Unterseeboot 1 (1935)
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| U-1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | IIA
|
||
| Launch Date | June 15, 1935 | ||
| Commission Date | June 29, 1935 | ||
| Construction yard | Deutsche Werk, Kiel | ||
| Patrols | |||
| Start Date | End Date | Assigned Unit | |
| March 15, 1940 | March 29, 1940 | U-Schule Flotilla | |
| April 4, 1940 | April, 1940 | U-Schule Flotilla | |
| Commanders | |||
| June, 1935 | September, 1936 | Kptlt. Klaus Ewirth | |
| October, 1936 | February, 1938 | Kptlt. Alexander Gelhaar | |
| October, 1938 | April, 1940 | Kptlt. Jürgen Deecke | |
| Successes | |||
| Type of Ship Sunk | Number of Ships Sunk | Gross Registered Tonnage | |
| Commercial Vessels | None | 0 | |
| Military Vessels | None | 0 | |
Unterseeboot 1 or U-1 was the first submarine (or U-boat) built for the Kriegsmarine following Adolf Hitler's repeal of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1935, which banned Germany possessing a submarine force. The boat was built at the Deutsche Werk shipyards in Kiel, and her keel was laid on the 11 February 1935 amid celebration. She was completed on the 29 June 1935 after a very rapid construction, and was manned by crews trained in the Netherlands.
Her pre-war service was unremarkable, but she did gain a reputation as a poor ship, her rapid construction combined with the inadequacy of the technology used to create her made her uncomfortable, leaky and slow, and when war came, there were already plans to shelve her and her immediate sisters of the Type II class for use as training boats only.
Despite this however, on the 29 March 1940, owing to a shortage of available units, she set sail to act against British shipping operating off Norway, close to the limit of her effective operating range. She failed to find a target, but was sent out again on the 4 April, in preparation for the Norwegian Campaign. She sent a brief radio signal on the 6 April, stating her position, before she promptly disappeared forever. The cause of her loss is unknown, but she was scheduled to sail unknowingly through a minefield laid by the British submarine HMS Narwhal that same day. If this was not the cause, the British submarine HMS Porpoise reported firing a torpedo at an unidentified enemy submarine on the 16 April following the invasion, which might also have been the cause of U-1's loss.
Whatever the cause, U-1 should never have been sent into such dangerous waters in her state, and her loss was a blow for the Kriegsmarine's morale. Nonetheless, she was the first of over 1,000 U-boats to serve during the Second Battle of the Atlantic, and one of over 700 to be lost at sea.
[edit] References
- Sharpe, Peter, U-Boat Fact File, Midland Publishing, Great Britain: 1998. ISBN 185780072.
- U-boat.net webpage for U-1
See Also: List of U-boats
For U-1's namesakes, see Unterseeboot 1.
