A Naval History of World War I

by Paul G. Halpern

  The British had been on the alert for German movements because of the Zeebrugge raid the night of the 22d and unusual wireless traffic to the minesweepers in the Bight, but it was not until the Moltke broke wireless silence that they realized significant German ships were far out at sea. The first report placed the Moltke 12 miles inland, so it was not until somewhat more than an hour later that subsequent wireless interceptions persuaded Beatty to order the fleet to raise steam.53 At 10:47 A.M. the Admiralty ordered Beatty to put to sea and concentrate east of the Long Forties. Beatty was proud that the Grand Fleet and its 31 battleships (4 of them American), 4 battle cruisers, 2 cruisers, 24 light cruisers, and 85 destroyers were able to get out of what he termed the “cul-de-sac” at Rosyth at top speed through dense fog within three hours.54 It was too late to intercept the Germans; in fact, a study made in the interwar period concluded the Grand Fleet would have had to have sailed before midnight of the preceding night if it was to intercept the High Sea Fleet during daylight hours on the 24th. There was thick fog at the time, which would mean that even J.6’s failure to report probably had no real effect on the final outcome.55

  The Germans might have suffered additional loss. J.6 sighted them around 4:00 A.M. on the 25th, submerged but did not attack, and reported them after they had passed out of sight. The Germans were through the minefields, in which they lost M.67, one of their sweepers, when the Moltke was able to cast off her tow and limp homeward under her own power. She was approximately 40 nautical miles north of Helgoland when E.42 managed to hit her with a torpedo near the port engine room. E.42 was subjected to a depth charge attack, but escaped.56 The Moltke—which had been torpedoed by E.1 in the Baltic in 1915—took on another 1,730 to 1,760 tons of water but was able to limp home, another tribute to the stout construction of German ships.57

  The operation of 24 April 1918 turned out to be the last sortie executed by the High Sea Fleet during the war. It was also the farthest, and, but for faulty intelligence, it might have inflicted heavy loss. Had Scheer sailed either the day before or a day later he probably would have caught the convoy and its covering force. The author of the British official history questions why Scheer relied on U-boat reports and wireless interceptions to estimate convoy sailing dates when he might easily have obtained more complete and reliable reports from civilian sources—the German consular agents. There is also a little-known footnote to these operations. On 16–18 April the covering force for the Scandinavian convoy had been the Sixth Battle Squadron (less the Delaware), that is, the American dreadnoughts under Rear Admiral Rodman. The Americans had therefore missed Scheer’s sortie by little more than a week. The service of the American battleships with the Grand Fleet has traditionally been treated as a rather ho-hum affair, dull but necessary. One wonders about the effect on American public opinion had those battleships fallen in with the High Sea Fleet with a loss of three or four ships and a few thousand lives.58

  The sortie of 23 April was also the last time the Grand Fleet would go to sea in strength seeking battle. There would not be another chance to catch the High Sea Fleet at sea and bring about the illusive classical naval action. The episode also convinced Beatty that he could not rely on Room 40 to always provide advanced warning of a German sortie. He realized that the Grand Fleet could not be at sea all the time and that there would always remain the possibility of disaster to what he termed “this cursed convoy supporting Force.” Captain James, who served in Room 40 at the time, later wrote that despite all the marvelous new inventions that might assist, nothing could give the same assurance as a frigate off the enemy’s coast. Indeed, Professor Marder believes it is perhaps fortunate Scheer did not attempt another raid on the Scandinavian convoys.59

  Scheer provides no real explanation in his memoirs why he did not go after the Scandinavian convoy again. The High Sea Fleet became a declining factor during the remainder of the war, and the morale of its men declined. There had already been trouble, harshly suppressed, in the summer of 1917, and the use of a sizable number of capital ships in the Ösel expedition (see chapter 7) in the autumn of 1917 had been at least partially motivated by the desire to restore morale through activity. Morale did seem to improve noticeably with real activity, which effaced what a growing number of men regarded as unfair treatment or a lack of concern on the part of their officers. The German naval commanders seemed to lack the facility that the British had showed, to sustain morale during the long months of relative idleness.60 The results for the Germans would be disastrous when Scheer tried to use the fleet in the closing days of the war.

