Max Valentiner
Christian August Maximilian Ahlmann
Valentiner was Imperial Germany’s third highest submarine ace by tonnage
sunk, the first being Kapitänleutnant Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière and the
second Kapitänleutnant Walter Forstmann. Valentiner’s astonishing tally of
destruction was 148 vessels sunk and another seven damaged. He was also highly
decorated, receiving Prussia’s most coveted Pour le Mérite in December
1916.
He was the son of a cathedral provost,
born in Tondern, Schleswig, in 1883 and joined the Kaiserliche Marine
in 1902 as a Seekadett. A great deal more
information is readily available on his pre-war career than most of his
contemporaries. Six years later he was appointed to the newly-established
submarine service. Due to a diving accident, U3 sank in Kiel harbour
in early 1911 and as an Oberleutnant zur See, he, along with two ratings,
were instrument in rescuing her crew. He received a lifesaving award for his
actions in this affair – his third such award by that time!
At the beginning of the Great War, he was
a commanding officer in Kiel’s U-Boat School, but was soon appointed to U3,
in command. Deployed in the Baltic, Valentiner did not acquit himself well,
but is said to have blamed his old, underpowered boat in a face-to-face
confrontation with Großadmiral Heinrich von Preußen.
Whether this occurred as described by Valentiner, instead of being cashiered,
in December 1914, he was then appointed to the newly-commissioned ocean-going
U38 that was based in Emden.
Getting into his stride in the spring of
1915, his early ‘victories’ were over Scandinavian steamers and
sailing-vessels. New experience was gained on June 20th though. During a
North Sea sweep by the Grand Fleet’s 3rd Cruiser Squadron, Valentiner
attempted to sink H.M. Armoured Cruiser Roxburgh. While struck by one
torpedo in her bow, this only reduced her speed and she returned to Rosyth.
Continuing, Valentiner then engaged in the mass destruction of fishing-craft:
mostly drifters. U38’s August patrol to the Irish Sea, northabout and via St. George’s Channel, was stated in
the German official history as the ‘most productive of all the operations of
submarines in the War Zone’. In a rendezvous with U27 in the Irish
Sea, on the 13th, he received verbal instructions to lie off Great Orme Head,
Carnarvonshire, for three nights, with the aim of picking up three escaped
officers from Dyffren Aled camp, Denbigh. This
special operation failed, but on abandoning it, Valentiner returned to the
destruction of unarmed civilian tonnage. In his patrol report, he attributed
much of his success to ‘hazy weather’, although one
armed freighter, a few yachts and other patrol craft hindered this slightly.
He had operated almost at the limits of his boat, burning 80 of the 96 cubic
meters of fuel. In regards to ordnance, he had expended six of the seven
torpedoes; along with 401 of the 430 shells and ten of the twelve explosive
shells for her 8.8 c.m. gun mounted aft. An
advocate of surface action, Valentiner had already suggested the removal of
some internal fittings, in order to also fit a heavier 10.5 c.m gun forward. This was rejected, apparently, by naval
architects.
In September Valentiner requested to be
deployed to the Mediterranean, possibly with the idea of increasing his
personal tally with easier targets. In putting his case, he boasted that he
could sink 50,000 tons on the outbound voyage. In almost attaining this, four
of his attacks should be referred to, especially as the casualty rate in his
actions had, with a few exceptions, been very light indeed up until
this time.
The first two occurred on November 3rd.
In early morning two warning-shots were fired at a transport, Woodfield
that was on her way out to Malta. She turned and ran and although
defensively-armed, only lightly - so was outranged easily. Over a two-hour
chase, the merchantman was hit several times and only abandoned when she was
sinking. It was only after virtually all, crew and passengers, had left her
that U38 stopped shelling, dived and torpedoed her. Still not
succumbing, it took further shelling to finish her off. Something that is not
mentioned in British accounts though was that she was boarded. Unfortunately,
numerous documents useful to the Germans and embarrassing for the British
were captured. Apart from eight merchant mariners killed, there were more
injured that included passengers.
