Тhe mysterious submarine

[diveplam]

Hello!
12 years ago, we discovered in the sea south of the city of Varna (Bulgaria) at a depth of 34 meters the remains of a German submarine type UB1 from the First World War, which is still disputed whether it is UB7 or UB8. The discovery was completely accidental. Our fisherman friend had hooked a trawl for some obstacle, which he assured us was a ship (that's what it looked like on the sonar) and asked us to unhook it. A year earlier we had formed a diving association called Black Sea Dive Odessos (we were mainly current and former military divers). All fishermen they knew us and often looked for us to take their nets out of the sea. That day, I and two colleagues went down to unhook the trawl and inspect the object. There was very poor visibility at the bottom, but we immediately realized that it was a submarine. The joy of the discovery was incredible, because for years the Soviet submarine C34, sunk during the Second World War, had been searched for. On the surface, we explained to each other what we had seen and what we were looking for. I remained convinced that this was not the C34, because the submarine we found was smaller than the one we were looking for (the dimensions and silhouette of the C34 are close to those of our fleet, from which I have every year exited from a torpedo tube). The next day, we gave the coordinates to the Fleet Command, and from there to the media, that a C34 submarine was found. A week later, a diving group from Sofia (BSTD) dived to the newly discovered boat and found out that it was not the Soviet C34, but a German submarine from the First World War, type UB1. From that day to this day, it is disputed which of the two submarines UB 7 or UB 8 (UB18) is.

 

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[ARC]

Very cool... interesting to say the least... keep us posted on any future developments and or discoveries.

Very curious as to the true ID. of this.

 

[diveplam]

Here I quote the historian Atanas Panayotov: Let's start with the fact that four UB I class submarines were included in the Constantinople Flotilla of the Kaiser's fleet during the First World War: UB-3, UB-7, UB-8 and UB-14. . All four were from the flotilla based in Pola, Austria-Hungary (present-day Pula - Croatia). During the passage to Istanbul, UB-3 disappeared without a trace, and the others arrived in mid-June 1915. What do we know about the others? UB-7 disappeared without a trace (after sailing from Varna) at the end of September - beginning of October 1916. What our authors write that it is somewhere in Russian waters is probably confirmed by the information that the submarine was sent to perform tasks in this region. UB-8 in May 1916 became the Bulgarian UB-18 (or Submarine No. 18). Thus, UB-14 remains the only German submarine of the UB I project in the Black Sea. In November 1918, she was handed over to the French fleet in Sevastopol, which was present here until the end of the Russian Civil War. And according to a number of sources, she was disarmed, taken to the island of Malta, where she was cut up for scrap in 1920. On February 23, 1919, submarine No. 18 was also handed over to the French naval authorities in Varna. According to one authoritative source (Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906–1921, p. 412. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9780870219078. OCLC 12119866) UB-18 was taken in the French naval base at Bizerte in August 1921, where it was also cut up for scrap. If the mentioned sources are to be believed, UB-8 and UB-14 went for scrap outside the Black Sea. Only UB-7 remains. However... The submarine discovered off Sevastopol is definitely a UB I type. The submarine discovered 15 miles from Varna is also a UB I class and although it is broken in two, it is only one submarine. There is no way UB-7 will be sunk to the bottom both in front of Sevastopol and in front of Varna. Then? Then the message published on May 14 of this year comes to the rescue. at www.wreckdiver.ru. It states that expectations that the discovered submarine is UB-7 are only partially confirmed... After carefully clearing part of the structure, divers found the name of the shipyard - AG Weser, and the number of the submarine read as UB-14D . UB-14 most likely never reached Malta. However, the Russian divers continued their descents to look for more evidence. And did UB-18 reach Bizerta? And what did the Bulgarian divers find in the end? As if the answer is already easier: UB-7 or UB-8 (Submarine No. 18). Perhaps we shouldn't believe the reports that UB-7 sailed without a gun on board after all. Structurally, the hexagonal deck platform in front of the wheelhouse is designed for just that. Most reference books state that as a rule the UB I carried an 8 mm machine gun on board. Other publications indicate that German 37 mm guns were also used. Our U-boat No. 18 is known to have had a 47mm gun ('Schneider-Kahne') like that of the torpedo boats. But after falling into the hands of the French, it could be re-armed with another system. Let's finally think about the question of how exactly the UB I class submarine ended up there? If it is UB-7, why is it located south and not north of Varna, on its way to Russian shores? Most likely due to a serious technical failure, due to which the crew could not even use their radio. In such a situation, the submarine, which was most likely in a surface position, drifted along the current without its own motion and without the possibility to deviate from entering the Bulgarian mine enclosure, on which it exploded (on February 25, 1916) and the Russian squadron destroyer "Lieutenant Pushtin". If this is our submarine No. 18, then the hastily formed crew of Frenchmen hardly mastered the management of the German submarine in a short time and hardly sent the best specialist ship captains to a submarine destined for scrap. And the minefields have not yet been cleared... Moreover, the disappearance of such a submarine, especially after the cessation of hostilities in the region, was hardly of particular interest to anyone. In practice, this is not a battle loss, and no one has reason to be proud of sending to the bottom the submarine of a defeated (but not on the battlefield) country. One hundred tons of scrap less...

