SM UB-43 - German Imperial Navy Career

German Imperial Navy Career

SM UB-43 was commissioned into the German Imperial Navy on 24 April 1916 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Dietrich Niebuhr; UB-43 was the only U-boat command for the 27-year-old officer. UB-43 was assigned to the Navy's Pola Flotilla (German: Deutsche U-Halbflotille Pola) in which she remained throughout her German career. Although the flotilla was based in Pola, the site of the main Austro-Hungarian Navy base, boats of the flotilla operated out of the Austro-Hungarian base at Cattaro which was located farther south and closer to the Mediterranean. German U-boats typically returned to Pola only for repairs.

Under Niebuhr's command, UB-43 had no success, and he was replaced by Kapitänleutnant Hans von Mellenthin on 29 August. After two weeks under von Mellenthin's command, UB-43 sank her first ship. While 112 nautical miles (207 km) east of Malta, the British steamer Italiana with her cargo of hay destined for Salonica was torpedoed and sunk. Three days later, and some 60 nautical miles (110 km) closer to Malta, von Mellenthin sank a pair of British steamers. Dewa was in ballast headed for Port Said when attacked by UB-43; three of the steamer's crew lost their lives in the attack. Lord Tredegar was carrying a general cargo when she was sent down with the loss of four men. The Wall Street Journal reported that the sinking of Lord Tredegar resulted in a loss of $1,000,000 for her American insurer.

In October, von Mellenthin and UB-43 sank an additional two ships. On 10 October, the British tanker Elax, carrying fuel oil from Rangoon was sunk off Cape Matapan without casualties. Three days later, two men were killed when UB-43 torpedoed and sank their ship, the British steamer Welsh Prince, of 4,934 gross register tons (GRT).

On 18 November, the British Admiralty, released a report that listed all of UB-43's first five victims as evidence of German wrongdoing. According to the British report, Italiana, Dewa, Lord Tredegar, and Elax—four of the twenty-two ships listed—had all been torpedoed without warning. This type of attack was counter to German pledges to adhere cruiser warfare, which required that ships be allowed time for the crews to escape before any attack could commence. UB-43's fifth victim, Welsh Prince, was on another list of 107 British ships sunk whose lifeboats had been fired upon by German submarines.

In the meantime, UB-43 had continued sinking British ships, sending down five in a nine-day span in early November. Statesman, a 6,153-ton steamer carrying a general cargo, was first on 3 November; six crewmen were killed when the ship went down 200 nautical miles (370 km) east of Malta. The following day, the 3,937-ton Clan Leslie and the 5,398-ton Huntsvale were sunk in the same area. Clan Leslie was carrying a general cargo from Bombay when sunk with three casualties. Seven were killed when Huntsvale, traveling in ballast for Algiers, was sunk.

On 6 November, UB-43 torpedoed the Peninsular and Oriental liner Arabia 112 nautical miles (207 km) off Cape Matapan. According to contemporary news accounts, gunners on Arabia fired upon UB-43 after the liner was torpedoed, but recorded no hits. All 437 passengers aboard the steamer, en route from Sydney to London when attacked, were rescued after an hour in the water. The liner went down 90 minutes after the torpedo struck. Eleven died in the attack, including two of Arabia's engineers killed in the initial blast of the torpedo. Six days after Arabia's sinking, UB-43 sank the 3,383-ton British steamer Kapunda east of Malta. Kapunda's loss brought the U-boat's November tally to 26,774 gross register tons, which accounted for more than 15% of the November tally for all German U-boats in the Mediterranean.

UB-43 and von Mellenthin sank three more British steamers in December: Bretwalda on the 13th, and Russian and Westminster on the 14th. Bretwalda—which had escaped destruction from a mine laid by UC-5 in August 1915—and her cargo of jute were sent down 220 nautical miles (410 km) from Malta. Russian, at 8,825 tons, was the largest ship sunk by UB-43; the horse transport ship was sailing in ballast from Salonica when she went down with 28 of her crewmen. After UB-43 torpedoed Westminster, the U-boat shelled the survivors in their lifeboats, according to authors R. H. Gibson and Maurice Prendergast. Fifteen men from Westminster died in the sinking.

UB-43 sank no ships over the next eight weeks. Author Paul Halpern reports that the majority of the German U-boats in the Mediterranean fleet were undergoing repairs and refits at Pola and Cattaro during January. Although no specific mention is made of repairs done on UB-43, the U-boat's inactivity in this period may be for that reason.