HMS E7 (WWI)

HMS ''E7'' was a British E class submarine built at Chatham Dockyard. She was laid down on 30 March 1912 and was commissioned on 16 March 1914. She cost £105,700.

Design

The early British E-class submarines, from ''E1'' to ''E8'', had a displacement of at the surface and while submerged. They had a length overall of and a beam of , and were powered by two Vickers eight-cylinder two-stroke diesel engines and two electric motors.Akerman, P. (1989). ''Encyclopaedia of British submarines 1901–1955''.  p.150. Maritime Books. The class had a maximum surface speed of and a submerged speed of , with a fuel capacity of of diesel affording a range of when travelling at , while submerged they had a range of at .

The early 'Group 1' ''E'' class boats were armed with four 18 inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes, one in the bow, one either side amidships, and one in the stern; a total of eight torpedoes were carried. Group 1 boats were not fitted with a deck gun during construction, but those involved in the Dardanelles campaign had guns mounted forward of the conning tower while at Malta Dockyard.

E-Class submarines had wireless systems with power ratings; in some submarines, these were later upgraded to systems by removing a midship torpedo tube. Their maximum design depth was although in service some reached depths of below .

Crew

Her complement was three officers and 28 men.

Service history

When war was declared with Germany on 5 August 1914, ''E7'' was based at Harwich, in the 8th Submarine Flotilla of the Home Fleets.

''E7'' took part in the Second Heligoland Bight Patrol along with , and . She and the other submarines returned from the patrol on 18 August 1914. Then on 30 June 1915, ''E7'' began a 24-day patrol in the Sea of Marmara. She succeeded in sinking 13 ships and damaging many more.

The German Submarine ''UB-14'' was in port of Chanak to await repairs. While there on 4 September, word came that ''E7'' was entangled in Ottoman antisubmarine nets off Nagara Point, which the Ottoman battleship had laid.

The U-boat′s commander, ''Oberleutnant zur See'' Heino von Heimburg, and ''UB-14''s cook, a man by the name of Herzig, set out in a rowboat to observe the Ottoman attempts to destroy ''E7''. After several mines that formed part of the net had been detonated to no avail,The type of net in use had electric contact mines that were triggered from the shore. See: Stern: p. 29. von Heimburg and his group rowed out and repeatedly dropped a plumb line until it contacted metal. Then, von Heimburg dropped an Ottoman sinker mine with a shortened fuse right on top of ''E7''.Stern, pp. 29–30. After the hand-dropped mine detonated too close for the British submarine's captain's comfort, he ordered his boat surfaced, abandoned, and scuttled. Between shellfire from the Ottoman shore batteries and ''E7''′s scuttling charges, von Heimburg and company narrowly escaped harm.Stern, p. 30. While most sources credit ''E7''′s sinking to the Ottoman efforts, author Robert Stern contends that von Heimburg and ''UB-14'' deserve partial credit for the demise of ''E7''.Stern, p. 38.

References

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External links

'Submarine losses 1904 to present day' - Royal Navy Submarine Museum

{{DEFAULTSORT:E07
British E-class submarines of the Royal Navy
Ships built in Chatham
1913 ships
World War I submarines of the United Kingdom
Royal Navy ship names
World War I shipwrecks in the Dardanelles
Maritime incidents in 1915