Second German Offensive
Germany began its second submarine offensive against shipping the month after U-66 joined the 4th Flotilla. As in the first submarine offensive, U-boats were sent independently around Scotland to patrol the Irish Sea and the western entrance to the English Channel. The first reported activity of U-66 during this campaign reveals that she sank her first ship on 5 April 1916. On that date she was in the vicinity of Fastnet Rock and came upon the 3,890-ton British refrigerated cargo ship Zent headed from Garston to Santa Marta in ballast. U-66 torpedoed Zent 28 nautical miles (52 km) from Fastnet and sank the ship with the loss of 49 crewmen; the master and nine sailors were rescued and landed at Queenstown. Over the next two days, U-66 dispatched two French sailing vessels, the 151-ton Binicaise, and the 397-ton fishing smack Sainte Marie west of the Isles of Scilly. On 8 April, von Bothmer and U-66 sank the Spanish-flagged Santanderino 18 nautical miles (33 km) from Ushant. Santanderino, a 3,346-ton ship built in 1890, was sailing from Liverpool to Havana, and U-66 gave 15 minutes' notice for all the passengers and crew to abandon ship; four drowned during the evacuation. Santanderino's 36 survivors were rescued by a Danish steamer and landed at a port on the Bay of Biscay.
U-66 continued her attacks on merchant shipping on 9 April with the sinking of three ships, the British steamers Eastern City and Glenalmond and the Norwegian ship Sjolyst. The 4,341-ton Eastern City was sailing from Saint-Nazaire to Barry Roads in ballast when she was shelled by U-66 and sent to the bottom 18 nautical miles (33 km) from Ushant; all of her crew survived and were landed by 11 April. U-66's next victim was the 2,888-ton Glenalmond sailing from Bilbao to Clyde laden with iron ore. Torpedoes from U-66 sank the ship 27 nautical miles (50 km) north of Ushant, but all her crew were saved. The 20-year-old Norwegian steamer Sjolyst was sailing in ballast from Nantes to Manchester when U-66 sank her about two nautical miles (four kilometers) from where Glenalmond went down. Sjolyst's master and entire crew were picked up by the British steamer Libra and landed at Cardiff.
U-66 finished out her busy month the next day by sinking one British and one Italian ship. U-66 sank the British steamer Margam Abbey 55 nautical miles (102 km) southwest of the Lizard while the ship was en route from Bordeaux to Barry Roads in ballast. Margam Abbey, at 4,471 tons, was the largest ship sunk by U-66 to that time. The Italian freighter Unione was sailing with a load of coal from Clyde for Genoa when U-66 torpedoed her off Land's End. The sinking of Unione, with a tonnage of 2,367, raised U-66's tally for the month of April to eight ships with a combined tonnage of 22,848, all sunk in a six-day span. Near the end of April 1916, Admiral Reinhard Scheer, the new commander-in-chief of the High Seas Fleet (under which U-66's 4th Flotilla operated), called off the merchant shipping offensive and ordered all boats at sea to return, and all boats in port to remain there.
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