 

[mike b]

"Very poor visibility? I'd take that any day. Great job.

 

[Magoopeter]

Here I quote the historian Atanas Panayotov: Let's start with the fact that four UB I-class submarines were included in the Constantinople Flotilla of the Kaiser's fleet in World War I: UB-3, UB-7, UB-8 and UB-14. All four were from the flotilla based at Pola, Austria-Hungary (present-day Pula - Croatia). During the passage to Istanbul, UB-3 disappeared without a trace, and the others arrived in mid-June 1915. What do we know about the others? UB-7 disappeared without a trace (after sailing from Varna) at the end of September - beginning of October 1916. What our authors wrote that it was somewhere in Russian waters is probably substantiated by the information that the submarine was sent to perform tasks in this region. UB-8 in May 1916 became the Bulgarian UB-18 (or Submarine No. 18). Thus, UB-14 remains the only German submarine of the UB I project in the Black Sea. In November 1918, she was handed over to the French Navy in Sevastopol, which was present here until the end of the Russian Civil War. And according to a number of sources, she was disarmed, taken to the island of Malta, where she was cut up for scrap in 1920. On February 23, 1919, Submarine No. 18 was also handed over to the French naval authorities in Varna. According to one authoritative source (Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906–1921, p. 412. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9780870219078. OCLC 12119866) UB-18 was taken at the French naval base at Bizerte in August 1921, where she was also cut up for scrap. If we believe the sources mentioned, UB-8 and UB-14 went for scrap metal outside the Black Sea. Only UB-7 remains. However... The submarine discovered off Sevastopol is definitely a UB I type. The submarine discovered 15 miles from Varna is also a UB I class and although it is broken in two, it is only one submarine. There is no way that UB-7 could be sunk to the bottom both in front of Sevastopol and in front of Varna. Then? Then the message published on May 14 of this year comes to the rescue. at www.wreckdiver.ru. It states that expectations that the discovered submarine was UB-7 were only partially confirmed... After carefully clearing part of the structure, the divers discovered the name of the shipyard - A.G. Weser, and the number of the submarine read as UB-14D. Most likely, UB-14 never reached Malta. However, Russian divers continued their descents to search for more evidence. And has UB-18 reached Bizerta? And what, in the end, did the Bulgarian divers discover? As if the answer is now easier: UB-7 or UB-8 (Submarine No. 18). Perhaps we shouldn't believe the reports that UB-7 sailed without an on-board gun, after all. Structurally, the hexagonal platform on the deck in front of the wheelhouse is designed for just that. Most reference books state that as a rule UB I's carry an 8mm machine gun on board. Other publications state that German-made 37 mm guns were also used. Our U-boat No. 18 is known to have had a 47mm gun ('Schneider-Kahne') like that of the torpedo boats. But after it fell into the hands of the French, it could be re-armed with another system. Let's finally reflect on the question of how exactly did the UB I-class submarine end up there? If it is UB-7, why is it located south and not north of Varna, on its way to Russian shores? Most likely due to a serious technical failure, due to which the crew could not even use their radio. In such a situation, the submarine, which was most likely in a surface position, floated along the current without its own motion and without the possibility to deviate from entering the Bulgarian mine enclosure, on which it exploded (on February 25, 1916) and the Russian squadron destroyer 'Lieutenant Pushtin'. If it is our Submarine No. 18, then the hastily formed crew of Frenchmen hardly mastered the management of the German submarine in a short time, and they hardly sent the best specialist shipmasters to a submarine destined for scrapping. And the minefields have not yet been cleared... Moreover, the disappearance of such a submarine, especially after the cessation of hostilities in the region, was hardly of particular interest to anyone. In practice, this is not a battle loss, and no one has reason to be proud of sending the submarine of a defeated (but not on the battlefield) country to the bottom. A hundred tons of scrap metal less.

