SUBMARINE HISTORY

The following history was written by “J.S.” and recorded in the April 1930 issue of “Spindrift” an RAN journal sold at Flinders Naval Depot now HMAS Cerberus, and it is part of the story of a Royal Navy submarine HMS E35, and the daring action taken against two German submarines on 11 May 1918. I have tried to find out who the RAN submariners were in the crew, but with no success (Ed.) 

  

“The two RAN submarines operated with Australian cruisers in guarding the captured colony of German New Guinea.  “On the morning of September 15 1914 the destroyer HMAS Parramatta returned to Rabaul from patrol duty and reported she had not seen HMAS AE1 since 1100 on the previous day.  “Although a thorough search was made on the courses, AE1 had been ordered to patrol, no sign of her could be found and on return to harbour HMAS Sydney was forced to report to Admiral Patey on HMAS Australia “search unsuccessful”.

“HMAS AE2 after completing service around New Guinea was ordered to the Mediterranean. “Like a chicken, that, having strayed from its mother, suddenly sights her, AE2 scampered across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal and joined up with the British submarines stationed not far from the Dardanelles, glad to be once more with her own breed of destruction.

“AE2, however, was not the on the destruction list very long.

“Soon after joining up with her new found friends, she had the honour of being the first submarine to penetrate the mine fields of the Dardanelles.

“Having accomplished this wonderful feat, she cruised about for two days looking for something to sink.

“At last, on the morning of April 30 she sighted a Turkish transport fully laden with troops.

“While AE2 was manoeuvring into position to launch a torpedo at her, she, herself was sighted by the Turkish torpedo boat destroyer Sultan Hissar, which came at full speed in an attempt to ram.

“The captain Lieutenant Commander Henry Stoker of AE2 sighted her just in time and with a quick shift he fired two torpedoes and dived steeply.

“In his success in dodging the Turkish destroyer he caused AE2’s diving gear to fail beyond repair.

“Water was pumped from the ballast tanks and compressed air pumped into them.

“At the end of two hours AE2 managed to get to the surface only to find that the wily old Turk was cruising in a circle round the spot where she had dived, waiting for her to come up.

“With her last torpedo AE2 took a shot at the Turk but missed. Unable to dive and no more torpedoes, the officers and crew climbed through the conning tower on to the deck, the sea cocks were opened, the boat sank and the crew were taken prisoner.

“It was at just about this time that the British submarine service needed more men to fill England’s increasing number of submarines and our boys were quickly swallowed up in the Royal Navy.

“Life in the North Sea in submarines was very different from life north of Australia, or in the Mediterranean, where one could steam for days without fear of mines. In the North Sea it was a case of keep to the straight path or ‘up you go’. ‘No risks’ was always the watchword of the helmsman.

“It was the British submarine E35, under the command of Lieutenant Guy D’Oyle-Hughes DSO DSC RN, that some of our Australian boys were sent.

“Subsequently from her base at the Rock of Gibraltar; she was sent from three months at a stretch, hunting any enemy craft that had managed to break through the North Sea blockade.

“On May 1, 1918, orders were given for E35 to proceed to sea immediately.

“Once clear of the harbour the crew were told of the submarine’s mission.

From the Admiralty, word had been received that Germany was sending a super-submarine U-154, to work between Gibraltar and Cape de Verde Islands to intercept all British merchantmen. 

“E35 had been selected to intercept this huge ‘U’ boat and give fight.

“On the morning of May 11, 1918, having arrived at the position ordered by the Admiralty, E35 sank beneath the surface and commenced the delicate work of finding another submarine.

“The weather was choppy, which is favourable for submarine work as periscopes are hard to see and the submarine leaves very little wake.

“E35 would cruise along slowly and then stop engines for five seconds, while the operator listened with his hydrophone. 

“The engines would run for five minutes and then stop again for another five seconds and so this routine went monotonously on, with five minutes of engines and five seconds of silence, until 1215 the Navigator, who was looking out through the periscope, sighted the periscope of this huge Super-submarine.

   “The German U-Boat cruised serenely along submerged, totally unaware that she was being trailed; seemingly secure in the knowledge the British Navy was sleeping.

