The Haunting Of UB-65

He stood on the deck, arms folded, wearing an officer’s overcoat. The sea was rough in the English Channel and he was drenched with spray. His name was Lieutenant Richter. The crew member was amazed to see anyone standing there in those rough seas and puzzled. How did the officer get out on deck when all the hatches were securely battened down? The officer turned and gazed at the crew member. Yes, it was certainly Lieutenant Richter. There was just one problem.

Lieutenant Richter was dead. He had been dead for over a month and was buried in the naval cemetery at Wilhelmshaven!

Richter had been the second officer of UB65 and he was killed in an explosion aboard the ship. The frightened crewman yelled out “it’s the ghost”. The captain came running and he too saw the dead officer before the figure just melted away into nothingness.

It would seem that UB65 was doomed from the very start. She was part of a fleet of U-Boats built in 1916. Her crew would be made up of three officers and 31 seamen. She got the reputation of being a jinxed  ship very early on. Only a week into her construction a heavy girder fell from its chains and crashed down killing one worker instantly and crushing another so badly he died within an hour. Before she was even launched there was another accident, this time in the engine room. Three men were overcome by fumes and died before they could be saved.

A seaman was washed overboard and drowned on her trial run. Undergoing diving tests, she sank to the bottom and it was many hours before she could be brought to the surface. By that time the air was so thick with poisonous fumes that the crew staggered out more dead than alive.

Then Lieutenant Richter met his death. They were taking aboard torpedoes when a warhead exploded and he was killed and seven others badly injured. The Lieutenant was buried with full military honours and the U-Boat was taken into dry dock for repair.

Some weeks later, she was ready for service. Before they put to sea a horrified crew member rushed into the captain’s cabin, white and shaking “Herr Ober-Leutnant, the dead officer is on board!” The captain thought that the man was drunk but the seaman insisted that not only he but another crew member had seen Richter walk up the gangplank. The Captain immediately went to find the other witness who was crouching against the conning tower and could hardly speak. He confirmed that he had seen Richter come aboard, walk towards the bows and stand there with arms folded for a few minutes before melting away.

The captain had to maintain morale. He put the whole thing down to a practical joke played by other members of the crew. The men were not convinced. By now everyone knew that the ship was haunted. Nobody wanted to serve on her, men asked to be transferred. Things got so bad that a high-ranking naval officer was sent to investigate. At first he believed none of it, called it utter nonsense., but after hearing all the evidence he was so impressed that he admitted he could understand requests by nearly every member of the crew to transfer to another vessel. Officially, the transfers were never granted, but one by one men were switched.

For a while UB65 was withdrawn from service. Keeping it very quiet, the naval authorities had a Lutheran pastor quietly taken aboard to carry out an exorcism.

Back to sea she went and for the next two tours of duty everything remained quiet. Then a new captain was appointed and the spirit of Richter reappeared.

In May of 1918 the UB65 was patrolling the English Channel and the coast of Spain. Richter was seen several times. A petty officer swore he saw an unfamiliar office walk into the torpedo room and never come out. When he went in to find out who it was  - there was nobody there. There were further sightings and after one, the torpedo gunner went insane. He screamed that the ghost would not leave him alone. He threw himself overboard and his body was never recovered.

Eventually the end came. On the tenth of July 1918 an American submarine was cruising off the south coast of Ireland. The commander, Lieutenant Forster, noticed something in the water. Moving slowly closer to examine it was he realized it was a German sub. It was the UB65, she was listing heavily and seemed to have been badly damaged. Forster immediately suspected a trap, that the U-Boat was acting as a “lure”. He decided the best thing to do was to sink it immediately. However, before his crew even had the time to line up a shot, the UB65 blew apart. Metal fragments flew everywhere, she rose on her bows and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic. There were no survivors.

The cause of the explosion that finally killed the UB65 was never established. Some said she had been in a collision with another sub. Main opinion thought that there had been an explosion in the torpedo room. If a torpedo had exploded whilst being loaded into the tube, it would have detonated all the others.

However, there was one last mystery that could never be solved. Whilst his men were lining up the shot intended to sink the U-Boat, Lieutenant Forster kept his sights trained on her. He was adamant that he saw someone on deck before the ship exploded, some wearing an officer’s overcoat, someone in the bows with arms folded.

Richter obviously did not want to leave his ship. Was he really an omen of death or just an officer wanting to fulfil his unfinished duty? He certainly accompanied his fellow crew members into the great unknown. No bodies of the crew were ever found.