A surrendered and beached german submarine, portsmouth
the location shown is portsmouth harbour, specifically the mudflats north-west of fountain lake and west of whale island, at high tide. The admiralty floating dock afd 5 (1912) can be seen to the right of the submarine's conning tower and rudmore gas holder is on the left. This submarine is identified as u131 on a related drawing (paf2084) but this must be wrong, since u131 was broken up incomplete in 1919-20 at bremen. Technically possible alternatives might be u117 - u126, u139 - u141 and u160 - u167. Of these three groups, u139-u141 have the closest match to the bow shape but they had a second 5. 9-inch gun abaft the conning tower and there is no indication of a projecting casing for it. There is also no obvious record of a u-boat being beached or stranded at portsmouth in 1918-19 prior to being broken up, so this may be an imaginary composite rather than an on-the-spot study. See also paf2084 and paf2211. Date: circa 1918. Dimensions: Sheet: 324 x 453 mm. Medium: watercolour. Collection: Fine art.
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