Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière

Arnauld de la Perière remained in the German Navy (Reichsmarine) after the war ended. During World War II, he was recalled to active duty as a rear admiral, and was killed in a plane crash near Paris in 1941.

First World War

Arnauld de la Perière entered the

At the outbreak of the First World War, Arnauld de la Perière served as an adjutant to admiral Hugo von Pohl in Berlin. Upon the mobilization, he was transferred to an active post where he served in the Marine-Luftschiff-Abteilung. In 1915, Arnauld de la Perière transferred to the U-boats. After a course in Pula, he was given command of the U-35 in November 1915. He made 14 voyages with the U-35 during which he sank 189 merchant vessels and two gunboats for a total of 446,708 GRT. One of his victories was the French troop carrier SS Gallia, which sank with great loss of life. Transferred to the U-139 in May 1918, he sank a further five ships with a combined tonnage of 7,008 GRT. His record number of sunken tonnage and number of sunken ships is unsurpassed since then. For his service, he was awarded the Iron Cross, second and first class, and the Pour le Mérite in 1916.

Interbellum

After the end of the war, Arnauld de la Perière stayed in a vastly reduced German Navy. During the 1920s, he served as navigation officer on the old pre-dreadnoughts SMS Hannover and SMS Elsass. From 24 September 1928 to 10 October 1930, he commanded the light cruiser Emden. Promoted to captain in 1931, he was put on the retired list. He then taught at the Turkish Naval Academy from 1932 to 1938.

Second World War

At the start of

Awards

• Pour le Mérite (11 October 1916)
• Iron Cross (1914), 1st and 2nd classes
• Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with swords
• Order of the Crown, 4th class
• U-boat War Badge (1918)
• Service Award Cross
• Hanseatic Cross Hamburg
• Knight's Cross of the Imperial Austrian Order of Leopold with war decoration
• Order of the Iron Crown, 3rd class with War Decoration (Austria-Hungary)
• Military Merit Cross, 3rd class with War Decoration (Austria-Hungary)
• Silver Liakat Medal with swords
• Gallipoli Star (Ottoman Empire)

Notes

External links

• The U-Boat ACE of ACES by William H. Langenberg, Sea Classics, May 2004 on findarticles.com
• Raiders of the Deep, by Lowell Thomas (Doubleday, Doran & Co., Garden City, NY, 1929).
• Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière. Erfolgreichster U-Bootkommandant der Seekriegsgeschichte – ein vergessener „Kriegsheld“?, by Clemens Bogedain (Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 2016) (ger).
• Arnauld de la Perière, sous-marinier du Kaiser on www.histomar.net (fr)
• Helgason, Guðmundur. "WWI U-boat commanders: Kapitänleutnant Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière". German and Austrian U-boats of World War I - Kaiserliche Marine - Uboat.net.
• The Enchanted Circle World War I U-boat video at the Imperial War Museum of a patrol by Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière on U-35. This depicts the finishing off of ships whose crews have been allowed to abandon them, in accordance with rules that Germany followed early in the war. The dynamiting team, deck gun, and one torpedo attack are shown. In six parts, silent with German caption slides.