Later that same day the Mercian
that was another transport was attacked by gunfire. Using both speed and
zig-zags (reducing distance travelled), she got away: possibly aided by the
arrival of a patrol-vessel. (At the time of writing no German account of this
attack has been found.) It was estimated that the submarine’s forward gun
fired about 100 shells, of which between twenty and thirty hit the
merchantman: damaging her severely. As far as can be determined, along with
the Mercian’s helmsman on watch, twenty-two passengers in the
Lincolnshire Yeomanry were killed. The wounded totalled 55.
One of a number of sinkings on November
4th was a French trooper, Le Calvados. She was sunk, apparently, by
both gun and torpedo. Of the 800 onboard, 740 perished.
Four days later, on the 8th, Valentiner
then sank the Italian passenger liner Ancona. Following the same
pattern this was a surface attack. Opening in shelling her, U38 was
flying Austro-Hungarian colours and so, created a diplomatic incident:
between the governments of Austro-Hungary and the United States of America.
Since the Ancona turned away and attempted to flee, it would appear,
as in the other recent attacks that the shelling was heavy and may well have
continued after she had stopped and was lowering her lifeboats. A further
inducement to hasten abandonment, by firing into her forward hold, seems to
have actually caused this to cease. Valentiner’s own log shows that he was
impatient and anxious that help might be on the way. So, after a while (times
as reported being vague), he put a torpedo into her hold. Justifying himself,
he, ‘felt it’ his ‘duty to sink the steamer although some passengers were
still onboard because otherwise a precedent would have been created,
according to which if, in spite of orders, crew and passengers do not abandon
ship, it would not be possible to sink any more steamers’.
It is worth noting that it has been stated that over 200 people, including
women and children, died for this rationale.
A word on U38’s gunnery officer
during this period might also be useful. Oberleutnant zur See Hans Hermann
Wendlandt had been in Germany’s Mercantile Marine and at the beginning of the
Great war held the rank of Leutnant zur See der Reserve der Seeoffizierkorps.
However, he had transferred to the Kaiserliche Marine proper and after
submarine training, joined U38 in August 1915. Although he had not done a gunnery course,
he was said by Valentiner to have been an excellent shot. So, some of the
responsibility for the heavy loss of life in some attacks may be attributable
directly to Wendlandt.
While on U38’s next patrol, on
December 30th, there were two more sinkings with heavy loss of life. The
former was of Peninsular and Oriental Line’s Persia that was on
commercial service. On a voyage from London to Bombay, with 201 passengers
that included women and children, along with mail and general cargo, she was
then about 70 miles south of Crete - steaming at 16 (or 16¼) knots in a fine,
but choppy sea. At 1.10 p.m., both the master, William Henry Selby Hall, on
the lower bridge and the second officer, Harold G.S. Wood, on the upper
bridge, saw the wake of a torpedo about four-points (45°) on her port bow,
but it was too close to put the helm over. The torpedo struck her centrally,
abaft the forward funnel, probably causing the port forward boiler to
explode. In all likelihood the 3rd engineer, on watch, had been in the
stokehold and was killed. So, she continued to have weigh on as she took on a
fatally-steep list to port, turned over and sank - in around five minutes.
Even although there were more than enough lifeboats for all onboard, they
were extremely difficult to lower, due to the list. In the short time
available, four were gotten away with 161 people and another three were
launched empty, under the direction of the chief officer, Gerald Clark, in
the hope that people in the water could get into them. Also, as well as
seamen turning to, at least one boat was lowered by stewards, under the
supervision of the baggage master. Some boats were swamped, or capsized.
After she went down, the five then usable lifeboats became overloaded with
survivors. On one of the main shipping routes, vessels were seen passing, but
the survivors’ efforts to attract their attention failed. Eventually, at
about 7 p.m. the following day, those onboard four were rescued by H.M. Sloop
Mallow in an exhausted state and taken to Alexandria. Those in the
fifth boat were rescued separately by the British steamer Ning Chow:
homeward bound from China to London. Of the 501 souls that had been onboard
the Persia only 167 survived – 65 passengers, including only two
children and 102 of her company. Many more perished – 121 passengers and 218
of her crew.
The German official history claimed that
Valentiner sank the Persia because she was an armed transport cannot
be justified. British records indicate that she was one of those armed
temporarily for Mediterranean transits, having had a mounting for one
4.7-inch weapon fitted in Gibraltar.
