German submarine U-1 (1935)

German submarine U-1 (1935)

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.

A Type IIA U-boat, she was built at the Deutsche Werke shipyards in Kiel, her keel being laid on 11 February 1935 amid celebration. She was completed on 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 making 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 sailed 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 Operation Weserübung (the invasion of Norway).

U-1 sent a brief radio signal on 6 April, giving 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 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. 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.

See also

* List of U-boats
* List of shipwrecks in 1940

References

* Sharpe, Peter, "U-Boat Fact File", Midland Publishing, Great Britain: 1998. ISBN 1-85780-072-9.
* [http://www.uboat.net/boats/u1.htm uboat.net webpage for "U-1"]
* [http://ubootwaffe.net/ops/boat.cgi?boat=1 ubootwaffe.net webpage for "U-1"]


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