Deck Gun U19

[Seebhom]

PJM (WRF Member)- Posted pictures of U19 on the thread - Imperial Elks - the message was titled "Here's one of mine".

My point: I live in Bangor, Northern Ireland, and the local war memorial has a deck gun attributed to U19. However I note that there are some differences to the one here and the pictures posted by PJM. The gun here has a more sophisticated mounting, a longer barrel and operating mechanisms. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts.

Thanks

I apologize for not knowing how to post directly onto PJM's post and I hope PJM picks this up and can post pictures here for comparison.

[pjm]

The plaque identifies the boat as the UB-19, not the U-19. That was a different class submarine entirely.

The U-19 was launched in October 1912. It was surrendered to the British in November 1918 and was broken up at Blyth, circa 1920. The UB-19 was launched in September 1915 and sunk by the Q Ship Penhurst in November 1916.

There seems to be some confusion here. My thought is that the plaque wrongly identifies the source of the gun. Since the UB-19 was sunk, it's unlikely the gun came from that boat. The scrapped boat would be the logical source of the gun. It would seem that the probable scenario would be that the U-19 upgraded its gun at some point, circa 1916 or later. It may well be that there was a mistake made in the boat's designation when the gun was presented to Bangor.

The Krupp gun now in Bangor was produced in 1916. It's obviously a modern and efficient gun with better range, etc. compared to one pictured in the images I posted.

A little more research about the type of gun and its development might reveal that it replaced older guns on ships and boats already in service. Naval Engineering Officer Boehler, the source of my photo albums, was assigned to the U-19 at the beginning of the war. He was on board when the boat was rammed by HMS Badger in October 1914 and when the U-19 delivered Sir John Casement to Tralee Bay in April 1916 . Later he served on other boats including the U-35, UB-76, and U-105.

Since the photos of the U-19 show the boat's original old gun, I presume he was no longer serving on U-19 when it was refitted with the new one. I'll look through the albums again to see if there are indeed pictures of the later weapon.