“For two hours this monster cruised along and for two hours E35 followed at a respectful distance, listening for the German to stop her engines to listen, so that she could do the same.

“The Captain of E35 planned to wait for the big U-Boat to ‘break surface’ and await the arrival of the smaller U-boat that she had been sent to relieve, when; with the pair on the surface, he hoped to bag both of them.

“No one thought it was greedy trying to bag both, all they though of was, one submarine meant two days in harbour and prize money for one bag.

“Two submarines may mean four days in harbour and most certainly two lots of prize money to spend.

“For two long hours every man in E35 was keyed up to concert pitch, waiting for the German to ‘break surface’.

“At last the big U-Boat broke surface and very soon afterwards the smaller U-Boat was sighted, making for her compatriot.

“Having sighted both U-Boats the Captain’s work commenced.

“He had to calculate the speed of both submarines then consider his own ship’s speed, then work out the depth, angle and speed his torpedoes were set for, all the time issuing a string of orders for the  navigation of his own ship.

“It is very difficult matter to watch two enemy submarines, as they can only see in one direction at a time and there is always the risk of your own periscope being seen through its long exposure watching others. And this is exactly what did happen. 

“The smaller U-Boat, in approaching her relief, sighted E35’s periscope and immediately altered course astern of her.

“When the Captain of E35 found that he had lost the smaller one, he realised it would be too risky to hang on too long, so commenced to manoeuvre into position to let go both bow torpedoes at the big U-Boat.

“Taking a final look round to see that it was all clear just before firing, he saw the small U-Boat coming for him at full speed, in an endeavour to ram E35’s conning towers.

“The Captain with the possibility of still getting both U-Boats immediately dived and at the same time altered his course sharply in order to make the boat list well over and from this angle he fired upwards at the U-Boat as it passed overhead.

“The crew, realising their Captains daring, held their breath waiting for the result of that terrific explosion at such close quarters. More than one said ‘thank God’ when the space of time told them the torpedo had missed.

“If the torpedo had hit the U-Boat, it would have been a thousand to one E35’s plates would have buckled with the force of the explosion and would have gone down too.

“The Captain of E35 realised he would have to take some risks now, if it was to be his good fortune to get the big U-Boat, so, ordered ‘stand by men’ he brought her up to 30 feet below the surface, made his calculations and fired both bow tubes.

“Immediately the torpedoes left the tubes, eight men rushed forward and threw themselves on the deck, in order to partly counterbalance the loss of weight from the bows of the submarine when the torpedoes left the tubes.

“At the same time E35 dived to a depth of 90 feet, in order to lessen the shock when the torpedoes exploded.

“Now came the most important part of the whole action, so far as the crew of E35 were concerned. Both torpedoes had hit this huge submarine and she sank quickly.

“Evidence had to be obtained of the sinking of this German submarine, otherwise the German Admiralty would probably deny the destruction and the victors would be robbed of their hard-earned prize money.

“Sending up the periscope the Captain saw a sailor swimming. Getting E35 into position he came to the surface, leapt from the conning tower and threw the man a line.

“While the Captain was trying to save life and also get the prize money evidence, the hydrophone operator, in keeping a sharp lookout, heard the small U-Boat fire a torpedo.

“With a yell from the operator, ‘torpedo fired’ the Captain jumped down the hatch and dived, only just in time to miss the torpedo as it raced through the water overhead.

“A grown went up  when the crew realised the German sailor would drown and their prize money would be gone. 

“The next job ahead now was to find the small U-Boat and engage her. There was still a good two hours daylight left and this time was spent in again monotonously cruising for five minutes and stopping for five seconds, in an endeavour to pick up the small U-Boat. No luck, however, attended E35’s search.

“It was subsequently assumed that the enemy had gone for Germany, arriving safely and reported the loss of the supper-submarine U-154, as the German Admiralty a week later admitted the loss and E35’s crew once more breathed freely in the knowledge that their prize money would be OK.   

“When darkness set in that night, our E35 came to the surface, and, while steaming to Gibraltar, the coxswain was ordered to fall down the hatch with a jar of rum, which, by the way was deftly caught by willing hands.