On first world war U-Boats the propellers might have a number that you can identify the U-Boat from and also the yard it was built in, be worth asking, https://uboat.net/wwi/

 

[diveplam]

I agree with most of the hypotheses, but not with the fact that the submarine drifted. The blades of the propeller are damaged, which means that the submarine was moving at the time of the tragedy (watch the great video by colleagues from BSTD) .I share the hypothesis that she traveled from Varna to Istanbul to load torpedoes, but came across a minefield created by the Russian squadron destroyer "Lieutenant Pushtin". The destroyer sank only two miles north of the submarine.

 

[diveplam]

On first world war U-Boats the propellers might have a number that you can identify the U-Boat from and also the yard it was built in, be worth asking, https://uboat.net/wwi/

Hi Magoopeter
I have a photo of the propeller numbers

 

[Magoopeter]

Hi Magoopeter
I have a photo of the propeller numbers

I am sure you are aware he prop says UB 1- 8 the prop was made on the 6-4-1915 the same date as UB 1 – 7 was commissioned. The propellors would have been made before the vessel was commissioned, UB 7 would have been launched before the commissioning date. Also, I can’t see Germans putting the wrong propellor on, even though both were made in the same yard. UB 8 wasrobably wrongly recorded as being broke up?

 

[diveplam]

"Submarine-18" defended the Bulgarian coast during the First World War, but under the Treaty of Neuilly it was confiscated by the French and taken to Istanbul. According to some information, that is where she was last seen. Later documents indicate that she was cut up for scrap in 1921 at a French naval base in Tunisia.
- I have seen a photo of the boat abandoned on the coast of Istanbul, but I cannot find it on the net.

 

[diveplam]

I am sure you are aware he prop says UB 1- 8 the prop was made on the 6-4-1915 the same date as UB 1 – 7 was commissioned. The propellors would have been made before the vessel was commissioned, UB 7 would have been launched before the commissioning date. Also, I can’t see Germans putting the wrong propellor on, even though both were made in the same yard. UB 8 wasrobably wrongly recorded as being broke up?

How was UB-7 recognized in "Submarine 18"?

In "Morski Vestnik" from May 2011, Mr. Atanas Panayotov published the article "95 YEARS FROM THE BEGINNING OF SUBMARINE
SAILING IN BULGARIA" http://www.morskivestnik.com/compass/news/2011/052011/052011_80.html

Undoubtedly a very competent article! In it, Mr. Panayotov wrote: quote: "In our fleet, the submarine is included with the tactical number 18. Vladimir Pavlov's explanation is that the series produced in Germany is eight units, which bear the designations 1-1 to 1-8 . The unfounded merging of the two numbers is a pretext for it to be perceived as #18."

Here, Mr. Panayotov is basing himself on the opinion of Prof. Vladimir Pavlov - one of the most authoritative directors of the Naval Museum from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.

