Hello Michael
From this post, you seem to know something about KTB's for U-boats? I am keen to find out what I can about UC-61. Can you help or point me in the right direction?

Thank you
Chris Heal

NB: Copied post I made today on
[1914-1918.invisionzone.com]

I am conducting some research for the 'Forgotten Wrecks' project of the Maritime Archaeology Trust in Southampton, UK. I am experienced in archival research, but have never worked in maritime records. Please excuse any howlers.

My particular interest is in the U-Boat UC-61, commander George Garth, which after three (?) 'failed' voyages from Zeebrugge in 1917, sank or damaged fifteen vessels around the channel and south, mainly off Brittany and Portland Bill, in a period from 5 March to 7 July in the same year. I have arbitrarily tagged seven of these vessels, the others are Gorizia, Fils du Progres, Le Gard, Nelly, Kleber, Indutiomare, Ull and Ettrick. I have researched all of them, and UC-61, extensively on the internet, including particularly Miramar, Heritage Gateway, Pastscape, U-boat.net, Wrecksite.eu and the maritime museum collections. I have also visited TNA and collected or viewed a number of wreck source and U-Boat publications in English, French and German.

Firstly, any information on UC-61, Garth, or his attacks not covered by these websites, or easily available on the web, would be very welcome.

Much of the website work is from secondary, tertiary, or more distant, sources. The great danger is that mistakes are made and innocently passed one to the other. My training says always seek out the primary source and, sadly, this is often not given or apparent.

Because and despite of all of this, I feel I am missing something big.

Secondly (and the main purpose of this post), I can see how a u-boat's 'success' list can be compiled from contemporary reports when the submarine is visible to the attacked ship (with, I assume, a number painted on the conning tower), especially when a victim is engaged on the surface, boarded and scuttled. But, how does one know who fired the torpedo, who shelled the vessel from a distance, who laid the mine that exploded long after the minelayer had gone, or which submarine was scared off by the timely arrival of an Allied naval vessel? And, yet, purportedly complete 'success' lists abound. My supposition is that the complete information can only come from German sources, a log book of some sort, or from reports to superiors at the end of a voyage, or ...

And, even then, how does a submarine know that one of its mines has sunk a vessel? Here, I can conjecture that mine-laying submarines were given blocks of water to mine and that a later sinking can therefore be attributed from records available (after the war?)? But where are they?

The somewhat comical fate of UC-61 on its fifth voyage on the sands at Wissant, south of Calais, has a large amount of internet coverage, based perhaps on first-hand French and Belgian accounts; the vessel being possibly the only u-boat to have been captured by the Belgian cavalry. But, thirdly, what is the primary source for this story?

Fourthly, these retellings (in French) of the end of UC-61 describe in limited fashion all of its five voyages with dates. Where could this information have come from?