Falmouth's U-Boats

At the end of the Great War, the Keisers's high seas fleet was interned at Scapa Flow, Orkney. Due to some mis-communication or lack of communication, Rear Admiral von Reuter ordered the scuttling of the entire fleet. Most were removed straight away except the deep ones. The German U-Boats in UK waters went to Harwich to surrender, with various fates over the next few years. We are still looking into the exact reason why any were sent to Falmouth, there are misleading reports about the actual number sent, from 5 to 9. What we do know is that there are the remains of 4 left in the area. One supposedly broke it's tow near Dodman point and was sunk, a bit of target practice. Apparently it was easier to sink it than try and restart the tow. There is a U-Boat there near Dodman Point, UB113, which was on patrol when lost according to official records. The remaining U-Boats ended up moored in Falmouth Bay, awaiting whatever their fate would be. A south easterly wind arrived and the U-Boats came adrift from their moorings.

The photo above shows 4 U-Boats on the rocks at Pendennis headland, Uboat.net has UB86, UB97, UB106, UB112, UB128 and UC92 as the 6 reported to have been sent down to Falmouth.

What we can say for sure is that UB86 is pictured above, you can read it on the side of the conning tower. Remains of these 2 U-Boats still exist, as does another on Castle Beach. The Castle Beach U-Boat is thought to be UB128, the one behind UB86 in the photo above is thought to be UB97. The only problem with the Castle Beach U-Boat is that it should be visible in the top photo, it isn't. Did it sink deeper and dragged ashore for scrapping? Maybe, one day, the truth will be known.

So if six arrived and we have four on Pendennis, one on Castle Beach, what happened to the other one? Was it re-floated and scrapped? There is no information available on it that we can find, so far.

Over the years the Falmouth U-Boats have had a hard time. They were gradually broken up as these pics show.

Whatever was left was then flattened by George Renton in 1966/7. Contracted by the Navy, probably sub contracted by the Harbour Master, George did a fine job of flattening the remains. All that is left visible above water now is at low spring tide, part of UB86 stands maybe 2' and can be seen below.

On Castle Beach, the U-Boat stands proud about 1' at low spring tide, centre in the photo below.

Today, all 3 U-Boats are well worth diving and are easily accessed from the shore, whatever the other 2 may be.

UPDATE:
After Wessex Archaeology spent two days in June investigating the Castle Beach site, taking photos etc., we were asked to go and take a couple of extra measurements. There are six circular features near the shore end of the sub, measuring 1m in diameter and 9m from front of the first to the rear of the last. This was the last piece of data required to determine that it is in fact UC92. The six circular features are the mine shafts, as UC's are a mine layers, UC92 was the only mine layer of the six. Records state it was lifted in 1971 and scrapped, it looks like it wasn't lifted, just dragged up onto Castle Beach to be scrapped. The stern lies at 50.147027, -5.055695, the bow at 50.147299, -5.055984, it is visible on Bing maps or Google maps.

UC92 at the end of the war.