SM U-20 (Germany)

Career

On 7 May 1915, U-20 was patrolling off the southern coast of Ireland under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger. Three months earlier, on 4 February, the Germans had established a U-boat blockade around the British Isles and had declared any vessel in it a legitimate target. At about 13:40 Schwieger was at the periscope and saw a vessel approaching. From a distance of about 700 m, Schwieger noted she had four funnels and two masts, making her a passenger liner and he fired a torpedo. It hit on the starboard side, almost directly below the bridge. Schwieger wrote that he was surprised by the size of the explosion, reasoning that a second explosion must have happened, possibly caused by coal dust, a boiler explosion or powder. According to his logs, only then did he recognise her as Lusitania, a vessel in the British Fleet Reserve. In 18 minutes, Lusitania sank with 1,197 casualties. The wreck lies in 300 ft of water.

Fifteen minutes after he had fired his torpedo, Schwieger noted in his war diary,

There was at the time a great controversy about the sinking, over whether Lusitania was armed, carrying troops or illegal explosives to England and over Schwieger's method of attack. The Allies and the United States originally thought the U-20 fired two torpedoes. Postwar investigations showed only one was fired.

Before Schwieger got back to the docks at Wilhelmshaven for refuelling and supplies, the United States had formally protested to Berlin against the brutality of his action. Kaiser Wilhelm II wrote in the margins of the American note, "Utterly impertinent", "outrageous" and "this is the most insolent thing in tone and bearing that I have had to read since the Japanese note last August". To keep America out of the war, in June the Kaiser was compelled to rescind unrestricted submarine warfare and require all passenger liners be left unmolested. On 4 September 1915 Schwieger was back at sea with U-20, 85 nmi off the Fastnet Rock in the south Irish Sea. This rock held one of the key navigational markers in the western ocean, the Fastnet Lighthouse, and any ships passing in and out of the Irish Sea would be within visual contact of it.

RMS Hesperian was beginning a run outward bound from Liverpool to Quebec and Montreal, with a general cargo, also doubling as a hospital ship, and carrying about 800 passengers when she was attacked and sunk by U-20 off the Fastnet.

Schwieger was reprimanded by the Admiralty but was unrepentant. The Germans decided to report that the ship was hit by a mine.

Fate and legacy

On 4 November 1916, U-20 grounded on the Danish coast south of Vrist, a little north of Thorsminde after suffering damage to its engines. Her crew attempted to destroy her with explosives the following day, succeeding only in damaging the boat's bow but making it inoperative as a warship. U-20 remained on the beach until 1925 when the Danish government blew it up in a "spectacular explosion". The conning tower was removed and placed on the front lawn of the local museum Strandingsmuseum St. George Thorsminde, where it remains. The novelist Clive Cussler claimed his National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) located the remains of U-20 in 1984, about 400 yd from shore.

Summary of raiding history

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

• {{cite book |translator-last1=Thomas |translator-first1=Keith |translator-last2=Magowan |translator-first2=Rachel

References

1. "English Translation of His Majesty's Submarine U-20 War Diary".
2. The History of the Great War: The Merchant Navy, Vol. II
3. [https://web.archive.org/web/20071008001927/http://www.orlogsmuseet.dk/kroneng522.htm "Major themes of the exhibition"], 'World War I'. Royal Danish Naval Museum (Archived from [http://www.orlogsmuseet.dk/kroneng522.htm the original] on 8 October 2007)
4. "U-20 {{!}} {{!}} The Lusitania ResourceThe Lusitania Resource".
5. Erik Larson. (2015). "Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania". Crown.
6. "Strandingsmuseum St. George Thorsminde".
7. "Sea War Museum Jutland".
8. [http://www.numa.net/expeditions/north_sea_and_english_channel_hunt.html North Sea and English Channel Hunt] {{webarchive. link. (28 December 2003)
9. {{cite Uboat.net