I was able to visit the remains of a First World War U-boat in the Medway in August 2016 with Alex Langlands and CiTiZAN in connection with the making of Britain at Low Tide for Channel 4 by Tern TV.
The remains of the U-boat are very striking. It lies against a small islet in the marshes, almost entirely submerged at high tide but exposed when the tide is low. The U-boat is an important site, even though it is not a new discovery. In fact, the U-boat has been known since it was first abandoned in the Medway, but it has been a largely unremarked feature of the landscape until the last decade or so. Photographs of the U-boat were published in the newspapers in 2013 and it has featured on BBC Coast (Series 8) and in Britain’s Great War (Episode 3). The U-boat is quite often referred to as the remains of UB 122, which is probably not correct. In its online record PastScape, Historic England concludes that the U-boat is probably the remains of UB 144, UB 145 or UB 150; UB 122 is thought to have been dumped in deep water after leaving Portsmouth. A detailed account by Pat O'Driscoll in the magazine After the Battle (No. 36, 1982) relates how several U-boats came to be abandoned in the Medway following the end of the First World War. Briefly, Germany was obliged to hand over all of its U-boats at the Armistice. A total of 114 were surrendered and brought in to Harwich from 20th to 27th November 1918 where they were laid up in ‘U-boat Avenue’; Stephen King-Hall provides a compelling eye witness account in his book A North Sea Diary 1914-18. A few of the U-boats were distributed amongst the Allies but many were disposed of or sold off. The one we visited appears to have been in a batch sold at Chatham and broken up in Rochester in 1922 – where the diesel engines in particular were removed and subsequently re-used for a variety of industrial purposes. The falling value of scrap metal led to some of the U-boat hulks being simply discarded in the marshes. The remains of two other U-boats can still be seen less than a kilometre to the south of the one we visited, but they have been cut down to bed level and are harder to identify. If the U-boat we visited is UB 144, UB 145 or UB 150 then it would have been launched very shortly before the Armistice in November 1918 and only completed afterwards. It would not have seen military service and was finished only to be handed over and scrapped. Why then, should it be considered important? Continued here - and see gallery. |
AuthorAntony Firth is the Director of Fjordr. This blog provides an opportunity to elaborate on some of the research and issues I address in the course of Fjordr's work. Comments are turned off but please use Fjordr's contact details to get in touch if you would like to respond. Archives
July 2020
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