History's Deadliest Submarine: the Fearsome SM U-35
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2024
- Germany’s submarines posed a huge threat to allied ships in the Second World War. In fact, Winston Churchill later famously said that the Kriegsmarine's U-Boats were his biggest worry during the war - but surprisingly the deadliest submarine of all time actually operated some 20 years earlier at the height of the First World War!
SM U-35 amassed a victory tally which has never since been rivalled, sinking some 226 Allied and neutral ships. Today we'll look at the story of this infamous boat and just how it was so successful!
00:00 Intro
01:40 U-Boats
02:24 Diesel Engines
03:15 Torpedoes
4:00 U-35
5:06 Sunken Ships
6:02 Allied Shipping
7: 13 Logbook
8:07 Patrol
9:04 End of The War
10:31 Outro
Oceanliner Designs explores the design, construction, engineering and operation of history’s greatest vessels- from Titanic to Queen Mary and from the Empress of Ireland to the Lusitania. Join maritime researcher and illustrator Michael Brady as he tells the stories behind some of history's most famous ocean liners and machines!
#ships #sinking #disaster #titanic #wrecks #exploration #history #adventure #design #engineering #mairitime #safety #vessels #sailing #documentary #story #oceanlinerdesigns #submarine #warsub #navy #combat #battleships #uboats - Zábava
Small captioning error at 9:49! USS Tang’s tonnage sunk equates to about 65,000-116,454 tons sunk and not 227,800 as shown on screen!
Thankyou for taking the time for captioning your videos. Us hard of hearings and deaf people do apricate the efforts!
I wad literally about to comment that there was either a typo or mathematical error there, but you already fixed it. Good on ya
Another small error, regarding the list of U-35 sinkings in April 1917, U-35 damaged but did not sink the Leasowe Castle. It fired two torpedos, the wake of the first was spotted and the ship managed to turn far enough that only the rudder was hit and destroyed. The second torpedo missed completely and the ship escaped, limping into Gibraltar for repairs. Leasowe Castle was finally sunk by a single torpedo from UB-51 in the Eastern Mediterranean in May 1918.
Wondering about the words of everyone in the early 20th century or even late 19th century having fears and theories of sailing in the North Atlantic Ocean
what happened to the USS Indianapolis was karma. Pure and simple. the fact that the Indianapolis was tasked with delivering the parts for the atomic bombs to Tinian AFB meant that it was directly responsible for the deaths of those civilians murdered by the atomic bomb. Looks like the US was still made to pay for all its mass murders and war crimes, albeit in a very small way
It's actually not surprising that a WW1 sub was more deadly. The biggest reason is that ASW was basically non-existent. At least through a good part of the war.
The majority of all the kills were in the Mediterranean where there was limited escorts. The use of his deck gun to destroy vessels clearly shows that he was unhindered by the Royal Navy
@@exsubmariner the deck gun would be used whenever possible due to the limited supply of torpedoes. And it wasn't until 1917 that ASW was hitting its full stride.
Watching Drachinifel's video on the history of British ASW, the early methods were often almost comical. For example one of the methods is to send guys on a small boat armed with a hammer to bonk the submarine periscope and I can't imagine the reaction of a German U-boat captain seeing some bloke on motorboat approaching his sub with a hammer.
@@davidriadi7999It seems almost like a deliberate tactic to make the U-Boat skipper die from laughing. Not a very polished ASW doctrine to say the least 😂
@@HGShurtugal Correct. Against low-threat or unarmed targets, they would normally use the deck gun, at least for scuttling. If the crew had already evacuated, they could simply fire point-blank at the ship's waterline for a rapid sinking.
Mike, your channel is always improving along with the more varied subject matter. Thanks for helping to keep maritime history alive and kicking.....
I gotta say, I love every bit of these videos and keep my eyes open for every upload. As a maritime historian this is the best channel I’ve ever come across. Thank you so much to your dedication and love of history.
Thank you for the kind words!
