Launching and Commissioning
Most of the UB I boats were shipped to their port of operations by rail, where they were assembled, launched, tested, and commissioned. Information on UB-14 suggests that she may not have followed that pattern as closely as most other boats. According to several sources, UB-14 was launched on 23 March 1915, and commissioned into the German Imperial Navy as SM UB-14 on 25 March under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Heino von Heimburg a 25-year-old first-time U-boat commander. Those same sources are silent on UB-14's whereabouts at the time, but information on UB-14' later shipment and arrival in the Mediterranean suggest that her initial launch and commissioning may have occurred in Germany.
UB-14 was shipped by rail in June to the main Austrian naval base at Pola, with an arrival date on the 12th. The process of shipping a UB I boat involved breaking the submarine down into what was essentially a knock down kit. Each boat was broken into approximately fifteen pieces and loaded on to eight railway flatcars. German engineers and technicians that accompanied earlier UB I boats to Pola worked under the supervision of Kapitänleutnant Hans Adam, head of the U-boat special command (German: Sonderkommando). Typically, the UB I assembly process took about two to three weeks.
While UB-14 made her way to Austria-Hungary, von Heimburg and his German crew were assigned to UB-15 at Pola. The submarine was temporarily commissioned into the German Imperial Navy before a subsequent transfer to the Austro-Hungarian Navy as its U-11. Von Heimburg and his German crew, with one Austrian officer aboard, gained valuable experience in UB-15/U-11, sinking the Italian submarine Medusa on that U-boat's first patrol. UB-15/U-11 was handed over to the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 16 June, and von Heimburg and his crew were transferred intact on 21 June to UB-14, which was still a few days from completion.
At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Italy had declined to join its Triple Alliance partners—Germany and Austria-Hungary—in declaring war against the Entente Powers, and opted to remain neutral. Pressure from the United Kingdom and France swayed Italy to sign the secret 1915 Treaty of London on 26 April, in which Italy promised to leave the Triple Alliance and declare war against its former allies within a month in return for territorial gains after the end of the war. Because Italy initially declared war only on Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy were not officially at war. As a consequence, German submarines operating in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean were all assigned Austrian numbers and flew the flag of Austria-Hungary when making attacks on Italian vessels; UB-14 was assigned the designation of U-26 and entered onto the rolls of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, despite the fact that she remained completely under German control. According to historian Lawrence Sondhaus, this dual numbering system reflected the close submarine cooperation between the two countries and still makes it difficult to distinguish between submarines of the two navies.
On 1 July, UB-14 joined the Pola Flotilla (German: Deutsche U-Halbflotille Pola), and departed soon thereafter on her first patrol. On the night of 6/7 July, Italian armored cruisers that had recently been deployed at Venice undertook a "reconnaissance in force" off Pola in an attempt to discourage future Austrian sorties against the Italian coast. When the Italian ships retired in the early morning hours of the 7th, UB-14 was about 20 nautical miles (37 km) off Venice. At dawn, the armored cruiser Amalfi crossed paths with UB-14 and was torpedoed. Amalfi quickly began listing to port and sank within 30 minutes with the loss of 67 men. At 10,118 metric tons (9,958 long tons) displacement, Amalfi was one of the largest ships sunk by U-boats during the war. UB-14 escaped the scene without damage.
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