Qualla: SM UC-75

SM UC-75: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Two crews died here. The first were the merchant sailors aboard the fifty-nine ships UC-75 sent to the bottom between March 1917 and May 1918 - fishermen, freighter crews, coal-trade hands, the small invisible workforce that kept Britain fed and lit. The second crew were the Germans themselves. On the night of 31 May 1918, the British destroyer HMS Fairy rammed UC-75 in the North Sea off the Yorkshire coast. Of the twenty-six aboard the U-boat, seventeen were killed. They went down in cold dark water close to where this waypoint hovers. Both crews matter; both crews were doing what their governments had ordered them to do.

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SM UC-75: A Type UC II in the Imperial Navy

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

SM UC-75 was a Type UC II minelaying submarine - the workhorse of the German Imperial Navy's coastal U-boat force. Ordered on 12 January 1916 and launched on 6 November of the same year, she was commissioned into service on 6 December 1916. She carried six 100-centimetre mine tub...

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SM UC-75: The Names in the Roll

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Wikipedia entry for UC-75 carries a long table of dates and ship names: Industria, Marshall, Median, Rosslyn - four merchantmen sunk on a single day, 25 March 1917. Then Expedient, Schaldis, Alide, the small vessels Carberry King and Eleanor and Fastnet and Hibernia and Lucky...

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SM UC-75: 31 May 1918 - HMS Fairy

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 31 May 1918, on her thirteenth patrol, UC-75 was operating off the Yorkshire coast in the North Sea. She was spotted on the surface in the dark by HMS Fairy, an old Royal Navy destroyer escorting a coastal convoy. Fairy rammed her at speed. Steel hulls crumpled and ground. UC-...

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SM UC-75: The Wreck and the Memory

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

UC-75's wreck lies somewhere off the Yorkshire coast at roughly 53.95 degrees north, 0.15 degrees east - the position recorded for her sinking. She is a war grave under the UK Protection of Military Remains Act, like other identified U-boats lost in British waters. Divers occasio...

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