  If one takes a broad view of the naval war, even if the High Sea Fleet struck at the convoy and sank a few dozen merchant ships and several large warships, in fact, even if the High Sea Fleet forced the suspension of the Scandinavian convoy, it would not necessarily by this date have affected the outcome of the war. That might only have been accomplished by submarines, particularly submarines working against the lines of communication across the Atlantic. The major question for 1918 was whether the submarines could regain the edge they had lost by the autumn of 1917 and succeed in breaking the “Atlantic bridge.”

  THE ATLANTIC BRIDGE

  The really decisive submarine operations were apt to be those conducted by the German-based boats of the High Sea Fleet. There are even those who argue that the importance of the Flanders flotillas was overrated, and, by inference, the considerable efforts such as the Dover barrage and the Zeebrugge raid—not to mention the justification for the Passchendaele offensive of 1917—were not the crucial points of the naval war. The Flanders flotillas had been responsible for only about one-third of all losses; two-thirds of the losses were due to the submarines of the High Sea Fleet flotillas.61 The antidote in 1917 had been the convoy. Could the Germans shake that system in 1918?

  The Germans began the year 1918 with no fewer than 120 submarines of the so-called 1919 Program on order (see chapter 11). None were ever be finished. That was not apparent at the beginning of 1918, nor was the fact that the war would not last beyond the end of the year, and the Germans looked ahead to anticipated requirements for 1920 and 1921. In January they ordered another twenty-eight of the UF boats (UF.21 to UF.48), designed primarily for operations in the Channel and North Sea from Flanders bases. The simplified design enabled yards that had not formerly been engaged in submarine construction to be used. Some were switched from the construction of minesweepers, and in the winter of 1918 the Germans had no fewer than eleven yards building submarines. They were plagued by delays. The principal problem, as always, was the shortage of skilled labor, such as engine fitters, riveters, and caulkers. The problem was compounded in the winter of 1918 by strikes and, ominously for its future implications, the refusal of workers to work overtime because of their poor diet and high absenteeism during bad weather. The army was the only likely source of skilled labor, but the high command would not release men in the face of the massive requirements in manpower for Ludendorff’s offensive in the west. Notwithstanding the difficulties, the U-Boat Office gave contracts for another 192 submarines in June 1918 including 16 large Ms boats (U.213 to U.228). The latter, with a range of 10,000–12,000 miles at 8 knots would have had a higher surface speed (17–18 knots), which would have increased their chances for obtaining a favorable firing position when operating against convoys in the open seas.

  How could these contracts ever have been fulfilled, given the shortages of labor? Ironically, the U-Boat Office in mid-August 1918 thought the final defeat of Ludendorff’s offensive gave them an opportunity. The reasoning was simple. The German army was now on the defensive, the submarine war would be even more decisive than before, and the army would be obligated to release the men. They recommended drafting thousands of workers to yards and shifting construction of torpedo boats, minesweepers, and trawlers to yards in occupied Baltic territories in order to free German yards for U-boat construction. They even suggested drafting more than 10,000 workers in Austria to build up to 37 UB.III boats at the
Austrian yards in Trieste, Fiume, and Monfalcone.62 This suggestion certainly revealed little grasp of the reality of the situation in Austria-Hungary.

  The idea of concentrating all efforts on submarine construction gained powerful support when Scheer on 11 August became head of Seekriegsleitung—generally referred to as SKL—with Captain von Levetzow, former operations officer in the fleet, his chief of staff. Holtzendorff, chief of the Admiralstab, and Cappelle, state secretary of the Reichsmarineamt, retired. The latter was replaced by Vice Admiral Ritter von Mann-Tiechler, the head of the U-Boat Office. Hipper assumed command of the High Sea Fleet. The reorganization was an effort to streamline the German naval command by creating a real supreme command similar to the one the army enjoyed and ending the fragmentation of authority between Admiralstab, naval cabinet, and the various naval commands such as the High Sea Fleet and Marinekorps Flandern. Ernst von Weizsäcker, a naval staff officer, had a more cynical and widely quoted interpretation: “When a headquarters staff is no longer in a position to lead its forces in the proper sense of the word, it sets about organising.”63

