SM UB-14

SM UB-14 was a German Type UB I submarine or U-boat in the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) during World War I. The submarine was also known by the Austro-Hungarian Navy designation of SM U-26. UB-14 was ordered in October 1914 and was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen in November. UB-14 was a little under in length and displaced between , depending on whether surfaced or submerged. She carried two torpedoes for her two bow torpedo tubes and was also armed with a deck-mounted machine gun. UB-14 was broken into sections and shipped by rail to the Austrian port Pola for reassembly. She was launched and commissioned in March 1915 as SM UB-14 in the German Imperial Navy under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Heino von Heimburg. Because Germany and Italy were not yet at war when UB-14 entered service, she was transferred in name only to the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The submarine retained her German captain and crew, and remained under German command as a part of the Kaiserliche Marines Pola Flotilla. During her first patrol in the Adriatic, UB-14 torpedoed and sank the . While traveling to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) to join the Constantinople Flotilla, UB-14 attacked two British troopships, sinking with heavy loss of life, and seriously damaging . All three of UB-14s first victims were among the largest ships attacked by U-boats during the war. Although UB-14 sank the British submarine in the Sea of Marmara in November 1915, she spent most of the rest of her career patrolling in the Black Sea. The U-boat had only limited success there, sinking only three ships through the end of the war. After the war ended, the submarine was disarmed at Sevastopol and scuttled off that port in early 1919. After the German Army's rapid advance along the North Sea coast in the earliest stages of World War I, the German Imperial Navy found itself without suitable submarines that could be operated in the narrow and shallow seas off Flanders.