“The alleged breakage credited to rough weather, crew drank two tots, and ended all excitement until victory was toasted ashore in Gibraltar”.    

 

FOR THE RECORD

U-154 was a Type U151 U-Cruiser launched on 10 September 1917 and commissioned 12 December 1917 under the command of Korvettenkapitan H. Gercke with a crew of 77. Of those 77 there were three survivors of the torpedo blast, who unfortunately drowned. The other (smaller) U-Boat was U-62.  It later transpired that U-154 had on board five captains of British Merchant ships as prisoners.  (Ed.)

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ROYAL NETHERLAND’S SUBMARINE SERVICE

The Dutch submarine service, the Onderzeedienst, was founded in 1906, when submarine O-1, named ‘Onderzeese Boot’, entered service. The number of submarines in the Dutch service has varied greatly since. In World War 1 the Dutch part of the North Sea was patrolled by half a dozen boats, while only one boat reached the Dutch East Indies. At the start of World War II, 12 submarines were present in European waters and no less than 15 in the Far East. At the time the Dutch naval industry boasted quite some expertise in submarine-building. Dutch-built submarines were for example exported to Finland, Turkey and Poland.   

 

Interestingly the Schnorckel-system that allowed submarines to charge their batteries while remaining at periscope-depth, was a Dutch invention. This was captured by the German occupiers and used by U-boats with great success in the final years of the conflict. When hostilities broke out in 1940 however, about a third of the Dutch submarine-inventory was either in maintenance or otherwise not operational. Many perished in the first clashes with Germany and, from December 1941, Japanese forces. In the first weeks of the war in the Pacific, Dutch submarines succeeded in sinking many Japanese transport Vessels.

 

Post War Service After the war the Onderzeedienst stabilised at a strength of six boats, and comprising of two ‘old’ Dutch O-boats, two donated British type T-boats and two donated American Guppies. These were progressively replaced by Dutch designs, first four three-cylinder boats, then two Zwarrdvis class boats. After the Cold War, the strength of the Onderzeedienst consists of four boats of the Walrus-class, Walrus (S802), Dolfijn (S808), Zeeleew (S803) and Bruinvis (S810), all named after sea-mammals.

 

Some 600 people work at the Onderzeedienst, which is headquartered in the Dutch naval base at Den Helder. Apart from these four boats, the service also operates one torpedo-tender, Mercuur (A900). The remaining boats still excel in the type of missions they conducted during the Cold War. Today, Walrus class submarines are in high demand for operations in shallow water. Since the end of the Cold War the Dutch boats have been patrolling Caribbean waters in the fight against drug smuggling, the Adriatic during the war in the Balkans as well as undertaking current operations in the Indian Ocean and in the Persian Gulf.                  

From “Ships Monthly” October 2007 Volume 42 No. 10.

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DIVE THROUGH THE NARROWS by “Bosun’s Mate” RAN 

The following story was included in a collection of stories written by Australian servicemen in “As You Were 1949” and published by the Australian War Museum, Canberra. Ed.  

Her name was AE2, and though to most Australians today the letters are a meaningless formula, in reality they preface some famous “firsts”. AE2, with her sister AE1 was the first submarine operated by the RAN; she was the first to sail halfway around the world-including nine thousand miles from Portsmouth to Sydney under her own power; she was the first and only, submarine to escort a contingent of the first AIF across the Indian Ocean; and she was first sea craft to breach the generally accepted impassibility of the Dardanelles.

Her captain was a RN man, Commander H.G. Stoker DSO who, on his own admission, joined the submarine service because of the extra six shillings a day offering-certainly an inducement to a sub-lieutenant whose daily reward was five shillings. But from his boat’s adventures in the Turk’s backyard one suspects a somewhat more adventurous driving force.

Stoker’s initial command was A10, a small boat of a Service in its infancy and one of his first achievements was to ram her head-on into Devonport dockyard wall –a precursor of those pushing tactics which were later to make him famous. Soon after, he sailed with B6, B7 and B8 to open the RN’s first foreign submarine station at Gibraltar, and while there he heard of the Australian Navy’s intention to acquire two submarines (E-Boats) as the nucleus of a flotilla.