  Scheer moved to general headquarters at Spa to be in close touch with the kaiser and army supreme command. His first meeting with Hindenburg and Ludendorff took place on 12 August, just a few days after the successful British offensive at Amiens on the 8th, a day Ludendorff termed “the black day of the German army.” According to Scheer, the army leaders admitted that their best hope now lay in the U-boat offensive, and Ludendorff promised to do his utmost to assist it despite the great lack of personnel. Scheer wanted to put the whole industrial power of Germany behind the construction of U-boats. The mere replacement of losses would not suffice; they must increase the total number of U-boats at sea. Scheer proposed to apply American methods of mass production with the German iron and engine industries supplying the necessary parts and the assembly of submarines taking place at special collecting yards in order to reduce the number of skilled workers needed in one place. The number of U-boats would be limited to a small number of different types with specialization and perfecting improvements subordinated to the need to speed construction.

  The navy held discussions with a number of leading industrialists at the Reichsmarineamt on 19 September concerning the ways and means to implement the new large building program that, not surprisingly, was to be known as the “Scheer Program.” The numbers were huge. There would have been 172 submarines delivered in 1919 according to the existing delivery timetable. The Scheer Program would have called for 333 in 1919 plus 79 added to the orders for 1920 for a total of 405 submarines.

  The Scheer Program for 1919 would have required an additional 48,000 trained workers for new construction, 16,000 trained workers for U-boat repairs, and 5,000 trained workers for subcontract work within Germany. On 21 September Colonel Bauer of the army high command (OHL) indicated the navy might apply for 40,000 in November 1918 if the situation at the front permitted. That was a big if, for the situation had deteriorated to the point where after the collapse of the Bulgarian front on 29 September the supreme command advised the government that it was time to begin peace negotiations. The discussions on the Scheer Program assumed more and more an air of unreality, although paradoxically the prospect of a running down of operations on the western front led Colonel Bauer to speculate they might be able to release 15,000–20,000 men from the army. The end of war with the armistice on 11 November meant the end of the Scheer Program. It probably could not have been carried out in its entirety had the war continued, and Scheer, who probably realized this, might have pushed it more for psychological reasons.64

  What of the performance of the submarines actually in service? The tonnage sunk by U-boats in 1918 showed no sign of climbing to the levels of the preceding year. The worldwide losses to shipping were: January, 295,630 tons; February, 335,202 tons; March, 368,746 tons; April, 300,069 tons; May, 296,558 tons; and June, 268,505 tons. Approximately 29 percent of this tonnage was sunk by U-boats of the Mediterranean flotillas. The exchange ratio had fallen from August 1917 to January 1918 to 16 ships sunk for every U-boat lost. In 1918 the exchange rate varied from 37 in March to 10 in May—the worst month for the Germans as far as submarine losses were concerned. In May for the first time since the introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare the British gained more tonnage (194,247 tons) than they lost (185,577 tons), although part of this was due to the transfer of ships from foreign registers rather than new construction. Worldwide shipping losses rose during the summer to 280,820 tons in July and 310,180 tons in August only to fall sharply to 171,972 tons in September, 116,237 tons in October, and 10,233 tons in November. The always troublesome Mediterranean flotillas sank 24.3 percent of this total.65