My grandfather was a 17 year old apprentice on SS Persier (ex Daventry), a tramp steamer that was sunk by U35 in December 1917. They were transporting coal from Cardiff to Taranto for the British Admiralty. He remembered spending time in Malta while a convoy of ships, escorted by two armed Japanese fishing boats, was formed. During the night of of the 10th or 11th December, 50 miles east of cape Spartivento, he was on watch and sighted the torpedo before it struck. It exploded and everyone abandoned ship. Persier did not sink and they waited for several hours in the lifeboats. (The convoy will have continued without them so they would have been alone in the sea). One of the crew went back on board, perhaps to assess the damage, in any case, the way my grandfather described it "he was tired of waiting so he went back on board, the rest of us thought it was too dangerous". U35 surfaced and shelled Persier, sinking her and killing his ship mate - a young man whose name can be found on the Merchant Navy Memorial at Tower Hill in London. I'm not sure how long it took for survivors to be rescued - my grandfather told me how thankful he was that someone had the presence of mind to throw some tins of condensed milk into the lifeboat (regulations to have survival rations on lifeboats did not exist at that time), he'd lost all of his possessions and the shipping company stopped his pay was stopped from the day of the sinking. They were able to return to England (from Italy) by train and he eventually joined a new ship.
Earlier in 1917 it was possible for U35 to sink ships using the deck gun, or even boarding and opening the seacocks to scuttle them. The British made a few changes in the light of the high shipping losses referred to in this video. I believe that it would have been around this time that tramp steamers such as SS Persier were equipped with a deck gun and a Royal Navy gun crew. So the risk to the uboats increased and they were opted to use their limited supply of torpedoes instead.
There's a German film, Der Magische Gürtel [The Enchanted Circle], shot around May 1917, which shows several ships being sunk - by shelling or scuttling. It's a propaganda film and you see the crews surrendering to Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière - it's all very gentlemanly, you see them shaking hands. It was later in 1917 the tactics changed and things became really nasty - hence the use of torpedoes to sink smaller vessels such as Persier and a decrease in the amount of tonnage U35 could sink before needing to be re-armed. This will explain why Perière's successor had a much lower score. Several versions of the film can be found online, last time I looked BFI website had the highest quality version. I believe Perière died in a plane accident near Paris during WW2.
Thanks, Mark, this was utterly interesting. I'm fascinated by anything to do with vessels and the sea in general. How fascinating also submarines are, war is just wrong.
So glad, your granddad made it and also told his story. I hope he had a good life and was a good dad and granddad. I haven't heard about the film, but will try to find it. Kudos from Germany
Japanese armed fishing boats?!
(Trembles in Kamchatka)
"DoYoUsEeToRpEdOeBoAtS?"
@@krakenpots5693 Fishing boats with 3-4 guns was often more than most submersibles at the time could handle even if they teamed up on one.
So yes, "trembles"
@@ToreDL87 R/woosh
@@krakenpots5693So immediately upon dissuaded you try the R/Woosh? Nice try I'll give you that but no cigar.
Oceanliner Designs trying to not to mention Titanic in every video challenge (impossible)
That's historic travels,That's all he's got
Titanic was basically the 9/11 of those times.
@@Intrepid151 : No. The Titanic disaster was a natural disaster, not an enemy attack.
A closer analogy to the Titanic disaster was the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (and subsequent fire), which killed over 3,000 people, destroyed about 25,000 buildings and left up to 300,000 people homeless.
Yeah, I'm up at 2:08am in Melbourne, Aus watching an Oceanliners Designs vid haha. Always got an eye open for Mike's vids. The quality is INSANE!
You live in the same city as him!
I'm pretty sure he lives in Camberwell, or somewhere around there in the inner east.
This is the one CZcams channel where I’ve finished every video I’ve started watching.
I just wanted so say a quick "Thank you!" for not shouting at me, blasting loud music during your videos and taking the effort to dress sensibly. Makes me feel comfy and valued. Greetings from Germany!
Mike is trying to hype us up for the part 2 of the Lusitania video, by talking about ships being sunk by U-boats for 10 minutes straight, and im all here for it
what happened to the USS Indianapolis was karma. Pure and simple. the fact that the Indianapolis was tasked with delivering the parts for the atomic bombs to Tinian AFB meant that it was directly responsible for the deaths of those civilians murdered by the atomic bomb. Looks like the US was still made to pay for all its mass murders and war crimes, albeit in a very small way
I wonder if U-35 was lucky or unlucky not to have actually gone up against _Olympic_ , considering her captain decided to ram another U-boat and force it to surface.
7:55 It was fortunate for the Olympic.
Yeah U-35 DID happen across the Olympic, but conditions did not favor an attack.
I don’t think people say it enough but the amount of effort you put into pronouncing foreign words competently is one of my favorite details of this channel. It’s easy enough to say “forgive the pronunciation,” but to take the effort and use the proper pronunciation without coming across as clunky or forced is a genuine achievement
Well done, sir! Informative, visually interesting, and smoothly narrated!
