Torpedoing of the tanker Belridge
- Category:
- Military operations
- Front:
- War at sea
- Date:
- 19 February 1915
- Author:
- Łukasz Skowroń
- Tags:
- Norway, submarines, neutrality, Germany
On 19 February 1915, in the Strait of Dover, a dozen or so kilometres south of Folkestone, an explosion shook the Norwegian tanker Belridge. The ship did not sink and reached port. She was the first neutral ship attacked by a U-boat after the German war zone around the British Isles came into force the day before.
Oil for Amsterdam
Belridge was a new ship. She had been built in 1914 by the Sir James Laing & Sons yard in Sunderland, and her tonnage was about 7,000 gross register tons. She belonged to A/S Tankfart, managed by the shipping firm Wilh. Wilhelmsen of Tønsberg. At the end of January she sailed with crude oil from New Orleans, and on 5 February she left Newport News, Virginia, on a voyage across the Atlantic to Amsterdam. The route to the Netherlands led through the English Channel and the Strait of Dover, and so through the very middle of the new war zone.
Mine or torpedo?
The explosion occurred near the Varne lightship, in the middle of the strait. It tore open the bow plating, and the forepeak and the forward hold filled with water. For a time it was feared the ship would go to the bottom. The first press reports spoke of a mine, and the damaged tanker was beached in shallow water. The crew survived; the pilot and the sailors were safely taken ashore. According to uboat.net Belridge then reached Thames Haven at the mouth of the Thames. The ship was repaired and sailed for many more years.
Only fragments found on deck convinced the British that it had been a torpedo attack. According to a British Naval Staff monograph of the 1920s and the uboat.net website, the torpedo was fired by U-16 under Kapitänleutnant Claus Hansen. The boat was returning to base early because of a fault in her steering gear. Some accounts, however, attribute the attack to U-8, which a few days later sank several British ships in the English Channel.
The first without warning?
The British chronology of the war calls Belridge the first ship torpedoed by a German submarine without warning. This is not accurate. As early as 30 January, while U-21 was hunting in the Irish Sea, U-20 torpedoed the British steamers Tokomaru and Ikaria without warning off the French coast, near Le Havre. On the night of 17–18 February the French steamer Dinorah was also hit without warning. Belridge was, however, the first neutral ship torpedoed in this campaign.
The attack on a Norwegian ship was awkward for Berlin. According to some accounts, in mid-February U-boat commanders had been instructed to spare vessels under neutral flags. The German government later claimed that Belridge had been attacked by mistake. According to press reports from Christiania, today’s Oslo, in June 1915 the German government agreed to pay full compensation. The affair nevertheless showed what the neutral states feared. The commander of a submarine attacking submerged often could not make out a ship’s flag, and German assurances gave neutral sailors little protection.
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Related events
(04)The same battle, people or subject.
- 4 February 1915 · War at seaGermany declares a war zone around the British IslesOn 4 February 1915 Germany declared the waters around the British Isles a war zone. From 18 February U-boats were to destroy enemy merchant ships there.
- 1 May 1915 · War at seaTorpedoing of the tanker GulflightOn 1 May 1915 U-30 torpedoed the American tanker Gulflight off the Scilly Isles. She did not sink, but two seamen drowned and the master died of heart failure.
- 30 January 1915 · War at seaAdmiralty advises neutral flagsAt the end of January 1915 the Admiralty advised British ships to fly neutral flags, or no flag at all, in the waters around the British Isles.
- 13 March 1915 · War at seaSinking of the Swedish steamer HannaOn 13 March 1915 the Swedish steamer Hanna sank off Yorkshire. The British held she was torpedoed, but she may have struck a German mine.