Second Submarine Offensive
By early 1916, the British blockade of Germany was beginning to have an effect on Germany and her imports. The Royal Navy had stopped and seized more cargo destined for Germany than the quantity of cargo sunk by German U-boats in the first submarine offensive. As a result, the German Imperial Navy began a second offensive against merchant shipping on 29 February. The final ground rules agreed upon by the German Admiralstab were that all enemy vessels in Germany's self-proclaimed war zone would be destroyed without warning, that enemy vessels outside of the war zone would be destroyed only if armed, and—to avoid antagonizing the United States—that enemy passenger steamers were not to be attacked, regardless of whether in the war zone or not.
UB-16's first successes in the new offensive came on 6 March when she sank the smacks Springflower and Young Harry about 30 nautical miles (56 km) east of Lowestoft. Valentiner and UB-16 attacked another pair of ships in early April. The 653-ton British ship Perth was torpedoed and sunk near Yarmouth on the 1st, while the Dutch sailing vessel Elziena Helena was damaged in an attack two days later east of Southwold.
On 5 April, Valentiner was succeeded by Kapitänleutnant Paul Hundius, a 27-year-old, first-time U-boat skipper. In the first two weeks under Hundius' command, UB-16 sank two British steamers: the 2,978-ton Robert Adamson on the 10th, and the 3,091-ton Tregantle on the 22nd. Robert Adamson was sunk 3 nautical miles (5.6 km) from the Shipwash Lightship while en route from Dundee to Le Havre with a cargo of props. Tregantle had sailed from Galveston, Texas, via Norfolk, Virginia, with a load of wheat for Hull, but was sunk off Lowestoft.
Near the end of April 1916, Admiral Reinhardt Scheer, the newest commander-in-chief of the German High Seas Fleet, called off the merchant shipping offensive and ordered all boats at sea to return, and all boats in port to remain there. UB-16 did not sink any more ships for the next eight months.
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