Paul Schultz doc By U-boat Through the World's Oceans (Great War at Sea)

Paul Schultz has left us an indelible image of, as he describes, “submarine driving” from the perspective of the affectionately classed Other Ranks, i.e. not a commissioned officer. Most submarine memoirs are by former commanding officers who see events unfolding via periscope or conning tower and execute the cerebral work of submarine duty. Stationed in the engine room, Machinist’s Mate Schultz’s work is physically arduous, occasionally leaving his mind free to consider the situation he is in and the unseen events unfolding outside the submarine. His world is one of reacting to commands. Tending the engines and motors of a submarine was extremely tiring work due to the temperamental nature of the equipment, particularly the engines and in particular the engines on the boats he was stationed on and the concomitant working conditions. In historical terms were are fortunate for Paul having served on three interesting submarines, U 21, U-Deutschland, and U 155. Each submarine and its commander is in some form a pioneer of German submarine accomplishments. U 21 gained fame for success off the Dardanelles in 1915, U-Deutschland as well for novel merchant submarine voyages in 1916 and U 155 operated as a U-Cruiser in 1917 and 1918, foreshadowing the long range submarine operations of the later period. His memoir is chock-full of tales of adventure, humor, fear, tension, constant bone grinding fatigue and the unexpected. Paul’s memoir is quite human in dealing with others; we see concern towards family, honor towards a fallen enemy, empathy for fellow humans, formerly enemies, in anguish when certain death in present. The work is at present the most interesting and genuine Other Ranks memoir. There is minimal patriotic talk and the text is immensely useful anyone interested in naval, submarine, Great War, etc. memoirs, operational, technology and social history.As per custom, footnotes have been added clarifying or adding context to relevant sections. These notes tend to detail vessels attacked and since U 155 primarily attacked surfaced and the author provided more eye witness testimony of these events, the majority of the notes deal with period U 155 was in combat. Events in the text have been verified with other sources where possible. Individual names from the vanquished are noted where possible keeping with the personal nature of the warfare experienced.The text has been translated to provide the closest measure of the man, the author. Photographs from the original edition have not been included. There are no other omissions. Any errors in translation are entirely of my own.Paul Schultz survived the war and faded from history. Fortunately he is very much alive in this work.