SM UB-16 - Early Career

Early Career

The submarine was commissioned into the German Imperial Navy as SM UB-16 on 12 May 1915 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See (Oblt.) Hans Valentiner, a 26-year-old first-time U-boat commander. On 1 June, UB-16 joined the Flanders Flotilla (German: U-boote des Marinekorps U-Flotille Flandern), which had been organized on 29 March. When UB-16 joined the flotilla, Germany was in the midst of its first submarine offensive, begun in February. During this campaign, enemy vessels in the German-defined war zone (German: Kriegsgebiet), which encompassed all waters around the United Kingdom, were to be sunk. Vessels of neutral countries were not to be attacked unless they definitively could be identified as enemy vessels operating under a false flag.

On 3 June, two days after joining the flotilla, Valentiner and UB-16 sank three British fishing vessels while patrolling between 40 and 50 nautical miles (74 and 93 km) off Lowestoft. All three of the sunken ships were smacks—sailing vessels traditionally rigged with red ochre sails—which were stopped, boarded by crewmen from UB-16, and sunk with explosives. On 12 June, UB-16 torpedoed and sank the 3,027-ton British cargo ship Leuctra 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 km) from the Shipwash Lightship. Nine days later, the U-boat torpedoed the British steamer Tunisiana off Lowestoft. After being hit, the 4,220-ton ship's master beached her on Barnard Sands to save the cargo of wheat shipped from Montreal, but the ship was a complete loss. Tunisiana was the largest ship sunk by UB-16. In her first month of action, UB-16's totals were five ships sunk of 7,432 tons, more than half of the flotilla's June total of 14,080 tons. No lives were lost on any of UB-16's June victims.

UB-16's next two successes came on consecutive days in late July. On the 27th, Westward Ho!, a 57-ton smack was boarded and sunk by UB-16's crew 25 nautical miles (46 km) southeast of Lowestoft. The following day, the 1,821-ton Mangara was torpedoed without warning one-quarter nautical mile (500 m) from the Sizewell Buoy at Aldeburgh. Eleven men died when the ship and her cargo of iron ore were sent to the bottom.

Although the Flanders Flotilla sank 31 ships in August, UB-16 did not add to that total. In a four-day span in September, however, she accounted for three of the eight ships sunk by the flotilla during the month. On the 7th, she sank two more fishing smacks, Emblem and Victorious, 44 nautical miles (81 km) from Lowestoft. On 10 September, UB-16 sank the 51-ton Nimrod in the same vicinity.

Germany's submarine offensive was suspended on 18 September by the chief of the Admiralstab, Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, in response to American demands after German submarines had sunk the Cunard Line steamer Lusitania in May 1915 and other high profile sinkings in August and September. Holtzendorff's directive from ordered all U-boats out of the English Channel and the South-Western Approaches and required that all submarine activity in the North Sea be conducted strictly along prize regulations. UB-16 did not sink any vessels over the next four months, but resumed attacks on 18 January 1916, sinking three more smacks—Evelyn, Foam Crest, and Sunshine—between 25 and 35 nautical miles (46 and 65 km) from Lowestoft.