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As well as combat vessels, the Germans experimented with using submarines to carry cargo. The first of its type, the Deutschland, sailed to the then-neutral USA in 1916 to trade for war materials. It was as much a propaganda mission as a practical one, proving what Germany could achieve.
Submarines played a significant military role for the first time during the First World War. Both the British and German navies made use of their submarines against enemy warships from the outset. Franz Becker commanded German submarines – known as U-boats – from 1915. He recalled an encounter with a British ship.
The Germans used primarily three types of submarines during the war, the U-boat, large fleet boats, and two smaller classes, the UB and UC boats. All of these craft developed over the course of the war as experience led to changes in design.
Submarines quickly became the most prolific killers in the Fleet of the German Empire. In 1914 surface ships sank 55 ships against only 3 sunk by U-Boats. The following year this was reversed and Submarines sank 396 Allied ships compared to only 23 by surface craft.
World War I submarines played an important part in the war. Both sides had several types of submarines, and it was the first time that military submarines made a big difference. One of the most famous World War I submarines was the German U-boat.
On May 7, 1915, German submarine U-20 torpedoed the Lusitania, a Cunard passenger liner, off the coast of Ireland. Nearly 1,200 men, women, and children, including 128 Americans, lost their lives. The Allies and Americans considered the sinking an act of indiscriminate warfare.
At the outset of World War I, German U-boats, though numbering only 38, achieved notable successes against British warships; but because of the reactions of neutral powers (especially the United States) Germany hesitated before adopting unrestricted U-boat warfare against merchant ships.
Submarines, World War I (WWI) U.S. Navy Submarines. Before the war, submarines were viewed as a novelty. Germany changed this perception. During the war, the U.S. Navy had 72 submarines in...
The most formidable naval weapons in both world wars, German submarines devastated trans-Atlantic shipping while sinking 8,000 merchant vessels and warships and killing tens of thousands.
February 17, 1864: The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley is the first to sink an enemy ship in combat when it rams its spar torpedo into the hull of the Union screw sloop USS Housatonic off Charleston, South Carolina. The Hunley was also lost after the action, the cause remains a mystery.