Thank you!
That Was Great, Man! A Part Of History I Didn't Know About & You're An Excellent Narrator. Thank You.
Why have I only just realised that the ship in the new intro is the lusitania 🤦
Great story! If I haven’t mentioned this already, ( I have had a stroke, my memory is damaged.) the Captain Von Trapp of ‘ Sound of Music’ fame, was a U-boat captain in WW1. His book/ memoirs is great; might be worth a read.
Trapp was the most successful Austo-Hungarian submarine commander of WW1.sinking, 11 merchantmen (47,600 tons) and 2 warships (12,600 tons).
Yes! When this video showed the chart of the Mediterranean, I thought about that. I read his (Von Trapp's) daughter's book that highlighted two of his victories, one a very large French armored cruiser and the other an Italian submarine. So two warships. The submarine duel was remarkable, I believe the first in history. The two submarines were different. The Italian sub was an American-built Holland boat with slightly better underwater speed but slower surface speed. Von Trapp fought for the Austro-Hungarian navy, and their operations were limited to the Adriatic I think, being somewhat bottled up by the allies. Von Trapp's victories forced them to move their blockade line back.
TWO UPLOADS IN THE SAME WEEK?!?
Awesome 😊video Mike
Heck yeah! You just made my day a bit better ;)
The legend himself
Your channel is fantastic. The video and audio are excellent. Thanks
Excellent Video and Commentary. Thanks Mike.
Ah what a blissful day when our dear friend Mike Brady uploads something ;) It was a pleasure as always
thanks for uploading i love the videos
Always happy too hear from my friend Mike Brady makes the day better
very awesome vid, i always love hearing about submarine history
Is it worse that he boarded the ships before sinking them? Feels more sinister.
"Alright, then. Off you go.
....
Fire the gun!"
Awesome video
Very nice!!
Every time I hear about these U-boats, I get this,,,,, "sinking feeling"!!!🙄
Why
That was a pretty forced pun
It was a Dad pun. Not horrific but a bit eye rolling 🙄
Boo! Get off the stage!
@@PersephoneDaSilva 😏 it wasn't that bad 🤣🤣
Both educational and very interesting, all bundled up with excellent production value. I truly look forward to every new video that you release.👍
Sometimes I think Mike is making and uploading videos specifically for me, considering so many uploads come days after (or the literal day of) me google searching certain boats and incidents. Lol
I read Capt. Richard O'Kane's book [Clear the Bridge!] which details the USS Tang's astonishing success in the Pacific and its bitter end. I had never heard of U35 until my friend Mike Brady told me about it. Great story 👍
I love your channel Mr. Brady. I hope one day you can cover the Yarmouth Castle or have a Halloween story about the U-65 one day. ❤
You know I’ve grown accustomed to a division in my ship based info-tainment Drachinefel for the shooty ships and Mike Brady for the less shooty ships… that said I quite enjoy when Mike covers a shooty ship…
Very technical term shooty ship 👍
Youve really been putting out some phenomenal content. This has become one of my favorite channels.
Very well done once again good sir Mike!! Gotta say they are very informative and very well researched! Stay happy my friend from Oceanliner Designs!
You never fail to amaze me. Great work Mike! I like how you often upload videos I'd request but out of random - it's amazing to have all my questions answered in such detail!
Love your work🙂
Another intriguing presentation - thanks once more !!!
Great job thanks Sir
Always well done..thanks
As for WWII, Kriegsmarine U-boat waffe was successful until it started to decline in 1941. Two years later, losses has rendered U-boat waffe irrelevant. When Germany surrendered and math was done, the casualty rate of the U-boat crews (during the whole war) was ~75%...
Holey moley!
Casualty rates for allied bombers were also pretty high, against an enemy with almost no air foce left.
Just because they waited too long with the introduction of dreaded Type XXI
As much as war is bad and a horrible mistake we have repeated time and time again I really have to say I am impressed with how well these U boat captains do their job and the sink counts are insane.
Jesus, that map of the 1941 U boat casualties really hits home.
That is a record that will never be broken. Shalom
Thank you for your submarine content, and especially covering the relatively less known and talked about subject of WWI submarine warfare.
Fascinating story. Thanks.
Once again a very interesting video. Thank you Mike
Finally a video about SM U 35
Very entertaining and interesting video!!
