The Type I

U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...

was the first post–

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

attempt to produce an oceangoing submarine for

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

's ''

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official military branch, branche ...

''. The type was based on the Spanish Type E-1 and Finnish CV707, which were both designed by

Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw (Dutch: engineer-office for shipbuilding), usually contracted to IvS or Inkavos, was a Dutch dummy company set up in The Hague and funded by the after World War I in order to maintain and develop German submarine know-how and to circumvent the ...

.Rössler (2001), pp. 98-99. Only two Type IAs were built.Showell (2006), p. 73. They were not a successful design : due to its single rudder they had a large turning circle and were not very manoeuvrable. The gravity center of the U-boat was too forward so on the surface the type I had its propellers exposed when she was pitching. Whilst submerged there were problems with depth keeping and stability as air bubbles in the fuel tanks wobbled back and forth. Diving was very slow: at full speed and with six tons of negative buoyancy it took forty seconds to reach ten metres depth. As a result, the type was discontinued and the new

type IX The Type IX U-boat was designed by Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine'' in 1935 and 1936 as a large ocean-going submarine for sustained operations far from the home support facilities. Type IX boats were briefly used for patrols off the eastern Unit ...

class of ocean-going U-boats was designed.

Service history

Constructed by

Deschimag Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau Aktiengesellschaft (abbreviated Deschimag) was a cooperation of eight German shipyards in the period 1926 to 1945. The leading company was the shipyard AG Weser in Bremen. History The Deschimag was founded in ...

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...

, the first Type IA was launched on 14 February 1936.Sharpe (1998), p. 13. The two boats produced, and , were primarily used as training vessels and for propaganda purposes to fly the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

flag. In 1940, the boats were called into combat duty due to the shortage of available submarines.Williamson (2005), p. 16. Both boats experienced short, but successful combat careers. ''U-25'' participated in five war cruises, sinking eight enemy ships. On 3 August 1940, while on a mine laying mission near

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

, ''U-25'' struck a mine and sank with all hands on board. ''U-26'' carried out eight war cruises, sinking three merchant ships on its first mission laying mines. On its second war cruise it became the first U-boat during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

to enter the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

. ''U-26'' participated in three other successful war patrols, sinking four additional merchant ships. On its eighth war cruise the boat sank three merchant ships and damaged another ship the next day. The attack on this ship led to severe depth-charging by two British warships, including . Unable to dive, ''U-26'' was forced to surface where she was bombed by a

Sunderland flying boat The Short S.25 Sunderland is a British flying boat patrol bomber, developed and constructed by Short Brothers for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The aircraft took its service name from the town (latterly, city) and port of Sunderland in North East ...

. The crew scuttled the submarine and were rescued by Allied warships.

List of Type I submarines

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References

Bibliography

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Type 001 Submarine Submarine classes World War II submarines of Germany