SM UB-45

SM UB-45 was a Type UB II submarine or U-boat built for and operated by the German Imperial Navy (German: Kaiserliche Marine) during World War I. UB-45 operated in the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, and was sunk by a mine in November 1916.

UB-45 was ordered in July 1915 and was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen in September. UB-45 was about 37 metres (121 ft 5 in) in length and displaced between 270 and 305 tonnes (266 and 300 long tons), depending on whether surfaced or submerged. She was equipped to carry a complement of four torpedoes for her two bow torpedo tubes and had an 5-centimeter (2.0 in) deck gun. As part of a group of six submarines selected for Mediterranean service, UB-45 was broken into railcar-sized components and shipped to Pola where she was assembled and then launched and commissioned in May 1916.

In five patrols in her six-month career, UB-45 sank four ships of 15,361 gross register tons (GRT). In early November 1916, UB-45 was departing from the base at Varna, Bulgaria, when the U-boat struck a mine and sank rapidly. Fifteen of the twenty men on board were killed in the attack; one of the five crewmen rescued from UB-45 later died from his injuries. UB-45's wreck was located and raised by the Bulgarian Navy in the 1930s with an eye toward rebuilding the submarine. Engineers from AG Weser determined that restoration of the submarine was feasible, but this was never accomplished. Remains recovered from the wreck were buried in Varna after a funeral procession through town in November 1938.