However, this statement is wrong!
Why? :

1. The UB I submarine series is not of eight units, but of (17) seventeen units. Eight were built by the Kiel shipyard and nine by the Weser AG shipyard. Source: http://uboat.net/wwi/types/

2. Transferring to the composition of the Bulgarian Navy , the submarine receives the serial number "18". The coincidence of type and serial number of works in Kiel submarine here appears disastrous and leads to a fatal delusion! It has not been noticed that the type "UB I" is everywhere spelled with one "Roman" and not one "Arabic".

3. There is no abbreviation where the submersible type and number are named together.

4. Assoc. Prof. Vladimir Pavlov made another capital mistake. In his analysis: quote: "...bearing the designations 1-1 to 1-8" is based on this document from the archive . Here, however, the inscription "S.M.Unterseeboote 1-8" is in plural. Which reads "N.V. Submarines UB 1 to 8". (One to eight). Poor knowledge of the German language fooled him. Since then, the "new abbreviation" has been born in Bulgaria - "UB one eight", "UB one seven" and what not..?!. Such an abbreviation is ABSOLUTELY wrong!

In conclusion, in order to avoid misunderstandings, I want to explicitly emphasize the merits of Prof. Vladimir Pavlov for Bulgarian naval history. However, he is a specialist in the submarines delivered to Bulgaria from the USSR/Russia and is less familiar with the submarines produced by Germany.

 

[diveplam]

I am sure that there are knowledgeable people from the German fleet on the forum. I ASK FOR YOUR HELP, because in this submarine (if it is UB 7), apart from the 15-member German crew, which sailed on September 26 (on this date and month I was born), 1916. and junior non-commissioned officer Stoyan Georgiev Peshev. Along with the death of UB7, the Bulgarian submariners gave their first victim.

 

[Magoopeter]

There are number of different accounts of the sinking and history of these boats, UB 7 has two accounts of its loss one that it struck a mine, the other that it was sunk by aircraft, might be the case the aircraft only damaged the boat and it later sunk in a different position.

Also the information below could explain how a propeller of UB 8 was used for UB 7, it states the boats were shipped before they were ready, the Date on the propeller is the 6 -4 – 1915, so if they were waiting on a propeller to complete UB 7, then they may have used the first propeller to arrive, or any time from shipping the boats to Pola, to building the boats, the propellers could have been mixed up.

“When work on UB-7 and UB-8 was complete at the Germaniwerft yard, they were both readied for rail shipment. The process of shipping a UB I boat involved breaking the submarine down into what was essentially a knock down kit. Each boat was broken into approximately fifteen pieces and loaded onto eight railway flatcars. The boats were ready for shipment to the main Austrian naval base at Pola on 15 March, despite the fact that the Austrian pair was still not ready. German engineers and technicians that accompanied the German boats to Pola worked under the supervision of Kapitänleutnant Hans Adam, head of the newly created U-boat special command (German: Sonderkommando). Typically, the UB I assembly process took about two to three weeks, and, accordingly, UB-8 was launched at Pola sometime in April”.

Be worth getting permission to lift the boat or enter it to see if the remains of the crew is still there the German war grave commission may be happy to have the crews returned to Germany for proper burial or just to identify their final resting place.. the whole of Europe is a war grave.

 

[diveplam]

There are number of different accounts of the sinking and history of these boats, UB 7 has two accounts of its loss one that it struck a mine, the other that it was sunk by aircraft, might be the case the aircraft only damaged the boat and it later sunk in a different position.

Also the information below could explain how a propeller of UB 8 was used for UB 7, it states the boats were shipped before they were ready, the Date on the propeller is the 6 -4 – 1915, so if they were waiting on a propeller to complete UB 7, then they may have used the first propeller to arrive, or any time from shipping the boats to Pola, to building the boats, the propellers could have been mixed up.

