Taken from Newsletter Issue 22 - February 2005

Submariners aboard the U-Boat 65 were as terrified of ghosts on their vessel as they were of Allied attacks. In 1916 among the many U-boats which came down the submarine assembly line ready for British blood was UB65, which would go down in naval lore as the host to at least one ghost, and the scene of many disturbing and tragic occurrences. Indeed, UB65 became so infamous, that even as the war raged on, its panic-stricken crew grew increasingly reluctant to sail on her. Even before she was launched, the ‘Iron Coffin’ as she became known, seemed to attract disaster. She was built to join a fleet of submarines prowling off the Flemish coastline, gorging on the slow, heavily laden ships crossing back and forward across the English Channel. But it seemed that everything that could go wrong during construction did. Not even seven days into her construction, as the hull was being laid, the first tragedy struck. As workers poured over the site, a giant girder hovering overhead on chains suddenly broke free, plunging into the hull. A hapless worker was horribly crushed under its massive weight, and lay there, in agony, for over an hour while frantic mates tried to rescue him. Tragically, he died just as the huge weight was finally lifted off him. An inquiry into the accident found there had been no faults in the chains used to hoist the girder, and officials were mystified as to what could have caused it to snap free.

Less than two months later, there was a second, more alarming tragedy. Three engineers who were assigned to the U-boats engine room to test the submarine’s dry cell batteries, were overcome by deadly chloride fumes. They died before anyone could rescue them and drag them into the fresh air. No-one ever determined why the batteries ever leaked the toxic fumes. Thankfully, there were no more mysterious incidents during the remaining construction and shortly afterwards UB65 set sail for sea trials. But whatever dogged the boat seemed to follow it out of port because it quickly ran into a fierce Channel storm, and one hapless sailor was washed overboard to his death, when the vessel came up to test her stability on the surface during rough seas. After the man went overboard, the captain ordered the U-boat to dive. As she did, a ballast tank sprang a leak, flooding the dry-cell batteries in sea water and filling the engine room with the same deadly gas that had already claimed three lives while the boat was still on the slipway. After 12 nerve-racking hours the crew finally managed to get the ship to surface, where they flung open the hatches and breathed clean air. Amazingly, no-one was killed and the bedevilled craft limped back to Germany for repairs. After several days, the U-boat was again readied for sea and her first on-line suddenly exploded, killing the second officer and badly wounding several others. Yet again, an inquiry was conducted, but no explanation for the explosion was ever found. In the meantime, the second officer was buried, and another round of repairs made to the jinxed vessel. Her jittery crew, already worried about the U-boat’s growing reputation for being accursed, were given a few days’ much-needed shore leave to calm their shattered nerves before setting out on their first active patrol.

The U-Boat 65 was forced to limp back to harbour after another mysterious disaster. The submarine was bedevilled by tragedy and death. Yet just moments before she was set to leave port, another bizarre incident occurred - this time, a panicked sailor swore he had seen the apparition of the dead second officer. “Herr Kapitan!” he blurted. “The dead officer is on board!” The captain, of course, refused to take the report seriously, believing the sailor had had too much to drink during his shore leave. However, even the stoic skipper was a little taken aback when a second member of his crew also claimed to have seen the ghost of the second officer coming casually up the gangplank! The seaman was sobbing from fear when he told the captain that the apparition had walked aboard, strolled up to the bow and then looked out at the inviting sea. He then vanished into thin air.

That two crew members had reported seeing the dead officer gave the captain some reason for pause, but nevertheless he knew his duty lay at sea and in sinking British ships. UB65 had some early successes on its maiden voyage, sinking three Allied merchant ships in quick succession. However, the rumours of the unwanted ghost had spread through the crew like wildfire, and their celebration over any direct hits was tempered by their belief that their vessel was haunted. Indeed, there was almost full-scale panic after UB65 recorded its second kill, when startled sailors in the engine room saw the dead officer observing the instrument panel as he had done in the trial voyage. By the time the submarine returned to base, rumours of its ghostly visitor were already spreading throughout the entire U-boat armada. The captain did his best to dispel the talk, claiming it was all poppycock, fearing that the ghost tales would only further erode the morale of the 34-man crew. But in their hearts, the men of UB65 knew something was terribly amiss with their craft.

Then in January, 1918 as the war dragged ever closer to its inevitable conclusion, even the captain could no longer dismiss the sightings as the rantings of some foolhardy seamen -for he, too, saw the apparition! It came as the U-boat was prowling in the Channel off Portland Bill. Because the weather was so foul and the seas extremely rough, the captain ordered the craft to the surface. After breaking the surface, a lookout stationed on the starboard side was scanning the stormy horizon. He turned to look to port, when suddenly he spotted an officer standing on the deck, which heaved under the growing fury of the waves. At first, the crew man thought the officer foolhardy for taking such a risk, but then realised that all the hatches were still battened down, bar the one from which he himself had climbed onto the deck. He knew no-one could have come up through there without him immediately spotting him.

Suddenly, the crew man got a full look at the officer - and his face went white as the blood drained from it. There standing in front of him was the second officer, who had been buried with full honours back at home base. When he finally summoned the courage to move, the terrified seaman screamed to his shipmates that the ghost was on the boat. Below deck, the crew were close to all-out panic, and the captain had to act immediately lest a hysterical sailor put all their lives in jeopardy. He raced up the ladder, fully expecting to see nothing save a panicked crew man, when he, too, saw his dead comrade, his face a grotesque distortion. Seconds later, the ghost vanished, as if blown into the raging swell by the strong winds. Finally in July of 1918 the U-Boat itself came to a grisly end while at sea. Having been confronted by an American submarine while on the surface the U-Boat blew up killing all aboard. The American sub had not even opened fire at the time.