mine which sank the Royal Navy’s newly-commissioned battleship HMS Audacious in October 1914. However, British naval superiority often made these sorties one-way trips; the Berlin ended up interned in Norway. Starting in 1915, the German navy started to use purpose-built submarines, operating out of bases in Flanders. Their targets were the shipping lanes outside England’s major ports. In that year alone, roughly 650 mines were laid between Grimsby and Dover, accounting for the loss of almost 100 vessels. Larger mine-laying U-boats started operating out of German ports in 1916, laying fields further north including the Orkney Islands; home to the Grand Fleet. Mines laid in this area by an UE class boat were responsible for the loss of HMS Hampshire shortly after the conclusion of the Battle of Jutland. The British cruiser was carrying Lord Kitchener and his staff on a visit to Russia, all of whom perished.
Submarine mine-laying intensified further in 1917, with British minesweepers destroying more than 500 mines in April alone. However, better submarine detection made this work increasingly hazardous with a dozen mine-laying U-boats lost during the same year. In July 1918, the huge U-kreuzer U-156 laid a minefield off Long Island, which accounted for the sinking of the 14,000 ton armoured cruiser USS San Diego; the largest US warship lost during the war. However, the same U-boat succumbed to an American-laid mine off Norway before she could safely reach Germany.
Commissioned in May 1918, the U-118 had only the briefest of careers, claiming two victims; a collier and a tanker; both sunk by torpedo, before the armistice brought an end to her first and last patrol. She was one of 176 U-boats surrendered to the Allies, 114 of these arriving at Harwich in November 1918. Many of these vessels were anchored along part of the River Stour, which became known locally as ‘U-boat Avenue’. U-118 was presumably one of these, although a later date has been given for her surrender. A French war reparation, she was being towed to Cherbourg in heavy weather on the night of 14th-15th April when her tow line snapped. Efforts to sink the ship with shellfire before she beached proved ineffectual and she ran up almost parallel to Hasting’s promenade, only yards from the town’s Queens Hotel.
The sudden materialisation of a huge u-boat in the centre of town must have been an unwelcome sight to many relatives of the 1,250 local men who’d lost their lives fighting in the war. Nevertheless, the submarine evidently became an instant tourist attraction. In 1919, few civilians outside of Britain’s naval ports would have seen a submarine in water, much less one out of it. The small coastal mine-laying submarine UC-5 had been displayed on the Thames as a fund-raising attraction after her capture off Harwich in April 1916, and had attracted 200,000 spectators.[1] Shortly before U-118’s beaching at Hastings, several surrendered U-boats had been dispatched to America, partly to promote the sale of Victory Bonds, and partly for the US navy to conduct investigations on. A few captured U-boats may also have been paraded around British ports.
Bow Creek to Anatahan 