Fantastic well done Sir
for a second i thought i mistook channel and this is one of Drachinifel videos 😄
Look ladies and gents, it’s our friend Mike Brady from Oceanliner Designs 👋
Oh my God, it's our friend Mike Brady from Ocean liner Designs
@@panzerjagertigerporscheIndeed! It’s our friend Mike Brady from Ocean liner designs!
😴
Every single video gets this type of comment. Why?? It’s getting really old at this point.
@@donengland9140 idk, it’s just funny to play along every now and then
I enjoyed this video. Note that TIK History also has an interesting video on the subject of the Battle of the Atlantic. His point about the U-boat menace is that the U-boats were not as effective as often portrayed, and that poor logistics getting products from Britain's western ports to where they were needed was also a significant factor. (His reference is a book by Lizzie Collingham, "The Taste of War".)
It's actually less surprising to me for a submarine to have this kind of success in WWI compared to WWII because while submarine warfare and technology were les developed in the former, that cut both ways and anti-submarine measures were also still being figured out.
Wow what a story!!! Holy mackerel!!!
Thank you !!!
Love the war ship stories so much. Can you do more ?? Of famous battle ships or war ships or subs ?
Mad respect for the Kaiserlichemarine
An absolutely banging video
Knew this was going to be great when I saw the title. Absolutely fantastic
That's really sad about SS La Provence, she was 626 feet long, 65 foot breadth, 13,753 GRT, and capable of 23 knots when completed in 1905. She was a real beauty inside and out, not to mention very fast for her time until Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania were introduced. Gallia was completed in 1913, 574 feet, 63 foot breadth, 14,966 GRT, and capable of only 18 knots.
7:44 Is swear to God this isn‘t the Olympic! That‘s claerly the Lusitania! One way to determan this is, that the funnels are closer to the Bow than to the Stern.
To the german U-boat men: Respect and thank you for your service. RIP.
Turned into razor blades... xhat a sad ending!
Submarines always seem to get the butt end of history. Rarely preserved, their merits unsung, the courage of their crews untold and forgotten... a shame really!
Thanks for making this video!!!
As a mechanical engineer, having worked in ship construction, I see you with state of art knowledge in history. A subscription for you. ❤️❤️
I have a feeling that record will soon be challenged once again
How?
The merchant mariners don't get anywhere near enough respect for the sheer bravery they had to have during the two great wars... They sacrificed a frightening number of lives, I believe as a percentage they at times in more danger than the servicemen and without them the wars would have been lost before the fighting ever began.
We all remember the stories of the D-day heroes, but few of the men who went to the bottom of the icy oceans to get the supplies to make the big offensives feasible in the first place.
Holy shit, it’s our friend Mike Brady from Oceanliner Designs 🤙🏻
We can only pray that it's a record that never gets beaten.
I love having a friend!
Hey Mike Brady, I love the channel and been watching for quite some time. Always been fascinated by the titanic but you’ve shown me so many other incredible ships to learn about. Had 1 question for you. Wanted to know what your thoughts are on the USS Enterprise being scrapped?
I am Winston Churchill
He is Winston Churchill
Good for you
I am Winston Churchill
9:49 "about one quarter the amount of tonnage" didn't you mean about half?
If Tang sank 227.000, and U-35 sank about 500.000?
These small things stand out when the rest of the video is so good!
Well, like you said, small things stand out, your comment is no different: It depends on the kind of tonnage, internal volume (which was internationally used until 1960 but not 100% by everyone) vs weight/mass, and civilian tonnage vs military tonnage.
@@ToreDL87 he corrected it in the pinned comment
Man, Germany really pushed the technology like no other country did. Making reliable U-boats and also, making them reliable destroying machines is incredible.
Naming a ship Odysseus seems like a dubious idea, but then again apparently someone named their ship Stromboli. I wonder if her sister was Calzone.
More Aetna or Vesuvius... As Mr. T would say "Stromboli is a volcano, fool!" (At least in Italy)
I wonder if the people in charge of naming her were hungry?
It wasn't a weird name at the time. Stromboli pastry in an American dish which didn't exist at the time. Both the food and the ship are named after a volcanic island off the coast of Sicily. A few hundred people live there, which is pretty crazy considering it's been almost continually erupting for thousands of years.
@@DECODEDVFXThose are the few hundred that survived.
@@DECODEDVFX OK so from food to badass. Nice.
