LONDON - The wrecks of two German U-boats from World War I have been found off the coast of the Orkney Islands, north of mainland Scotland, one of which carried the German commander who killed the then British secretary of war, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said.

French soldiers move across "No-Man's-Land" in 1916. [AFP]

They were initially found earlier this year by chance, during the MCA's ongoing process of conducting sonar surveys in British waters, and were recently identified as the wrecks of U102 and U92 after experts examined original plans of the boats.

The MCA said the two boats may have been sunk on the Northern Barrage - a series of mines laid in the area.

Intriguingly, one of the U-boats, U102, carried Commander Kurt Beitzen, who killed Lord Horatio Kitchener, then Secretary for War - best known for posters bearing his moustachioed likeness with arm pointing out, above the text "Your country needs you".

In May 1916, Beitzen's U-boat U-75 laid 22 mines along the west cost of Orkney. A month later, Kitchener was on the HMS Hampshire on a mission to Russia, when his ship ran into the mines, and Kitchener died along with most of the crew.

"One of the subs, it seems, was commanded by quite a famous commander - the man who sunk the ship that Lord Kitchener was on - so this is his watery grave so to speak," said Rob Spillard, Hydrograph Manager at the MCA.