Bearing in mind the Persia’s relatively-high speed when
compared with U38’s, especially when dived; and the fact that the
attack was put in from ahead of the Persia; Valentiner (or any
of her watchkeeping officers) could not have seen the Persia’s
defensive armament – if mounted. (A press report stated that her
4.7-inch gun had been removed at Gib, along with her two gunners.) Either
way, she could not possibly have been perceived
legitimately as an armed-transport.
Valentiner’s latter torpedoing without
warning that day was of the Clan MacFarlane, at 4 p.m., in the
vicinity of his earlier ‘victory’. In fact, some of the Persia’s
survivors witnessed the demise of this vessel carrying general cargo for
Bombay. The torpedo struck her number five hold, causing her to settle as the
evening’s darkness took hold. The abandonment of her mainly Indian crew was
disciplined and carried out at 5 p.m., in six boats. It was not until after
5.30 p.m. that U38 surfaced, putting about six rounds into the Clan
MacFarlane’s hull to hasten her sinking. On completion, the submarine
drew near to the boats and it would appear that it was Valentiner himself
that carried out the questioning. U38 then left the scene. Unlike
those from the Persia, this merchantmen’s boats remained under her
master’s command and so, as a group made for Crete: under sail. The weather
worsened greatly on January 2nd though and two of the boats were lost sight
of. Four days later, the survivors were picked up by the Crown of Aragon.
The death toll was 52. The German claim of the Clan
MacFarlane having been an armed transport was even weaker. Not only was
she unarmed, other pertinent details would have been given during his
interrogation of the mariners in her lifeboats. Even although German submarine
commanders were allowed considerable leeway in interpreting their
operation-orders, Valentiner was criticized by the Naval War Staff in January
1916. This was for deviating from sinking merchant tonnage, as opposed to
attacking warships, on completion of his primary task. This was in a special
operation to Libya, in support of German efforts to foment revolution against
the British. A second such operation followed from early February to early
March. It would appear that these duties did not constrain him unduly.
Although most of his sinkings were by gunfire causing occasional casualties,
one British defensively-armed steamer, Springwell, was torpedoed
without warning. In this case, there were no fatalities. In all likelihood
this was probably only because she was struck forward, in number one hold and
the crew had the time to abandon and pull away: picked up soon after by an
Admiralty collier, Werribee. In actions
against neutrals, it was not unknown for Valentiner to show some
regard for those whose vessels that were destroyed by his decisions though.
Operating in the Gulf of Lyons, U38 had towed the lifeboats of a
Swedish steamer, Torborg, towards the Spanish coast, following her
demise on February 24th. U38 was transferred to the
so-called Mediterranean Division, based in Constantinople, in May 1916 and
arrived there on the 22nd. After a week of maintenance, she sailed for the
Eastern Black Sea in order to disrupt the Russian military supply line to
Georgia. According to the relevant volume of the German official history,
after setbacks, including being fired upon with comparatively-heavy calibre
weapons by three armed tankers, Valentiner was more successful on June 8th.
One unladen transport was sunk by torpedo, with two more grounded and
destroyed by gunfire. Further Russian vessels were sunk by gun and torpedo,
but no information as to human casualties inflicted was forthcoming. It can
be seen that often the Russian mariners did not give in easily. A second
patrol to the same general area began near the end of the month. Once again
according to the German official history, sighting three steamers escorted by
an armed-yacht on July 2nd, Valentiner torpedoed the lead merchantman and she
exploded. This was due to ammunition detonating. As this happened U38
came under attack from a Russian destroyer and was forced deep. Intending to
go to 20 metres, she hit the bottom at approximately half this depth and
grounded. Depth-charges were dropped, at intervals unmentioned and U38
may also have come under gunfire, but she managed, after time, to slip away.
