U - 19: How a Single Submarine Could Have Changed the Course of Wwi
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About this ebook
Fred D Haruda
Dr. Fred Haruda was educated at Whitman College, The University of Chicago Medical School, Johns Hopkins and Columbia University. Always a history buff, he has written extensively both about history and has over twenty scientific publications. He is board certified Pediatric Neurologist and a member of numerous professional organizations.
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U - 19 - Fred D Haruda
U-19
HOW A SINGLE SUBMARINE
COULD HAVE CHANGED THE COURSE OF WWI
FRED D HARUDA, M.D.
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© 2012, 2014 by Fred D Haruda, M.D. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
Published by AuthorHouse 12/03/2014
ISBN: 978-1-4685-9454-6 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4918-1347-8 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4685-9453-9 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012907286
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CONTENTS
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
I
In the summer of 1916, World War I had lasted for nearly a year and a half. A static line of trenches stretched 500 miles from Switzerland to the English Channel with the Imperial German army on the East facing the British and French armies on the West. There were widespread shortages throughout Germany and Austro-Hungary. On the Kufusterdame, the wide boulevard running East and West through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, two business men, Hans and Fritz, were having lunch in a restaurant.
This is terrible
said Fritz, there’s no lemon for my weinerschzell!
We can’t get good American wheat for good bread, and people are hungry and I can’t get any decent American tobacco either.
It’s that damned Royal Navy, nothing get’s through their blockade.
What about our fleet? We’ve been building ships for years, and they all sit in port.
Aren’t they strong enough to beat their Home Fleet?
The British built that all steel armored ship, the
Dreadnaught, and made our whole fleet obsolete at one stroke, We’ve had to start all over! They have many more steel warships than we do.
They call them
battle ships" and they have huge guns.
Great Britain is an island, if we blockaded them, they’d starve and the war would be over!
With what? We tried it with U-boats, and the Americans threatened to go to war on their side.
Well, we’ve got to do something!
After all the money we’ve spent, it’s time we tried.
II
Unbeknownst to Hans and Fritz, that day the German High Seas fleet had slipped out of it’s base at Wilhelmshaven, headed North toward the Danish Coast. That afternoon, the German flag ship, the Koing, with Admiral Von Scheer, on board, signaled Berlin that the fleet was at sea. The British Admiralty in London, where the German radio codes had been cracked, picked up the radio transmission, and alerted the Royal Navy Home Fleet based at Scapa Flow, North of Scotland. Within two hours, the ships had their steam up and filed out of the harbor to intercept the German fleet. They outnumbered the Germans three to two. However, their exit was observed, and a warning was broadcast.
The German Navy had dispatched nineteen of their new U-Boats to watch the British ports where the Royal Navy. Through his periscope, Gunther Rolfe, the skipper of the U-109 watched the ponderous battleships steam down the channel and enter the North Sea. First came several destroyers, then the battleships, followed by cruisers and finally more destroyers.
After the ships had passed, the submarine surfaced and broadcast it’s warning. Then, still on the surface, the U-Boat followed. The attention of the British lookouts was focused forward, and there was no air cover. In any case, the tiny black U-Boat was hard to spot against the backround of the sea.
III
In early September, 1914, Gunther, then skipper of the U-19 left Wilhelmshaven and entered the North Sea. Already over a year old, it just been refitted long range patrols in the North Atlantic with larger fuel tanks and it’s 77mm deck gun had been replaced with a new 3 ½ inch, 88 mm, deck gun.
Gunther was from Rostock Germany, a sea port city on the Baltic, North of Berlin born in 1890. His father was a merchant mariner who had sailed all over the world. He had the habit of obtaining a tattoo in each port he visited, and designs from America, England, Japan and several Latin American countries on his body, which had little skin left to cover. Gunther, who couldn’t wait to get his own ink as a child and had over twenty tattoos when he entered the service.