SEA MYSTERY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 367, 31 October 1932, Page 7

SEA MYSTERY

fate of submarine BELIEVED DR'IFTING WITH CREW OF 0EAD ' • MEN BELATED SOLUTION New light can now be shed on one of tbe most baffling sea mysteries of the war — -the fate of tbe German submarine U31, which vanished without' trace in January, 1915, writes Hector Bywater, in a London paper. It has been positively asserted by German writers, including Commander Ernst Hashagen in his 'Log of a U Boat Commander,' that this boat, six months after her disappearance, stranded off the east coast of England, and when examined was found to be intact, with her entire crew dead at their posts. The theory was that the officers and men had first been stupefied by an excess of oxygen, and then asphyxiated by the gradual accumulation of carhonic acid gas. Hence hose the legend of a ghostly submarine drifting ahout the North Sea with a crew of dead men. I am informed by the Admiralty that no German submarine drifted ashore on the English coast in the circumstances described, and that an official communication to this hffect has been made to the German Navy Offiee. Nevertheless, the facts of the case are singular enough to merit notice. j It is now established that on Friday, | January 13, 1915, the submarines SU22, U31, and U32 left the Ems on a scouting expedition into the j North Sea. Day and date were omin- ' ous, according to sailor's superstit1 ion, with the course of events seemi ed to justify. Tank Own Consort.

Certainly the cruise ended in disaster. Two days out U22 sighted, torpedoed, and destroyed with all hands what was thought to be a British submarine, but which proved in fact, to be the German boat U7. This j was by no means the only occasion on j j which a U-boat mistook a consort for j j an enemy submarine and sent it to j the bottom. Soon after leaving the Ews U32 I ran into a gale of hurricane force, ! and for nine days was in extreme i danger. She owed her escape to the fine seamanship of her commanding J officer and the discipline and endurj ance of her crew. Eventially she ! limped back to port badly damaged. | Of U31 nothing more was heard ! although to my knowledge the BriI tish Naval Intelligence Service made j the most exhaustive inquiries as to j her fate. How the story originated j of this boat having drifted ahout the j North sea for months with a dead j crew on board it is hard to say, but j until quite recently this romance was aecepted as truth by the German naval authorities. The facts, however appear to be as follow, the fate of the boat having heen traced as the result of a recent ehange of information hetween the British and German naval authorities. When U31 left the Ems she was on her maiden voyage. She had orders to cruise off Smith Knoll to observe enemy shipping, but probably she never reached this point. Her course from the Ems must have taken her very close to the great German minefield known as the "Strassburg-Sperre," and it is surmised that, in consequence of faulty navigation or the strong sweep of 1 the tides, she hlundered into this i death trap and was hlown up. Since | none of her crew survived and no wreekage was ever found, U31 must be listed with the scores of other submarines with were "supposed sunk." Such is the version now ofhcially ! aecepted in Germany.