British merchant shipping losses 1917

[Richard Turner]

Dear all,

In a book I am translating from Dutch into English the author seems to be saying that by June 1917 German U-boats had sunk 'one in four' (sic) merchant ships coming to a total of half a million tons of shipping.

Do these figures ring a bell? They look to me like the figures for April 1917, quoted in AJP Taylor's English History 1914-1945.

I think he must mean one of two things:

1) this was the monthly average up to and including June 1917

2) this was how much they sank in that month.

Any ideas on which seems the more likely?

With kind regards,

Richard Turner.

[historydavid]

Hello Richard, welcome aboard.

In his OH "The Merchant Navy" Hurd quotes the following total figures for 1917 losses:

ships tonnage ships tonnage

January 49 153,666 July 99 364,858

February 105 313,486 August 91 329,810

March 127 353,478 September 78 196,212

April 169 545,282 October 86 276,132

May 122 352,289 November 64 173,560

June 122 417,925 December 85 253,087

Year total was 1,197 ships for 3,729,785 tons lost.

These figures include maritime losses and sinkings by surface warships.

Therefore, approx. 500,000 tons lost due to u-boats in April seems about right (Taylor was probably quoting the same official figures).

The monthly average for Jan thro' Jun is almost 355,700 tons.

Your author seems to have screwed up big time!

Best wishes

David

[Michael Lowrey]

But is the author referring to just British shipping losses? Referencing just British losses, to put it bluntly, is taking a rather narrow view of the situation -- Allied and neutral flagged vessels could and did also carry critical supplies to and from Britain and her allies.

V.R. Tarrant in The U-Boat Offensive 1914-1945 has monthly figures (combined British, Allied, and neutral, submarine and submarine-laid mine) for the first half of 1917, which are approximately correct:

January: 328,391

February: 520,412

March: 564,497

April: 860,334 (all-time monthly high, either war)

May: 616,316

June: 696,725

Any chance of an area limitation on the sinkings?

Also, I would not recommend a Jan-June average as unrestricticted submarine warfare began on February 1, 1917.

The "one in four" reference could be that U-boats were sinking one in four ships sailing to Britain in early 1917 -- which was about right.

Best wishes,

Michael