“When work on UB-7 and UB-8 was complete at the Germaniwerft yard, they were both readied for rail shipment. The process of shipping a UB I boat involved breaking the submarine down into what was essentially a knock down kit. Each boat was broken into approximately fifteen pieces and loaded onto eight railway flatcars. The boats were ready for shipment to the main Austrian naval base at Pola on 15 March, despite the fact that the Austrian pair was still not ready. German engineers and technicians that accompanied the German boats to Pola worked under the supervision of Kapitänleutnant Hans Adam, head of the newly created U-boat special command (German: Sonderkommando). Typically, the UB I assembly process took about two to three weeks, and, accordingly, UB-8 was launched at Pola sometime in April”.

Be worth getting permission to lift the boat or enter it to see if the remains of the crew is still there the German war grave commission may be happy to have the crews returned to Germany for proper burial or just to identify their final resting place.. the whole of Europe is a war grave.

Magoopeter, thank you for helping me with my research. I have read that a Russian plane bombed UB7, but it is unlikely that it flew to Bulgaria (by the way, we found a projectile behind the stern of the submarine). I would assume that UB14 was bombed by a plane, because the remains lie near Sevastopol (today's Ukraine). Russian and Ukrainian divers went down to this wreck and are sure that UB14 sank in front of Sevastopol. Regarding the propeller, I think it is incompatible, because UB7 and UB8 (18) have opposite rotation on the shaft (that's what I had read somewhere). There were proposals to take out the boat, because it was the first Bulgarian submarine, but I think they felt that it was a German grave (UB7) and they were sleeping all kinds of actions to take out the boat.

 

[diveplam]

This is how the sections of the submarine were transported on wagons.

 

[Magoopeter]

I am going to UK next week to film in the Isle of white Maritime Museum, I will ask the owner, he has year of experience and connections, also visiting the the submarine Museum at Southampton, I am sure they identified a German submarine by the periscope number, I think the U-Boat archives would be worth contacting. Thanks for posting this information.

The Archiv - Deutsches U-Boot Museum - Special Sections - uboat.net

The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. Over 40.000 pages on the officers, the boats, technology and the Allied efforts to counter the U-boat threat.

uboat.net

 

[diveplam]

I am going to UK next week to film in the Isle of white Maritime Museum, I will ask the owner, he has year of experience and connections, also visiting the the submarine Museum at Southampton, I am sure they identified a German submarine by the periscope number, I think the U-Boat archives would be worth contacting. Thanks for posting this information.

The Archiv - Deutsches U-Boot Museum - Special Sections - uboat.net

The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. Over 40.000 pages on the officers, the boats, technology and the Allied efforts to counter the U-boat threat.

uboat.net

I would be grateful for any information related to this type of submarine.

 

[diveplam]

I will post some pictures of these three submarines here

 

[Magoopeter]

Great, story and history, thanks

 

[diveplam]

I will continue on the topic with more mysteries and riddles related to the history of these two submarines UB7 and UB8 (UB18). I stay aside submarine UB14, because I trust the facts presented by the Russian and Ukrainian divers about this submarine. I am sharing a version that is not supported by Bulgarian historians.
For now, it cannot be proven 100% based on the propeller and periscope numbers that this is the given submarine. I want to look at the photos (unfortunately very few in number) of the artillery (if they have any) of the three submarines. Judging by the content on Wikipedia, the three submarines have 8 mm machine guns. But the photos show that either there is no machine gun on the deck (probably it is stored in the submarine, the exception is the UB14, which in all the photos I have seen has a gun) or there is a gun where it came from the mystery with these two submarines. Let's look at the photos of the two submarines with an empty deck (I apologize if some photos are repeated
in my post before this).

 

[diveplam]

This is where the most interesting, and confusing, part of this story begins. I am showing photos only of the submarine (UB18), which is already in the composition of the Bulgarian Navy. During her service under the Bulgarian flag, she acquired a French gun (before that she never had a gun) Schneider-Canet 47mm semiautomatic to be compatible with the Bulgarian torpedo boats that are equipped with this type of gun. Please see gun carriage.