A Poignant Wrack Protected

A century on, Dick Durham visits a German U-boat wreck in Kentish marshland

One hundred years ago German U-boat attacks on British shipping reached their First World War climax. Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare left 875,000 tonnes of shipping on the seabed. Aside from the human suffering and loss of life, there would be scores of extra classic vessels still sailing today were it not for this escalation, because targets included coasting schooners, barquentines, ketches, smacks and luggers.

Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly said: “Perhaps one of the most dreadful sights in the war was the arrival on shore of women and children saved from a ship torpedoed by an enemy submarine. Half-clothed, wet and cold, many of the women did not know whether their children were saved or not, and many had lost all they possessed.”

Even hospital ships, loaded with war wounded such as the Asturias with 31 medical staff and crew followed by the Gloucester Castle, were sunk. Britain then announced wounded German soldiers as well as Allied troops would be aboard hospital ships: “They will naturally share with British wounded, equal risks from the attacks of German submarines.”