The German Navy above and below the surface. A poem on the reverse touts that although the submarine is hard to spot (and fire upon), images of surface ships, as bright as mirrors, are projected within the submarine.
Unsere MarineOur NavyReverse:Das Unterseeboot, uns'rer Feinde Schrecken,Ist für das schärfste Rohr kaum zu entdecken,Doch wird ihm selbst als helles SpiegelbildIn weitem Umkreis jedes Schiff enthülit.The submarine, our enemies terror,Is hard for the sharpest gun barrel to discover,But it reveals each shipAs a bright mirror image of wide radius.Ge. gesch. Nachdruck verbotenReproduction prohibitedPostmarked November 24, 1914.
"The Germans had 105 U-boats available on 1 February [1917]. They were deployed as follows: High Sea Fleet, 46; Flanders, 23; Mediterranean, 23; Kurland (Baltic), 10; and Constantinople, 3. Thanks to new construction, and despite losses, U-boat strength rose steadily to a peak of 129 on 1 June; for the remainder of the year it did not fall below 120, ending the year at 125. The U-boat construction program itself remained plagued by difficulties, exacerbated by the severe winter of 1916–1917, which brought shortages of coal, difficulties in transport, and poor morale among workers."
Summary of deployment of its U-boat fleet on February 1, 1917 when Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, in an attempt to starve Great Britain. The winter of 1916–1917 — Germany's 'Turnip Winter' — was bitterly cold, and the shortages of coal, difficulties in transport, and poor morale struck France, Germany, and Russia.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, pp. 338–339, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
1917-02-12, 1917, February, U-boat, submarine, submarine periscope
