Following a blissful family holiday in Kilkeel in the 1950s, I often go back to the County Down fishing village to reminisce and my enduring memory is of multi-coloured fishing boats packed into the little harbour.

After a recent, evocative, return-trip I discovered that the town’s fishing fleet was virtually wiped out by a marauding German U-Boat during WWI.

In Banbridge-writer Doreen McBride’s ‘Little Book of County Down’, amongst stories about interesting people and places in the area, I read that the attack on the fishing boats occurred on 30 May 1918.

Fortunately no one was injured.

Doreen’s book contains gripping details taken from the memoirs of Tommy Doonan who owned one of the Kilkeel boats called Never Can Tell.

On that fateful day he “sighted a submarine surfacing” near

the fishing boats accompanying him, some with wonderful names like Sparkling Wave, Honey Bee and Marianne McCrum.

At first Tommy presumed the U Boat wasn’t interested in the little Kilkeel fleet.

Then it “fired six shots across our bows”!

The U Boat came alongside Never Can Tell and the German Commander shouted, “have you any guns?”

The Kileel men collectively replied “No!” and the Commander announced, not very comfortingly, “we’re coming on board.”

The German submariners boarded Never Can Tell, deposited explosives in the hold, and took the Kilkeel men onto their U Boat.

“When we were all aboard,” recounted Tommy, “and it didn’t take long because there was plenty of encouragement in our hold - we were mustered with hands above our heads, alongside the conning tower.”

The submarine then took the rest of the Kilkeel fishermen off their boats and blew up each little vessel.

“With every sinking our spirits went down,” recalled Tommy.

When there was only one boat left - the Moss Rose - the Germans put all the Kilkeel fishermen onto it and sent them on their way home.

“It appears that the U-Boat Commander went out of his way to ensure the safety of the fishermen,” Doreen McBride commented in her book.

Amazingly, some of the U-Boat crew were members of a pre-WWI touring music group which had performed around Kilkeel and they’d been very well looked after.

“They received the hospitality and friendliness for which the people of Mourne are famous,” Doreen added, “perhaps that’s why the fishermen’s lives were spared.”

According to German wartime records, on 30 May 1918 UB 64, commanded by Otto von Schrader, attacked a fleet of fishing boats some 12 to 15 miles off Kilkeel.

The U Boat was particularly successful during WWI.

Launched in Hamburg in June 1917 it sank nearly 30 allied ships - around 34,000 tons.

It also damaged four allied ships and captured several others.

Kilkeel’s fishing fleet had unluckily encountered a very dangerous enemy!

She was type UB III, of which 96 were commissioned by the German navy.

UB 64 was about 50 metres long, around 700 tons with a top speed of eight to 10 knots.

She must have been a terrifying spectacle for the Kilkeel men in their tiny fishing boats, none much over 30 tons!

UB 64 had a crew of around 34 and could dive to almost 250 feet.

She carried 10 torpedoes and the gun that fired across Tommy Doonan’s defenceless bows was an 88 mm weapon capable of firing a dozen shells in as many seconds!

And the Kilkeel fishing boats weren’t the only local vessels that UB 64 encountered.

On 19 July 1918 the German submarine severely damaged the Oceanic Steam Navigation’s Justicia near Skerryvore, off the west coast of Scotland.

Justica was a 32,234-ton vessel built by Harland and Wolff and launched on the Lagan in 1913.

Four days after attacking Justica, on 23 Jul 1918, UB 64 sank the luxurious P and O liner Marmora off the south coast of Ireland.

Ten British crew died in that attack.

Marmora was a 10,509 tons armed merchant cruiser built in 1903 by Harland and Wolff.

Not only was UB 64 a well-armed and extremely dangerous submarine, but her commander, Kapitänleutnant Otto von Schrader, was a highly decorated German officer.

Born on 18 Mar 1888 in East Prussia he became a submarine officer in his early 20s, and later the German equivalent of a Vice Admiral and Admiral during WWII.

He was also awarded many wartime medals including the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany.

As the Commander of half a dozen U Boats during WWI, he was personally credited with the sinking of 57 ships, a total of 54,655 tons, and damaging a further six ships.

Under the command of another officer, UB 64 surrendered on 21 Nov 1918.

Schrader was taken prisoner of war in Norway towards the end of WWII and committed suicide in 1945.

Doreen McBride’s book is available at www.thehistorypress.ie