SM UB - 5 SM " UB - 5 " was a German Type UB I submarine or U - boat in the German Imperial Navy ( ) during World War I . She sank five ships during her career and was broken up in Germany in 1919 . " UB - 5 " was ordered in October 1914 and was laid down at the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel in November . " UB - 5 " was a little more than in length and displaced between , depending on whether surfaced or submerged . She carried two torpedo es for her two bow torpedo tube s and was also armed with a deck - mounted machine gun . " UB - 5 " was broken into sections and shipped by rail to Antwerp for reassembly . She was launched and commissioned there as SM " UB - 5 " in March 1915 . " UB - 5 " was initially assigned to the Flanders Flotilla in March 1915 and sank five British ships of under the command of Wilhelm Smiths . The U - boat was assigned to the Baltic Flotilla in October 1915 , and relegated to a training role from September 1916 . At the end of the war , " UB - 5 " was deemed unseaworthy and unable to surrender at Harwich with the rest of Germany ' s U - boat fleet . She remained in Germany where she was broken up by Dräger at Lübeck , Germany , in 1919 . Design and construction . 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 environment off Flanders . Project 34 , a design effort begun in mid - August 1914 , produced the Type UB I design : a small submarine that could be shipped by rail to a port of operations and quickly assembled . Constrained by railroad size limitations , the UB I design called for a boat about long and displacing about with two torpedo tube s . " UB - 5 " was part of the initial allotment of eight submarines — numbered to — ordered on 15 October from Germaniawerft of Kiel , just shy of two months after planning for the class began . " UB - 5 " was laid down by Germaniawerft in Kiel on 22 November . As built , " UB - 5 " was long , abeam , and had a draft of . She had a single Daimler 4 - cylinder diesel engine for surface travel , and a single Siemens - Schuckert electric motor for underwater travel , both attached to a single propeller shaft . Her top speeds were , surfaced , and , submerged . At more moderate speeds , she could sail up to on the surface before refueling , and up to submerged before recharging her batteries . Like all boats of the class , " UB - 5 " was rated to a diving depth of , and could completely submerge in 33 seconds . " UB - 5 " was armed with two torpedo es in two bow torpedo tube s . She was also outfitted for a single machine gun on deck . " UB - 5 " s standard complement consisted of one officer and thirteen enlisted men . After work on " UB - 5 " was complete at the Germaniwerft yard , " UB - 5 " was readied for rail shipment . The process of shipping a UB I boat involved breaking the submarine down into what was essentially a knock down kit . Each boat was broken into approximately fifteen pieces and loaded on to eight railway flatcar s . In early 1915 , the sections of " UB - 5 " were shipped to Antwerp for assembly in what was typically a two - to three - week process . After " UB - 5 " was assembled and launched sometime in March , she was loaded on a barge and taken through canals to Bruges where she underwent trials . Service career . The submarine was commissioned into the German Imperial Navy as SM " UB - 5 " on 25 March under the command of " Oberleutnant zur See " Wilhelm Smiths , a 28 - year - old first - time U - boat commander . " UB - 5 " soon joined the other UB I boats then comprising the Flanders Flotilla ( ) , which had been organized on 29 March . When " UB - 5 " joined the flotilla , Germany was in the midst of its first submarine offensive , begun in February . During this campaign , enemy vessels in the German - defined war zone ( ) , which encompassed all waters around the United Kingdom ( including the English Channel ) , were to be sunk . Vessels of neutral countries were not to be attacked unless they definitively could be identified as enemy vessels operating under a false flag . The UB I boats of the Flanders Flotilla were initially limited to patrols in the Hoofden , the southern portion of the North Sea between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands . " UB - 4 " made the first sortie of the flotilla on 9 April , and " UB - 5 " departed on her first patrol soon after . On 15 April , from the North Hinder lightship , " UB - 5 " scored her first success when she torpedoed and sank the British steamer " Ptarmigan " . The 784 - ton steamer was carrying a general cargo from Rotterdam to London when she went down with the loss of eight crewmen . After " UB - 5 " s sister boat pioneered a route around past British anti - submarine net s and mine s in the Straits of Dover in late June , boats of the flotilla began to patrol the western English Channel . , " UB - 5 " , and soon followed with patrols in the Channel , but were hampered by fog and bad weather . Even though none of the boats sank any ships , by successfully completing their voyages they helped further prove the feasibility of defeating the British countermeasures in the Straits of Dover . On 13 and 14 August , while patrolling in Lowestoft – Cromer area , " UB - 5 " sank four British fishing smack s with a combined tonnage of just over , the largest being " Sunflower " and " J . W . F . T . " , each of . All four of the smacks — sailing vessels traditionally rigged with red ochre sails — were stopped , boarded by crewmen from " UB - 5 " , and sunk with explosives . These were the last ships " UB - 5 " sank during the war . Germany ' s submarine offensive was suspended on 18 September by the chief of the " Admiralstab " , Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff , In response to American demands after the sinking of the Cunard Line steamer in May 1915 and other high profile sinkings in August and September . Holtzendorff ' s directive from ordered all U - boats out of the English Channel and the South - Western Approaches and required that all submarine activity in the North Sea be conducted strictly along prize regulations . Shortly after this cessation , " UB - 5 " was transferred to the Baltic Flotilla ( ) on 9 October . Boats of the Baltic flotilla were based at either Kiel , Danzig , or Libau , but where " UB - 5 " was stationed during this time is not reported in sources . On 21 September 1916 , " UB - 5 " was transferred to training duties . According to authors R . H . Gibson and Maurice Prendergast , submarines assigned to training duties were " war - worn craft " unfit for service . At the end of the war , the Allies required all German U - boats to be sailed to Harwich for surrender . " UB - 5 " was one of eight U - boats deemed unseaworthy and allowed to remain in Germany . " UB - 5 " was broken up by Dräger at Lübeck in 1919 .