This story of a meeting between WWI submarines of the KAISERLICHEMARINE and the ROYAL NAVY is written by a USN vet.

On the evening of 4 September, 1915 LCDR A. D. Cochrane stepped from the sinking British submarine E-7 into the hands of Oblt Heino von Heimburg, Commanding Officer of the German submarine UB-14. Von Heimburg had succeeded in damaging E-7 to the extent that Cochrane was forced to surface his boat in order to give his men a chance to live. The events leading to the meeting of these two skillful and courageous men of the deep is one of the many strange submarine stories to come out of the First World War.

The story begins during the latter part of August when both boats were in their respective ports making final repairs in preparation for their next patrol. UB-14 was in the Turkish port of Bodrum and E-7 was in the repair facility on the Greek island of Moudros.

The first week of September 1915 found both submarines attempting to pass through the Dardanelles in order to reach their assigned patrol area.

One, HM Submarine E-7 was in route to the Sea of Marmara to cause havoc and destruction among the shipping and shore defenses. The other, UB-14 was planning to continue on to Constantinople and the Bosporus for the purpose of defensive and offensive operations should the enemy reach that far by sea. Both commanding officers had already experienced success in battle and had earned the trust and respect of their equally experienced crews.

Any boat making this trip was subjected to one of the most dangerous and costly passages known to the submarine service at that time, especially for the British. Shankland states that ally submarines attempting the trip were forced:

to grope their way through thirty miles of the narrowest, most heavily guarded and most treacherous waters in the world. Nothing was known of the deadly undersea currents and no accurate information was available as to the position of mine fields or anti-submarine nets.

After departing Bodrum the last week of August, Oblt von Heimburg became entangled in an anti-submarine net within the Dardanelles Straits. The net had been stretched by the British in an effort to prevent any additional U-Boats reaching Constantinople.

Von Heimburg tried every trick he knew to shake the boat free of the net. This activity did not take long to attract the attention of British patrol ships in the area and they became most aggressive in trying to put an end to the struggle taking place below them by dropping bombs from their decks (this was before the real depth charges came into existence). Fortunately for von Heimburg and his men, the bombs weakened the steel netting instead of causing fatal damage to their boat. By putting on maximum power, UB-14 was now able to rip through the weakened net and continue through the Dardanelles.

Depth-keeping soon became difficult as a result of extra weight taken on when part of the net was torn free and became tangled in her bow. This, as well as damage throughout the boat sustained from the bombs dropped by the patrol craft, forced von Heimburg to put into Chanak for repairs on 4 September 1915.

At this time, Cochrane was proceeding towards his fateful meeting with von Heimburg. He had moved E-7 from Moudros Island to the Allied advanced base at Kephalo Bay on Imbros Island several days before. She was topped off with fuel, ammunition, torpedoes, provisions and made ready in all respects for her dash through the Strait. Cochrane commenced what was intended to be his second trip into the Sea of Maramara at 0200 on 4 September 1915.

By 0730, E-7 had reached - and became entangled in - the anti-submarine net at Nagara. The nets in this particular area had recently been strengthened. Carr describes the net holding E-7 as being constructed of:

Wire rope with twelve-foot meshes which reached to the bottom of the channel. It was watched by armed patrol boats carrying bombs and commanded by three heavy gun emplacements on shore.

Cochrane took the boat to 100 feet, ordered full speed on both motors and, as did von Heimburg in UB-14, attempted to breach the net. The bows cut partially through the net however, a torn piece of netting fouled the starboard shaft and burned out the starboard main motor. For the next eleven hours, Cochrane attempted every maneuver he had learned during his long experience in submarines. Nothing worked - they were stuck.

Patrol craft personnel lowered mines on a line and exploded them near the boat at 0830 and again at 1030. The second one was closer than the first however, neither did any damage to the hull. By 1430, battery power was getting low and Cochrane decided to stop any further attempts to free the boat until after dark, at which time he intended to surface and attempt to clear the starboard shaft.

As UB-14 entered the harbor at Chanak for repairs, von Heimburg noticed a lot of patrol craft activity in the vicinity of the anti-submarine net surface buoy lines. It was obvious to him that, even though a choppy sea was running, the erratic pitching of the buoys holding the net were being caused by a submerged submarine struggling for freedom rather than by the natural motion of the waves.

After securing UB-14, von Heimburg continued to watch with increasing interest the activity along the net. Finally the hunter instinct of the combat submariner could no longer be surpressed. He appropriated a dinghy and, with Herzig the cook from UB-14 at UB-88, similar to UB-14 the oars, von Heimburg set out with line and hook to 'fish' for the trapped E-7. When they reached the general area where the ensnared submarine was thought to be, they switched positions in the dinghy and Herzig, a professional fisherman by trade, 'fished' while von Heimburg rowed. At the same time, other members of von Heimburg's crew were bringing explosive charges from UB-14 to the scene to be used when he found his prey.

At about 1840, von Heimburg got a bite. With Herzig holding the line tight, he attached the explosives and allowed them to slide down to the target. The violent explosion that followed caused lights to go out and fittings to be broken inside E-7.

In the hopes that the explosion may have blown the boat free of the net, Cochrane made one final attempt to escape. This was not to be. Realizing that any further efforts to escape would be either futile or deadly, Cochrane ordered the boat to the surface.

Von Heimburg was at the net, preparing to lower another mine when E-7 broke the surface. The small flotilla of gunboats that surrounded the submarine opened fire with machine guns as men came scrambling out of the hatch. First up, waving a white tablecloth in surrender, was the 1st Lt. Boats were brought alongside E-7 and the crew was taken into captivity. The last man off, and the only one to get wet, was LCDR Cochrane. He set the scuttling charges and, when he was sure the crew had been taken off, opened the vents to scuttle the boat. According to von Heimburg's eye-witness account,

'water was closing over the conning tower when another figure leaped out and into the water.'

He was pulled from the water into a small boat and taken ashore.

Oblt von Heimburg personally ensured that LCDR Cochrane and the crew of E-7 were well-treated by their Turkish captors until they were moved to a prison in Constantinople. At that time, he lost contact with them, and their treatment became less than desirable.

To my knowledge, von Heimburg is the only submarine Captain in either World War to receive credit for sinking another submarine thru the use of hand-launched explosives while standing in a rowboat.

This was the second submarine von Heimburg was credited with sinking, having previously sunk the Italian submarine MEDUSA on 10 June, 1915 while commanding UB-15. He also sank the British submarine E-20 in the sea of Marmara a few nights after the incident with E-7. His record of three enemy submarines destroyed by a single captain was equaled, but never surpassed in either of the World Wars.

HARRY's NOTE - It was JOHN FYFE (702-+-1988) commanding USS BATFISH (SS 310), who equaled this feat by sinking three IJN boats in WWII. USS BATFISH is a Memorial in Muskogee, Oklahoma)

The writer of this very interesting article, KEN HENRY (1468-1990), retired from the US NAVY as a Senior Chief Engineman. He served fifteen years on diesel submarines, with his final tour being Chief of the Boat on USS TUSK (SS 426). An avid reader, his personal collection of submarine books is approximately 400. KEN served aboard USS ARCHER-FISH 311) after the War, and during a stopover in Japan, he met one of the surviving Japanese crewmen from SHINANO, which was sunk by USS ARCHER-FISH while under command of JOE ENRIGHT (2142-1992)