An immediate application for appointment to one was successful and in 1913 Stoker found himself commanding officer of AE2  (i.e. Australian E2). He surveyed his new craft at Barrow-in-Furness with a lifting pride in his heart, and with sound reason.

She was at the time the latest class and larger by far than any predecessor. A long slim cigar of steel, her machinery-packed innards drove her 800 tons with 1750 horse-power. She mounted bow torpedo tubes and carried eight torpedoes, though-and this was to prove a decided loss-no gun was fitted.

Her crew was about evenly divided between British and Australian.

On 2 March 1914, after extensive trials and working-up periods, AE1 and AE2 slipped out of Portsmouth for Sydney. The trip across was uneventful, crews became thoroughly familiar with their complex craft and by the time Batavia was reached both submarines had shaken down into efficient fighting units.

At Batavia cruiser Sydney met the pair to tow each alternately to save fuel. Course lay through Lombok Strait, where vast flanking areas of water are funnelled at high speed. A violent whirlpool caught AE1 and swung her swiftly against the puny counter-effect of her rudder broadside on to her tow. It parted like rotten string. Helpless, the thin-skinned craft was swept across AE2’s bows, a boat’s length away. The latter’s screws spun full astern, her rudder was hove hard-a-starboard and in the fiercely swirling water neither had effect. When she was about to ride up on her consort, a fortuitous eddy swung Stoker’s bow clear and she swished past the other with about a metre to spare.

But now AE2’s rudder was found to be jammed hard-over, and only skilful use of her engines prevented intimate acquaintance with nearby Lombok Island Then a shout from his signalman swung Stoker’s head astern . Charging upon them, a white cloud of foam opening at her armoured bow, was Sydney. The tow rope had fouled her rudder! Engine –room bells clanged urgently; only the thrust of full speed took AE2 clear of the steel knife that would have sheared her in half.

After this engaging interlude escort and convoy settled down to a routine crossing and reef passage, and at dawn on 24 May 1914, the most powerful two submarines in the southern hemisphere slipped unobtrusively up-harbour and snuggled alongside Garden Island. They had been sixty days at sea without serious defect.

It is not the purpose of this necessarily brief chronicle to detail both boats’ operations hunting von Spee’s squadron in the Pacific, or the still unexplained loss of AE1, now a steel coffin tomb resting somewhere in the quiet depths of St Georges Strait off New Britain. After von Spree had been driven from the Pacific, and his Squadron finally liquidated at the Falklands, AE2’s captain, champing at the bit in Sydney, applied for, and was granted, permission to proceed to European waters.

And so, on 31 December 1914, the boat found herself escort to the fifteen thousand troops in massed transports which formed up in stretching array off King George’s Sound and set course for the Mediterranean-and Gallipoli.

The trip across was uneventful and, on the end of a transport’s tow-rope most of the way, uncomfortable. She slipped in under the lee of Tenedos Island, near the mouth of the Dardanelles and joined the British fleet waiting for The Landing.

    Every day saw additional transports, troops, munitions and supplies mounting against Gallipoli. Then the fleet moved closer, to Lemnos. The submarine man had already submitted his plan for breaching, and at Lemnos the Admiral sent for him. When he left, Stoker had his permission “to have a go”.

No one was less under illusion regarding his job than Stoker, whose study of his target had revealed extreme difficulties. The Straits are thirty-five miles long and only half a mile wide at Chanak. Sheltering behind its defences-submarine nets, thickly-sown mine-fields destroyers, gunboats, heavy shore batteries and closely-spaced searchlight – was the Turkish fleet, backed up by the German ships Goeben and Breslau.

Added to this lot were an old bridge hauled from Constantinople and sunk in the narrow neck off Nagara Point, its waiting steel lattice-work the perfect submarine trap; danger of the raising periscope in a mine field, with subsequent navigational hazard; and a constant three-to-five-knot current sweeping into the Mediterranean which, with AE2’s fifty-mile submerged distance limit in still water, would force her to surface frequently.

But Stoker and his spunky crew dwelt more on what they’d do in the Sea of Marmora than on the apparently insurmountable obstacles barring their reaching there-no attempt would have been made if they had not.