I want a Shipwrecks of the World Wars like 14 part documentary series complete with the James Cameron submarine footage and background on crew/commanders and the building of the ship and any other fun ship lore lol
Hey Mike! Great documentary as always. It's always fascinating to learn about different marvelous vessels through your incredible animations.
However, I believe that the video's title should have been "History's Most Successful Submarine: the Fearsome SM U-35." It is true that U-35 holds the record for the most tonnage sunk. However, this doesn't make U-35 the deadliest submarine in history.
The title of the deadliest submarine in history would be attributed to the Soviet submarine S-13. On January 30, 1945, S-13 torpedoed and sunk the refugee ship Wilhelm Gustloff, with the loss of ~9,400 souls. Two weeks later, on February 10, 1945, S-13 would be successful in sinking MV Steuben, with the loss of ~4,500 souls. When added, the death toll from Wilhelm Gustloff and Steuben equals nearly 14,000. The deaths of ~14,000 souls from these two shipwrecks sunk by the same submarine during a span of two weeks make S-13 the deadliest submarine in history.
Yea!
Mike!
I knew about Captain Arnauld de la Periere' but had NO idea he had such a devastating war record. Really, the man was the U-Boot "Ace of Aces." If I remember correctly he was still in the German Navy during WW2 but held administrative and not combat commands, although he did visit U-Boot crews for morale-building pep talks. As you might imagine he was quite a celebrity with U-Boot men.
Thanks for posting Mike!
"Ladies and gentlemen it's your friend Mike Brady"...
Me: See? I have friends!
As always a fascinating video, and excellent presentation!
If you decide to branch out even further, into cargo ships, there are some fascinating ships as well, such as the Sealandia/Jutlandia pair of container ships, that (as far as I know) are the fastest container vessels ever, to this day, with a top speed over 30 knots.
Sealandia beat the world record for fastest circumnavigation of the earth by ship (on the ØK circumnavigation trade route, thus not an official record as it didn't follow the official route), with 40 days, 3 hours and 5 minutes with an average speed of 28,04 knots.
They are also some of the very few 70's cargo vessels that are still sailing to this day under the U.S. Naval Reserve under the names "Gilliland" and "Gordon".
Lovely video as always, have you done a video on Costa Concordia? If you haven't I would absolutely love to see a write up from you.
Brilliant work! The Kriegsmarine came far closer in WW1 to destroying Britian than they ever got in the 2nd!
I was wondering if you could do a video on the MV Wilhelm Gustloff? Even though so many died and it has a really interesting history it goes unnoticed
When he mentioned a 4 funnel steamer, I immediately thought "Lusitania", which would have been ironic, given the previous video.
Hey it’s our enemy, Mike Brady!
I'm tempted to suggest you do one on Otto Hershing of U-21, who had a penchant for sinking allied wardships.
... "turned into razor blades ..." - I wonder what does happen to most of the metal from scrapped ships; I always guessed it went mostly back into new ships.
HI MIKE . I'm a history buff and enjoy your videos. Was wondering if you're a naval architect or engineer? Or is this your hobby/passion project??
Love your channel! Quick question, can you do a video on the “other ship” reported seen by California and Titanic, the one originally believed to be a whaling ship
I play a mobile game called crash dive. It's a submarine warfare simulator. It's pretty realistic in terms of the mechanics of the submarine, the various upgrades, dud torpedoes. You're a deck gun is a very useful weapon.
Good to see one of my U boats doing its job.
KAISER WILHELM?!?!?!🫨
Whats thats?? Its Kaiser Wilhelm the second with a Kruppstahl chair
@41tl Confidently wrong, I love it. He specified early in the video that it's about the WW1 U-boat U-35.
@@FlaminwheelsYT i do enjoy supporting our friend Mike Brady from Oceanliner Designs.
I'd be interested to see your take on the Confederate submarine in the American Civil War
After all that recycling, your car probably has a bit of U-35 in it, greedily eyeing each passing truck.
Key differences between submarines and airships: the density of the fluid through which the vessel moves in three dimensions and the orientation to the "surface," also typical cruising speed and access to breathable air while immersed in their operating fluid. Other than that...
What a kill count! Great job on this video 😎 Would love to see a video about the origins of submarines and what life was like on them 😄 I’m not sure I would do well
De Perier should’ve been nicknamed “Mr. Efficiency”.
I find it interesting that we remember the captain of U-99, Otto Kretschmer, as "The Tonnage King" for about 200,000+ GRT of ships sunk, but De La Periere should hold that crown.