Valentiner then shifted his operations along the coast to the Poti area,
where there were further spirited actions, with mixed results. The merchantman that was claimed to have
exploded has, seemingly, been identified in other sources as a Briton on
Russian Government service. The Rockcliffe was said to have been
torpedoed on this same date, July 2nd. However, having been abandoned safely
without loss of life, she had to be finished off by the Ottoman battlecruiser
Yavûz Sultân
Selîm, or cruiser Midilli (actually Goeben,
or Breslau that political reasons had been transferred from the Kaiserliche
Marine to the Ottoman Navy) two days later. It has not been possible to resolve this,
as no original British records pertaining to the Rockcliffe’s loss
have been found. Anyway, released to operate in the
actual Mediterranean again in August, Valentiner was ordered to make a
transit to the Western Med, before returning to Cattaro. In proceeding
west, U38 stopped and sank numerous unarmed Italian sailing-vessels
and steamers, as well as a few French and Belgian and one Norwegian, Greek
and British vessel. In continuation of this patrol, especially in the central
Med, while on her way to the Adriatic, the pattern changed somewhat. As and
when defensively-armed steamers were encountered, they were either sunk by
torpedo without warning, such as with the Swift Wings, or gunnery
duels were broken-off and attempts made to torpedo them, as with the Antinous
– both on September 1st. Two were killed from the Swift Wings. The next patrol carried out by U38 from mid-November to late
December 1916, was to be a long-range raid to the waters of the Portuguese
Atlantic Island of Madeira, with Handelskrieg there and back. A
Norwegian steamer, Solvang, was taken as a prize and forced to tow U38
to Funchal. Having arrived, Valentiner’s raid on December 3rd was audacious,
in torpedoing a French gunboat, Surprise; a French tanker, Kangeroo; and a British cable-ship, Dacia
that were all at anchor. At periscope depth, this only took about eleven minutes. Valentiner recorded attitudes towards
foreigners met during this patrol that are similar to numerous other Germans
in their wartime accounts. One of
these relates to the supposed support and loyalty of neutrals – especially
Scandinavians. As the Solvang was being released after the Funchal
raid, her master was portrayed as being childlike in wanting to say goodbye
to the First Watch Officer, Oberleutnant zur See Bruno Heller. The other
attitude was attributed normally to their enemies, particularly officers, but
in this case, was about an American.
(Although the United States was not then at war with Germany,
diplomatic relations had worsened significantly.) Earlier in this patrol, on
November 26th, U38 had held-up and sunk an American steamer, Chemung,
carrying war materiel. Valentiner claimed that the steamer’s master was
hopelessly drunk. Incidentally, if his account was accurate, the Chemung
nearly destroyed U38, since she exploded after three rounds had been
fired into her waterline! While back in Cattaro, he received the Pour
le Mérite in late December 1916. Thus, he joined Lothar Arnauld de la Perière and Walter Forstmann that had already received
it. The next serious incident with a heavy
loss of life was in the sinking of the British steamer Kohinur,
on the 25th May 1917. She was a transport in Indian service that according to
the German official history was in company with an A.M.C., when torpedoed
without warning, about 150 nautical miles north of Alexandria. This was in
error, as the protector was an Arabis-class sloop, Cornflower and she
was escorting a convoy. The Kohinur had been
in ballast on a voyage from Salonica to Karachi and settled rapidly. Cornflower
was conned close to the scene and passed all her Carley floats and lifebelts
to the survivors clinging to the wreckage. One source states
that there were 37 fatalities, but only 36 have been identified elsewhere.
Twenty-six were Lascars; eight were in the British Mercantile Marine; with
one seaman each in the R.N.R., and R.F.R. that presumably, were her gun’s
crew. Continuing, on July 12th a Belgian
steamer, Claire, was torpedoed without warning west of Sardinia. She
had been on passage from Bone, Algeria for Marseilles, carrying iron ore.