With them they took an extra large White ensign to show when they got through and by advertising their presence, interrupt the movement of Turkish troopships transporting reinforcements to the operational areas on the Peninsula.

The first attempt was made after moonset a few days before The Landing. To the intense chagrin of all the hands a diving rudder shaft broke as she was about to dive through the entrance at dawn and the adventurers returned to base.

Early morning, Sunday, 25 April. In Mudros Harbour the masts of a vast concourse of ships reared a faint tracery against the sky. On all sides the still darkness fell wide and dense-except where a faint smother of white spawned from the water-levelled tail of a slim black shape moving, darkened and purposeful, between the lines. Once outside it altered to the north, towards the great eyes of light that opened from the Dardanelles’ cliffs and swept their baleful glare the silvered water beneath them. When it became possible to see clearly in their reflected light the faces of figures on her bridge, they took a final look round, there came the subdued thump of rubber-edged doors shutting, the shape settled lower in the water, until its tower shouldered a breast of white before it, then AE2 was under, and the lighted sea stretched empty  

At twenty feet she slid unseen towards the Straits, a lethal steel tube in which men pored over charts or watched gauges or dials with silent intensity. Stoker gave an order. He crouched over the periscope well, gripped his training bars as they came up, and, straightening, followed the eyepiece with his eyes already pressed in the sockets. Through the swirling lens he saw the day.

“Depth seventy feet,” he ordered. AE2 inclined slightly by the bow, levelled, came up a little, settled again and at seventy feet headed her tube-flanked nose directly for the main mine-field in the Straits’ entrance.

All hands waited. Soon it came-the first scraping, starting for’ard then jolting and knocking aft. Then on the other side-the tenuous, swaying steel coils, roots of a floating garden of death. Every instant the men inside, listening and waited for a projection on the hull to catch on a wire and, with her surge through the water, to drag the root’s explosive bulb down. At that depth, already withstanding the iron-hard crush of tons of water, the added blast of H.E. would bust her open like a paper bag.   

For an hour it went on, until, rising for the third time, Stoker’s periscope told him they were through. It also offered information to other eyes, and inside they heard the crash of exploding shells as subdue shocks, and the falling shrapnel as hail on their thin steel roof.

Abreast Chanak the first fruits of their ordeal presented themselves-an old battle ship, destroyers in the distance, and, sliding slowly from behind the former’s bulk, a small cruiser, probably a minelayer. 

   Stoker’s orders were crisp and sure. In response a long shape exploded from the bow tube in a smother of bubbles and a finger of smooth water reached out to the cruiser. They felt the concussion of the hit as they dived beneath a speeding destroyer. So close was he to his target, Stoker altered course to avoid catching her as she toppled.

Then followed a series of miraculous escapes. Running from the vengeful destroyers, AE2 dropped to forty feet, and next instant slid up a mud-bank to ten feet, with a sizable portion of her upper works obligingly out of water. Stoker peered out of periscope, and was almost blinded by the flash of a gun peering into it! Luckily, like the British ships before this day, they’d got in so close under the enemy guns that these could not depress sufficiently to bear upon them.

AE2’s screws gripped the water with all their power and slowly hauled her off. She careered across the narrow neck, hounded by shells, destroyers and gunboats, grounded on the opposite shore, dragged off, had a quick peek at boats pulling survivors from the cruiser, headed her nose up-Strait and speared through at seventy feet at full speed, trailing the hunt behind her. Another checking took place them abreast Nagara Point – from which Leander is reputed to have begun his semi-submarine efforts –with the comparatively safe expanse of a large bay before them.

She slipped two tugs that approached dragging a sweep-wire, altered into the arm of the bay, dropped to seventy feet bottom and lay snug and safe till dark, when, on the surface, ballast tanks damaged in her amphibious leanings were plugged and repaired. All hands gratefully stretched on the upper-deck; they had been down, under continuous strain, for sixteen hours.

Stoker tried to wireless his base, but the visible signs, purple-blue sparks from the damp aerial, were the sole result. Or so they thought. Actually, the message got through and Commodore (then) Keyes received their signal at a critical moment - during a council of war in the battleship Queen Elizabeth to decide whether to evacuate troops, less than twenty-four hours after they had gone ashore. An affirmative decision had almost been reached, when electrifying news that a British submarine was loose among the enemy supply-ships decided the council to hold on.

