Blog

SUCCESSES
12 ships sunk with a total of 16,746 GRT
1 warship sunk with a total of 10,850 tons
2 ships damaged with a total of 3,744 GRT
1 ship taken as prize with a total of 1,700 GRT

Born: May 21, 1885 in Hildesheim
Died: September 27, 1918, east of the Orkney Islands

RANKS
April 6, 1904: Seekadett
April 11, 1905: Fähnrich zur See
September 28, 1907: Leutnant zur See
September 5, 1909: Oberleutnant zur See
October 17, 1915: Kapitänleutnant

DECORATIONS
Iron Cross, 2nd class 1915
Iron Cross, 1st class 1917
Friedrich-August Cross (Oldenburg)

U-BOAT COMMANDS
U 75 – March 26, 1916 – May 1, 1917
U 98 – May 31, 1917 – November 24, 1917
U 102 – November 26, 1917 – September 27, 1918 (+)

NOTES
Serving as CO of U 75 and U 102, Beitzen was not one of these men that would become a top-scorer in the U-boat war. However there is one story that gives him his place in history:

On May 29, 1916, Beitzen had laid a 38-piece minefield with U 75 just outside the entrance of Scapa Flow and off Marwick Head in the Orkneys. His task was to interfere with the British concentration of ships prior to the Battle of the Jutland.

One week later, soon detached from her destroyer escort, the HMS Hampshire left Scapa for Archangel, Russia as the situation on the Eastern Front became critical… and the ship was to play a crucial part in the fight. On board, she had Field Marshal Lord Horatio Kitchener and his general staff. They were to turn the tide of the war in Russia.

Only ten miles outside Scapa Flow at 7:40 P.M. on June 5, 1916, the armored cruiser ran on one of Beitzen’s mines in foul weather and sank in fifteen minutes, leaving only twelve survivors. Great Britain’s most famous military leader and a legend in his own time was never seen again.

News of Kitchener’s death hit London the next day. It was unbelievable to the British hierarchy, because the mission to Russia was a closely-guarded secret. Rumors soon thickened from being captured by the Germans to being kidnapped out of England. As a result, nothing was to stop Russia from defeat and revolution!

Beitzen later went on to command U 102, which was lost with all hands in late September 1918 in the northern barrage east of the Orkney Islands as defeat was seemingly imminent. The wreck of U 102 was located during a sonar sweep in 2006 and positively identified by divers in 2007.