There were 22 fatalities that may well have been her entire crew. One week later, in Valentiner’s next
sinking of a steamer, there was a grievous loss of life. The Eloby was a transport in French Governmental
Service. She too was torpedoed without warning, approximately 75 miles
southeast-by-east of Malta, while in a convoy. 56 of her crew were killed,
plus an unknown number of French troops (at least from sources seen),
estimated to have been more than 100. Valentiner’s last patrol on U38,
in August, was cut short due to machinery failure. In consequence, he only
destroyed one vessel. She was a British steamer, Incemore
that was in a convoy south of Sicily. A torpedo attack, she sank in four
minutes, with one life lost. Seemingly, while waiting to join his new
boat, he wrote his first book. It was entitled
300 000 Tonnen versenkt! Meine U-Boots-Fahrten (300,000 tons Sunk! My Submarine
Trips.) Newly commissioned, Valentiner took
command of one of the cruiser boats, U157, on October 2nd 1917. He
only did one patrol on her, although it lasted 139 days: from 1st December
1917 until 15th April 1918. Having sailed from the Baltic and rounded the
Shetland Isles, proceeding southwards and deep in the Atlantic due
west of southern Portugal, a small Portuguese vessel, Lidia, was
stopped and sunk by charge(s) on December 27th. Nothing is mentioned in
German sources so far seen, as to the fate of her crew. The next action was not until the
afternoon of 7th January 1918, about four miles off Cape Bojador,
Rio de Oro. French and German accounts differ significantly, with the latter
downplaying it severely. According to the master of the Oeud
Sebou, a French defensively-armed trooper, fire was opened from the
bearing of a white schooner at long range. Turning away and making for the
shore, the transport then returned fire at about 3,000 metres. U157
remained almost out of the transport’s range and seemingly, in slightly more
than 30 minutes, fired 320 shells and another fifteen shrapnel shells.
Although only hit three times, these caused serious damage and casualties: in
both dead and wounded. Almost out of ammunition, having had 220 rounds,
Captain Suzzoni anchored, evacuated as many as he
could ashore with the surviving ship’s boats while still under fire, before
returning (with the two gunners) for the remaining twenty-odd Senegalese and
the badly wounded wireless-operator still onboard. (It would seem that she
had been taking 133 Senegalese soldiers from Marseilles down to Dakar.) Valentiner had also sent a boarding party
to the Oeud Sebou.
The W/T operator was tended by the submarine’s doctor and put onboard the
schooner, said to be a Spaniard. The rest of the survivors were put onto
rafts and they also made it ashore: although originally the master and
gunners were to be taken prisoner. German accounts maintain that the Oeud Sebou was
then sunk by charges, but this is contradicted by French sources that say she
was finished off the next day, when about 20 corpses were found in the sea.
(The master’s report accounted for 18 Senegalese killed.) The French and
Senegalese survivors’ trials were not over though, as they were then captured
by Moors and held for ransom. It took a month for them to be freed. A Danish steamer, Hulva
Maersk, was stopped and as she had a cargo of peanuts for the French, was
sunk in the same area on January 10th. The next steamer held-up, the next day,
was a Dane. Even although the Norefos was shifting a
similar cargo, as well as rubber, she was taken as a prize, armed and ordered
to rendezvous with U157 about nine days later. Also calling U156
by wireless, a meeting occurred on the 19th. Abandoning an intention of
operating with this other cruiser-boat, Valentiner had the Norefos tow U157 to the Cape Verde Islands.
During this passage, the rubber that was by then in desperate need in
Germany, was taken onboard the submarine. Off the African coast, slipping the
tow on February 8th, the prize-crew was given instructions for another
rendezvous. In spite of the fire-power that
Valentiner could command, he did not seek combat with a north-bound convoy
from Freetown, Sierra Leone, during the ‘dead of night’ of the 10th. This must have been HL 23 that sailed at 5
p.m. on the 9th. It was comprised of eight defensively-armed merchantmen and
escorted by H.M. A.M.C. Ebro. Contrary to a German claim that
Valentiner did not carry out an attack ‘due to the proximity of several
patrol boats’, the Freetown station only had two
whalers as tenders and one boom-defence trawler. (Also, HD 23 had left Dakar
on the 8th, escorted by one A.M.C., but is likely to have been far
further seaward.) Over the following days off Freetown there was a dearth of
targets though and the only one destroyed was a very small Portuguese sailing-vessel,
Estrella da Bissae, with cola nuts, on the
17th. Beginning her return to the Fatherland,
a Greek steamer, Kithira, with more West African produce for the
French, was stopped off Guinea and destroyed in the usual manner. Having met
up with the Norefos again on March 1st, she
too was destroyed. Wireless was employed once again and so, there was a
rendezvous with U152 on the 12th. Near the Canary Isles two days
later, a Spanish steamer, Arpillao, was
boarded and although in ballast was sunk by torpedo on the 15th. The reason
was that her papers made her suspect of being in support of the Allies.