But Stoker and his crew, lonely yet triumphant, right in the Turk’s backyard, knew nothing of this. They had more immediate problems.

At dawn she dived. Two warships were sighted approaching in line ahead, each with two funnels. AE2 slid her deadly length to within five hundred yards of the near craft, aimed her nose and let go, But the cruiser, as she sighted the smooth track, altered course violently and slipped the torpedo on her starboard bow. Stoker now turned his attention to the other ship, but was too late to bear upon her. His sulphurous thoughts understandable–she was a Turkish battleship.

Most of that day was spent dodging and diving under fishing and small supply craft off Gallipoli town, and cursing the succulence of his prey which lack of a 4-inch gun made so obvious. 

The next day was again calm, making periscope detection almost certain. Early morning brought an important ship, possibly a transport, into the periscope’s watered lens. She was escorted by two destroyers, one ahead and the other on her starboard beam. By a neat piece of sub-surface navigation Stoker twisted his boat in between this last escort; and when he slid his periscope eye above water his target lay close on his port bow, fat and helpless.

To make sure he closed to two hundred yards, then let go. No one could miss at that range. The torpedo shot from its tube under the thrust of its cordite charge, and that was as far as it got. Watching, Stoker saw it gently break surface, bob a moment, then float just awash in creaming patch of its own bubbles. A squib –the engine had failed to start.

It is not on record what the captain said to his torpedo-gunners mate.

A destroyer was almost on them, and AE2 dived beneath her, took avoiding action, and found a sixty foot bottom to cradle her till nightfall.

In the morning Stoker surfaced and headed his bow and reloaded tubes for Constantinople and its concentration of shipping. His alarmed surprise is readily imagined when dead ahead, a shining wet shape shouldered itself from the depths and a grinning face, undeniably British, shoved itself through a hatch and hailed him. It was E14, who’d also run the gauntlet.

This sudden appearance of their own kind made AE2’s men realise how alone, till then they’d been. It was one of the happiest moments in her career, and it led to her death.

The other crafts captain senior to Stoker, told him he was waiting Admiral’s orders and that Stoker should rendezvous at this spot at 1000 hours next morning. But for this order AE2 would have been one hundred miles away by that time. Both boats then separated.

Next morning, heading to the meeting, Stoker sighted a large smoke cloud. It was a torpedo-boat at speed, and though he knew he had been sighted, the captain put her under leisurely. It will be remembered depth charges were then hardly thought of, and Stoker records no attacks by them from the Turks.

Suddenly, utterly without warning, in the process of a normal dive, AE2 went berserk. She flicked her bows up and drove straight for the surface. Diving rudders were swung hard-down, with no effect. She broke surface like a floundering whale, and the torpedo-boats guns broke into flame and smoke. Stoker snapped: “Fill fore tank!” This pulled her nose down, and under she went – and kept on going, completely out of control. Eighty, ninety, one hundred feet showed on the depth gauge. “Blow water ballast! Full astern both!” Still she speared down, until the gauge needle swung hard against its stop and stayed there.

Then a cry from the cox’n. “She’s coming up sir!” The needle reluctantly left its stop, AE2 lifted from the pressured depths, slowly at first, then under the impetus of her empty tanks shot surface-wards. Her advent there was met by two torpedoes from the torpedo boat and salvoes from a gunboat attracted to the catch.

This was decidedly unhealthy. AE2 solved the problem by abruptly standing on her nose at an acute angle and heading bottom-wards. Men swung from stanchions and wheels; mess crockery and kit spilled in a clattering stream from their lockers. “Full astern,” Stoker gasped. Luckily the artificers were not thrown from their throttles and the screws spun and thrust and clawed her to a stop, then upwards. She cleared the water stern first. The Turks were waiting. A shell bust in her engine room, two more in her tanks. She couldn’t dive: she was finished.  

