U-10 Class Submarine - War Activities

War Activities

All five boats of the U-10 class took part in the war, but, as a class, had limited success. Although UB-1 and UB-15 had each had sunk a single ship while commissioned in the German Imperial Navy during 1915, neither boat sank any ships in Austro-Hungarian service. U-17 torpedoed a single ship, the Italian destroyer Impetuoso, which sank on 10 July 1916. U-16 sank two small sailing ships in late 1915 and torpedoed and sank the Italian destroyer Nembo on 16 October 1916. U-15 was the most successful of the class, sinking six ships for a total of 8,789 GRT. On a single day, 25 June 1916, U-15 sank the Italian auxiliary cruiser Citta di Messina and the French destroyer Fourche in the Strait of Otranto, accounting for almost half of her wartime successes.

Of the five boats, only U-16 was sunk during the war, shortly after sinking Nembo. The only other casualty among the class involved U-10, which hit a mine near Caorle and was beached with heavy damage. Although she was looted by Austro-Hungarian Army troops, she was later towed to Trieste for repairs which remained incomplete at the war's end. After the end of fighting in November 1918, the four surviving class members—U-10, U-11, U-15, and U-17—were all turned over to Italy as war reparations and scrapped at Pola by 1920.