Controlling the sea was key to winning the battles of the First Great War. Moving troops and supplies by sea was vital. The battle for control of the seas led to new deadly tactics and terrifying war at sea where thousands of sailors, soldiers, passengers, and crews were sent to the bottom of the sea.
Here’s a rare collection of amazing photos of the World War I at sea.
A German U-boat stranded on the South Coast of England, after surrender.
Keystone View Company
The former German submarine UB 148 at sea, after having been surrendered to the Allies. UB-148, a small coastal submarine, was laid down during the winter of 1917 and 1918 at Bremen, Germany.
(US National Archives)
Interior view of a British Navy submarine under construction, Clyde and Newcastle.
(Nationaal Archief)
Evacuation of Suvla Bay, Dardanelles, Gallipoli Peninsula, on January 1916.
(Bibliotheque nationale de France)
In the Dardanelles, the allied fleet blows up a disabled ship that interfered with navigation.
(Bibliotheque nationale de France)
The British Aircraft Carrier HMS Argus. Converted from an ocean liner, the Argus could carry 15-18 aircraft. Commissioned at the very end of WWI, the Argus did not see any combat.
(National World War I Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, USA)
United States Marines and Sailors posing on unidentified ship (likely either the USS Pennsylvania or USS Arizona), in 1918.
(National World War I Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, USA)
A mine is dragged ashore on Heligoland, in the North Sea, on October 29, 1918.
(U.S. national Archives)
A Curtiss Model AB-2 airplane catapulted off the deck of the USS North Carolina on July 12, 1916. The first time an aircraft was ever launched by catapult from a warship while underway was from the North Carolina on November 5, 1915.
(US Navy)
The USS Fulton (AS-1), an American submarine tender painted in Dazzle camouflage, in the Charleston South Carolina Navy Yard on November 1, 1918.
(US Navy)
Men on deck of a ship removing ice. Original caption: “On a winters morning returning from France”.
(National World War I Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, USA)
The Rocks of Andromeda, Jaffa, and transports laden with war supplies headed out to sea in 1918. This image was taken using the Paget process, an early experiment in color photography.
(Frank Hurley/State Library of New South Wales)
Landing a 155 mm gun at Sedd-el Bahr. Warships near the Gallipoli Penninsula, Turkey during the Gallipoli Campaign.
(Library of Congress)
Sailors aboard the French cruiser Amiral Aube pose for a photograph at an anvil attached to the deck.
(Library of Congress)
The German battleship SMS Kaiser on parade for Kaiser Wilhelm II at Kiel, Germany, circa 1911-14.
(U.S. National Archives)
British submarine HMS A5. The A5 was part of the first British A-class of submarines, used in World War I for harbor defense. The A5, however, suffered an explosion only days after its commissioning in 1905, and did not participate in the war.
(Library of Congress)
U.S. Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., the Big Gun section of the shops, in 1917.
(Library of Congress)
A cat, the mascot of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, walks along the barrel of a 15-inch gun on deck, in 1915.
(Bibliotheque nationale de France)
The USS Pocahontas, a U.S. Navy transport ship, photographed in Dazzle camouflage, in 1918.
(San Diego Air and Space Museum)
Last minute escape from a vessel torpedoed by a German sub. The vessel has already sunk its bow into the waves, and her stern is slowly lifting out of the water. Men can be seen sliding down ropes as the last boat is pulling away. Ca. 1917.
(NARA/Underwood & Underwood/U.S. Army)
The Burgess Seaplane, a variant of the Dunne D.8, a tailless swept-wing biplane, in New York, being used by the New York Naval Militia, ca 1918.
(Library of Congress)
German submarines in a harbor, the caption, in German, says “Our U-Boats in a harbor”. Front row (left to right): U-22, U-20 (the sub that sank the Lusitania), U-19 and U-21. Back row (left to right): U-14, U-10 and U-12.
(Library of Congress)
The USS New Jersey (BB-16), a Virginia-class battleship, in camouflage coat, ca 1918.
(US Navy)
Launching a torpedo, British Royal Navy, 1917.
(Bibliotheque nationale de France)
British cargo ship SS Maplewood under attack by German submarine SM U-35 on April 7, 1917, 47 nautical miles/87 km southwest of Sardinia.
(Deutsches Bundesarchiv)
Crowds on a wharf at Outer Harbour, South Australia, welcoming camouflaged troop ships bringing men home from service overseas, circa 1918.
(State Library of South Australia)
The German cruiser SMS Emden, beached on Cocos Island in 1914.
(State Library of New South Wales)
The German battle cruiser Seydlitz burns in the Battle of Jutland, May 31, 1916.
(AP-Photo)
Surrender of the German fleet at Harwich, on November 20, 1918.
(Bibliotheque nationale de France)
German Submarine “U-10” at full speed
(Library of Congress)
Imperial German Navy’s battle ship SMS Schleswig-Holstein fires a salvo during the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916 in the North Sea.
(AP Photo)
“Life in the Navy”, Fencing aboard a Japanese battleship, ca 1910-15.
(Library of Congress)
The “Leviathan”, formerly the German passenger liner “Vaterland”, leaving Hoboken, New Jersey, for France. The hull of the ship is covered in Dazzle camouflage. In the spring and summer of 1918, Leviathan averaged 27 days for the round trip across the Atlantic, carrying 12,000 soldiers at a time.
(U.S. Army Signal Corps)
Portside view of the camouflaged USS K-2 (SS-33), a K-class submarine, off Pensacola, Florida on April 12, 1916.
(U.S. Navy)
The complex inner machinery of a U.S. Submarine, amidships, looking aft.
(Library of Congress)
The Zeebrugge Raid took place on April 23, 1918.
(National Archive/Official German Photograph of WWI)
Allied warships at sea, a seaplane flyby, 1915.
(Bibliotheque nationale de France)
Russian battleship Tsesarevich, a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy, docked, ca. 1915.
(Library of Congress)
The British Grand Fleet under admiral John Jellicoe on her way to meet the Imperial German Navy’s fleet for the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea on May 31, 1916.
(AP Photo)
HMS Audacious crew board lifeboats to be taken aboard RMS Olympic, October, 1914. The Audacious was a British battleship, sunk by a German naval mine off the northern coast of Donegal, Ireland.
(CC BY SA Nigel Aspdin)
Wreck of the SMS Konigsberg, after the Battle of Rufiji Delta. The German cruiser was scuttled in the Rufiji Delta Tanzania River, navigable for more than 100 km before emptying into the Indian Ocean about 200 km south of Dar es Salaam.
(Deutsches Bundesarchiv)
Troop transport Sardinia, in dazzle camouflage, at a wharf during World War I.
(Australian National Maritime Museum/Samuel J. Hood Studio Collection)
The Russian flagship TSAREVITCH passing HMS VICTORY, ca. 1915.
(Library of Congress)
German submarine surrendering to the US Navy.
(Library of Congress)
Sinking of the German Cruiser SMS Bluecher, in the Battle of Dogger Bank, in the North Sea, between German and British dreadnoughts, on January 24, 1915.
(U.S. National Archives)
Via The Atlantic