All hands were ordered on deck. Stoker stayed below with his first lieutenant to open her cocks, and the third officer on the bridge to warn of the rising waters. When it was two feet from the tower he yelled, and Stoker and his Number-one, like half-drowned rats, crawled through the floating debris, up the conning tower and jumped into the sea.

Paddling there, they watched her go. Only her stern was out. Then, slowly, gracefully, without a sound, the staunch old boat slid away on her longest and deepest dive.

She went down in fifty-five fathoms, four miles north of Kara Burnu Point in the Sea of Marmora, at 1045 hours on 30 April. All hands were picked up by the torpedo-boat Sultan Hissar, and imprisoned.

Their spell as Guest of the Unspeakable – the Gestapo-like questioning, the attempted escapes, the long, weary years-is another story. It ended happily, on Christmas Day 1918, nearly five years after he left, Commander Stoker, captain of a gallant craft and staunch ship’s company, landed safely in England. Both he and his crew are assured of their immortal niche in the annals of the silent Submarine Service. 

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THE WHITEHEAD TORPEDO by J.J. Tall

Robert Whitehead was the manager of an engineering firm in Fiume, Austria, one of whose primary customers was the Austrian Navy. In 1865, he was approached by a naval officer Captain Luppis, who wanted his advice on a design for a locomotive torpedo, i.e. not a ‘bullet’, but a weapon that was self-propelled. What Luppis had in mind was a steam- or clockwork-propelled device, controlled by the ‘shooter’ by wires in order to keep in a straight line towards the target. Such an arrangement had several drawbacks, so Whitehead got to work and within a year had produced a revolutionary torpedo. At 35.5cm (14in) in diameter, it was propelled by high-pressure air and carried a charge of 8.1kg (18lb) of high explosive at 6 knots for 183m (200yds). By 1870, when Whitehead was invited to demonstrate his weapon to the British Admiralty, this performance had improved to a range of 914m (1,000yds) at a higher speed and with a much bigger warhead. In 1972 Whitehead built a torpedo factory, and over the years improvements were made to his torpedoes’ depth-keeping qualities, range and explosive power. When he introduced the ‘Obry Gear’ gyroscope, the weapon became extraordinary accurate.

 

The torpedo was snapped up by many navies around the world, and then there was a proliferation of surface torpedo-boats, but it took 15 years before its potential for underwater work was seen. From Nordenfelt onwards, there was an inevitability about the engagement, and the course was set for the weapon to unlock the submarine’s potential to a stunning extent on maritime warfare.  The marriage of the ‘devil’s device’ with the ‘underhand’ vessel was to cost thousands of lives in the future, but in the mid-1880s there was still some inventive distance to be travelled to find a platform that could be easily controlled and efficiently propelled.        

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QUOTABLE QUOTES     

“Germany’s decision to employ U-Boats as commerce raiders must rank as by far the most important event in the First World War …. It ended once and for all the distinction between combatant and civilian.” Edward Horton.

 

“The naval history of the British contains no page more wonderful than that which records the prowess of her submarines at the Dardanelles.” Winston S. Churchill.

 

“(Submarines) have the power to fight or evade a fight at will; they can pick and choose their prey, and can remain for almost indefinite time an omnipresent, constant and harassing menace to all surface craft, and at present there are no means for their destruction.” Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fisher, May 1913.

 

“The essence of war is violence and moderation in war is imbecility.” Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fisher, 1913.

 

Life was extremely tedious for the coastal submarines operating in the Baltic, with their primary role being to guard against bombardment forays by units of the German High Seas Fleets.

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SUBMARINES IN OTHER NAVIES by J.J. Tall              

The two navies of the Adriatic were to end up on different sides in World War 1. Austria had only six boats with two building, but it was an effective service based on German technology and training methods. Italy on the other hand, had 21 boats with seven under construction, but of the former, few could be considered operational. Austria was ready. Italy was far from being so. Turkey had neither a modern navy nor any submarines; however, she was to play a significant role during World War 1 and deserves a mention at this point. The United States had 30 submarines in service, with ten on the building blocks, while Japan had 13 in service and three building. The submarines of these navies that were to play such important roles during World War II were only spectators during World War 1. So as the storm clouds of war gathered over Europe, we see the two submarine services of Great Britain and Germany ready – but ready for what!