  The Germans probed for a weak point. The success of the convoys on the high seas led the submarines in early 1918 to concentrate on attacks in coastal waters, the Channel, and Irish Sea. They found opportunities when ships were dispersed from convoys and proceeded to their final destinations, or before convoys could be formed. The antidote by now was obvious: the institution of a system of local convoys to complement the system of ocean convoys. At the beginning of 1918, the OZ and HZ Scandinavian convoys were complemented by a system of east-coast convoys, notably, daily UM (Humber to Methil), TM (Tyne to Methil), MT (Methil to Tyne), UT (Humber to Tyne), and TU (Tyne to Humber). The details of these convoys changed according to circumstances; for example, in March 1918 the direct UM (Humber to Methil) convoy was dropped as unnecessary because the majority of traffic for Scandinavia came from or via the Tyne, whereas in July the escorts of the UT and TU convoys were strengthened and the sailing times altered after heavy losses, which had usually taken place off Flamborough during hours of darkness and were due to submarines operating on the surface.66 Eventually, because of the threat from the Flanders U-boats virtually all shipping between the Humber and the north was included in the convoys, which averaged 50 ships. One east-coast convoy, UT.18, had the distinction of being the largest oceanic or coastal convoy during the war. It numbered 73 ships and 18 escorts. Figures on losses tend to vary, but approximately 23,000 ships were convoyed in east-coast convoys during the war and 71, or .4 percent, were lost to enemy action. In 1918, 16,000 ships were convoyed and 35, or .22 percent, lost.67

  The Irish Sea had been another trouble spot. In mid-October 1917 Vice Admiral C. H. Dare, commanding at Milford, recognized the ineffectiveness of the hunting flotillas equipped with hydrophones, which had been on patrol most of the year. Dare recommended escorting convoys to their ports of destination and forming coastal vessels into convoys escorted by drifters or small auxiliary patrol vessels. The hydrophone flotillas with their present instruments and the incessant bad weather were “a waste of useful ships.” In December Dare began local convoys between Milford, Holyhead, Kingstown, and the south coast of Ireland. They were successful; 74 ships were convoyed in 12 convoys that month, with none lost or damaged.68

  The fact that U-boats seemed to be conducting what amounted to an offensive in the Irish Sea and Bristol Channel in February caused the Admiralty to extend the ocean convoys to their terminal ports (see chapter 11). In June 1918 regular Irish Sea convoys were developed, and fairly late in the war in October, a system of NCC, or north Cornish coast, convoys began. Coastal convoys have attracted little attention, but coastal waters were what Professor Marder has termed “the weak link” in the convoy system. There was a somewhat hazy area where convoys had not yet been fully formed or protected, where escorts might be late in arrival, and where ships were vulnerable. It was usually between the port of departure and the convoy assembly point or the convoy dispersal point and the port of arrival, and the majority of shipping losses in 1918 occurred among ships sailing independently in coastal waters.69

  Coastal traffic could benefit through aerial protection, and by 1918 aircraft and kite balloons played a steadily increasing role. The majority of maritime aerial patrols in 1915 and 1916 had been carried out by lighter-than-air, nonrigid airships, no
tably the S.S. (submarine scout) and C (coastal) types. These were more suitable for longer range patrols in the North Sea. In April 1917 the famous “spider-web” patrols had been instituted by flying boats based at Felixstowe. These patrols were centered on the North Hinder light vessel in the southernmost portion of the North Sea and were designed to detect submarines of the Flanders flotillas on passages to their operational areas. The objective was to force the submarine to submerge and keep it down for ten hours to exhaust its batteries. The number of seaplane and airplane stations around the coast continued to grow. On 1 January 1918, the British employed on antisubmarine duties in home waters a total of 291 seaplanes, 23 airplanes, and 100 airships. Near the close of the war on 1 November 1918 there were 285 seaplanes, 272 airplanes, and 100 airships. There were an average 310 aircraft ready for service each day during the last six months of the war with a monthly average of 13,000 hours on operations, 26 U-boat sightings, and 18 attacks.70

  The number of aircraft were still well below the November 1917 estimates by the director of plans of the requirements in 1918 for antisubmarine aircraft in home waters. The initial estimate of 591 (525 seaplanes, 66 airplanes) had been revised upwards in early 1918 to 1,180 (459 seaplanes, 726 airplanes). However, we have seen that on 9 November there were only 557 seaplanes and aircraft. The targets were not met because the estimates had not been made sufficiently early and the conflicting demands for the army and newly formed Independent Air Force drew aircraft from antisubmarine work.