Between then and the 18th three more Spaniards were stopped, without their
destruction. And a Spanish passenger liner, Montevideo, bound for New
York from Cadiz, was stopped off the Moroccan coast on the 19th. In spite of carrying
contraband as she had 360 passengers that included many women, she was
released. The German official history also
credited U157 with a surface attack on an American steamer, Chincha, west of Gibraltar on the 21st. Other
sources attribute it to U154 though. Even if it was not this vessel,
it is likely that U157 was in combat with a defensively-armed
merchantman on this day and that the breech of one of the submarine’s 15-c.m.
guns exploded. Three ratings were killed; two others were injured seriously;
and one more injured slightly. After breaking off this action as the
merchantman was getting away, the dead were committed to the deep. It is not possible with the information
to hand to ascertain why Valentiner was taken off this boat. Even so,
officers within the Admiralstab criticised him for going south to
Freetown, for two reasons. Not only did this upset their tactical deployments
north of the Canaries, Freetown was an area where it was reasoned there was
little chance of success. Anyway, Valentiner ended the war as a lecturer at
the submarine school, Kiel. Information on Valentiner’s life during
and after the interwar period is fragmentary, not infrequently unconfirmed
and sometimes contradictory. At first, he remained in the Reichsmarine
and was not demobilised until 22nd November 1919. On the retired list, he was
promoted to Korvettenkapitän on 21st January 1920. In pursuance of the terms of the Treaty
of Versailles that came into force on 10th January 1920, Valentiner was on a
list of 897 individuals for possible prosecution for war crimes that was
presented to the Germn Government on February 1st. Failing to live up to the
recently signed treaty obligations, the new Reich’s Government refused
to hand them over to any foreign powers. Nevertheless, negotiations resulted
in agreement that a much-reduced list of defendants would be tried in
the Leipzig Supreme Court – under German military law. So, this smaller list
of 45 of which seven were named by the British, was handed over that May.
Valentiner was also on this list. The first twelve trials were conducted from
late-May until mid-July 1921, but the judgments handed down were regarded by
the Allied nations as farcical. In mid-January 1922 the Allied Governments
withdrew their observers in protest. In June the German judiciary took the
decision unilaterally that it would carry on without Allied input. These
proceedings staggered on into the 1930s, but were wound down quietly. Even
the dates as to when this occurred are not clear, although there are snippets
related to specific cases. Described as having been ‘one of the
most ruthless of the German submarine Commanders’ in British documents
submitted, this phrase can be traced back to British Naval Intelligence
interrogations of submariner Prisoners of War. He was ‘charged’ over five
mercantile sinkings. These were the Glenby (British), Persia (British),
Ancona (Italian), Magda (Norwegian) and the Pena Castilla
(Spanish). It had also been realised that Valentiner had probably also been
responsible for the sinking of the Clan Macfarlane and if it could be
proven, as far as the British law officers were concerned, a charge for this
would also be ‘justified’. Valentiner may well have gone on the
run, but no credible evidence has been found to confirm this. It is worth
pointing out that warrants were supposed to have been issued and property
within the Reich sequestrated. Apparently, he became a merchant
variously in Hamburg, Kiel and Breslau though. A second book was published in
1931, with another two years later. Following the Nazi Party’s rise to power,
he joined the Kriegsmarine on a supplementary list, in 1934. He has
been found in the statistics department of the War Ministry between November
1936 and November 1937. A year later he was in the office of the Navy’s High
Command. At a time unknown, but possibly in the late 1930s, he has been said
to have been an instructor in Turkey. As of January 1940, he was appointed a
Group Leader in the Submarine Inspection Command in the Kiel-Danzig area and
with the exception of a period between December 1944 to January 1945, he
remained in this appointment until March 1945. He had previously been
promoted to Kapitän zur See zur Verfügung (essentially available for
appointment) and in the time away from his inspection duties, he was,
apparently, put at the disposal of the Naval High Command East. Valentiner
was discharged on 31st March 1945 and died in Sønderborg, Denmark on the 19th
June 1949. |
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Return to the Merchant Mariners’ War Oberleutnant zur See
Helmut Patzig Kapitänleutnant Rudolf
Schneider Kapitänleutnant Walter
Schwieger Kapitänleutnant Otto
Steinbrinck Kapitänleutnant
Wilhelm Werner |