In Germany a submarine was called an U-boat, or "Unterseeboot". At the outbreak of World War One, Germany had 33 of them. With the possibility of rich prizes off the British and Irish coasts and in the Channel, in early 1916 an entire flotilla of 24 U-boats was launched in the North Sea. One of them was the U-65, and from the very beginning there was talk about "jinxes" and "hoodoos".

During the construction of an U-boat, no woman was allowed on board (at the sight of a woman, the sea grows angry) and no flowers too, as wreaths are made of them. And carrying a black bag was forbidden, because this was a token of disaster. And of course, at the launching, a bottle had to be broken over the bows, as a libation to the gods.

All these precautions were double necessary with the U-65, because one day at the shipyard a heavy steel girder crashed to the ground and killed two workmen. And some time later yells were heard, coming from the engine room. The rescuers found the sliding door in the bulkhead jammed and when they got through, three men were lying dead on the floor, amid lethal fumes. An inquiry failed to establish what had happened. It couldn't have been carbon monoxide from the diesels, because they were not running. Chlorine from sea water getting into the batteries then? But the submarine had been in dry-dock...

Of course, this was only the beginning... A hallucination, an urban legend, or...?

Full story full speed ahead:
We All Live In A Haunted Submarine

I really like these War/haunting stories!