Peterhead Bay; trawlers and U Boats

Peterhead harbour in the rain. You would be forgiven for thinking that the two large ships are small cruise boats but they are in fact super-trawlers. It is a bit of a wonder that there are any fish left in the sea!

In the far, far distance, across Peterhead Bay, you might just make out the tower of the lighthouse at Boddam. What you can't see are the two German U Boats that lie at the bottom of the sea a few miles offshore from Peterhead Bay.

In June 1915, U14 sank a number of local fishing boats. This upset the locals considerably, so much so that they set a trap, using a local fishing boat as bait. When U14 surfaced to attack, a shot from the armed trawler Oceanic II hit the conning tower and killed the captain. The crew surrendered, and the U14 sank.

In 1945 U1206 met a more embarrassing end after her captain flushed the toilet. U1206 had a complicated system of of valves that allowed the toilet to be flushed in deep water. Only one specially trained seaman was allowed to operate it. However, the captain was a proud and independent man who had read the manual! Unfortunately, he got the valve sequence wrong. Water flooded in and hit the boat's batteries releasing poisonous chlorine gas. U1206 had to surface, where she was spotted and bombed and the crew scuttled her and took to the life rafts. Some were picked up by naval trawlers and others were rescued by the crew of the Peterhead lobster boat "Reaper". The last raft washed up near to the Boddam lighthouse. Three of the crew were drowned in the heavy seas.

Extra. Autumn wouldn't be complete without a bunch of puffball mushrooms Lycoperdon perlatum. You might not want to know this, but  Lycoperdon translates as a wolf's fart, while perlatum simply means widespread.