[Sailor Steve]

December 23, 1916

Bristol Channel:
Friedrich Moecke, commanding UC-46, stops British freighter SS William Middleton, 2,543 tons, travelling in ballast from Boulogne to Dublin. Scutttling charges are laid and detonated, but the damaged ship is beached and later salvaged.



North Sea:
Norwegian schooner Stanley, 309 tons bound from Hartlepool for Sandefjord with a load of coal and coke, springs a leak and is abandoned.



Gulf of Bothnia:
Swedish coaster SS Frigga, 386 tons, en route from Rauma to Stockholm, hits a mine laid by an unknown source.
Wrecksite.eu lists U-27, but Uboat.net has no ship of that name attributed to U-27, nor to any boat in December 1916.



Bay of Biscay:
Alfred Saalwächter, in U-46, sinks Spanish freighter SS Marques de Urquijo, 2,170 tons, carrying a load of iron ore from Bilbao to Middlesbrough. His score is now 6 ships and 12,385 tons.



Mediterranean Sea:
Otto Hersing, in U-21, torpedoes British freighter SS Benalder, 3,044 tons, travelling from Manil to Marseilles with a general cargo. The damaged ship reaches Alexandria safely.

British freighter SS Thistleban, 4,117 tons, en route from Karachi to Hull with a load of rapeseed, linseed and peas, hits a mine laid off Alexandria by Gustav Seiß in U-73. His score is now 13 ships and 94,541 tons.



United States:
Canadian schooner Alcaea, 99 tons, travelling from Liverpool, Nova Scotia to Elizabeth Port, Massachussetts, runs aground off Yarmouth, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.



Atlantic Ocean:
American Great Lakes freighter SS Portland, 2,286 tons, travelling in ballast from Le Havre to New York, is abandoned in a storm.