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Updated: May 7, 2025
Otto Weddigen, whose interesting story was given to the public through the German Admiralty on October 6, as follows: "I set out from a North Sea port on one of the arms of the Kiel canal and set my course in a southwesterly direction. The name of the port I cannot state officially, but it was not many days before the morning of September 22 when I fell in with my quarry.
But on September 22, at 6.30 a.m., a single old-type German craft, the U 9, dealt a staggering blow. With a total of 6 torpedoes Commander Weddigen sank first the Aboukir, and then in quick succession the Hogue and the Cressy, both dead in the water at the work of rescue. The loss of these rather antiquated vessels was less serious than that of over 1400 trained officers and men.
Within a very few minutes, too little time to use their guns against the enemy had they been able to see him, or to lower their boats, the Aboukir sank leaving the crew floundering in the water. In the distance lay the German submarine U-9 one of the earliest of her class in service. From her conning tower Captain Weddigen had viewed the tragedy.
The Germans were not, however, immune in their submarine campaign. H.M.S. Birmingham rammed and sank a German submarine on 6 August, the Badger did the like on 25 October, and U18 was sunk on 23 November; Weddigen himself was rammed, with the loss of his submarine and all on board, later on by the Dreadnought.
The warning, however, had not been taken to heart, and on 22 September the German submarine commander, Otto Weddigen, successively sank the Aboukir, the Hogue, and the Cressy, three old but substantial cruisers on patrol duty off the Dutch coast.
The loss of the U-29, which was commanded by the famous Otto von Weddigen, who commanded the U-9 when she sank the Hogue, Cressy, and Aboukir in September, 1914, was confirmed by a report issued by the German admiralty on April 7, 1915, after rumors of her loss had circulated throughout England and France for a number of weeks.
The British admiralty on March 25, 1915, had announced that the German submarine U-29, one of the most improved craft of the type in use, had been sunk. This loss was admitted by the German admiralty on April 7, 1915. It was a serious loss to the German navy, for its commander was Otto von Weddigen, he who in the U-9, had sent the Cressy, Aboukir and Hogue to the bottom in September, 1914.
It may have been immediately upon the amazing exploit of Captain Weddigen in the North Sea. At any rate the war had not long progressed before the destruction caused by German submarine attacks began to awaken the apprehension of the Allies and neutral nations. Retaliation in kind was impossible. The Germans had neither merchant nor naval ships at sea to be sunk.
The commander of the Cressy, failing to take a lesson from what he had witnessed, now approached, and his ship was also hit by two torpedoes, making the third victim of the German policy of attrition within an hour, and Captain Lieutenant von Weddigen, commander of the U-9, which had done this work, immediately became a German hero.
Brief, however, as had been the appearance of the conning tower, the British put a shell into it and in a few minutes the submarine and most of her crew were at the bottom of the sea. Soon after followed the attack upon and sinking of the three cruisers by the submarine under the command of Lieutenant Commander Otto von Weddigen, the narrative of which we have already told.
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