HMAS ''AE1'' (originally known as just ''AE1'') was an E-class submarine of the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the principal naval force of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (CN) Vice Admiral Mark Hammond AM, RAN. CN is also jointly responsible to the Minister o ...

(RAN). She was the first submarine to serve in the RAN, and was lost at sea with all hands near what is now

East New Britain East New Britain is a province of Papua New Guinea, consisting of the north-eastern part of the island of New Britain and the Duke of York Islands. The capital of the province is Kokopo, not far from the old capital of Rabaul, which was largely des ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

, on 14 September 1914, after less than seven months in service. Search missions attempting to locate the wreck began in 1976. The submarine was found during the 13th search mission near the Duke of York Islands in December 2017.

Design and construction

The E class was a version of the preceding D-class submarine enlarged to accommodate an additional pair of

broadside Broadside or broadsides may refer to: Naval * Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare Printing and literature * Broadside (comic ...

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s.Harrison, Chapter 4: ''Pre-1914 Saddle Tank Types D & E Classes''. ''AE1'' was long overall, with a beam of and a draught of . She displaced on the surfaceFrame, ''No Pleasure Cruise'', p. 97. and submerged. The E-class boats had a designed diving depth of , but the addition of watertight bulkheads strengthened the hull and increased the actual diving depth to . The complement consisted of 34 men: officers and ratings.Gillett, ''Australian & New Zealand Warships, 1914–1945'', p. 47. The boat had two propellers, each of which was driven by an eight-cylinder,

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-cal ...

as well as a

electric motor An electric motor is an electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a wire winding to generate f ...

. This arrangement gave the E-class submarines a maximum speed of while surfaced and when submerged. They carried approximately of

fuel oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), b ...

, which provided a range of at while on the surface and at while submerged. ''AE1'' had four 18-inch torpedo tubes, one each in the bow and stern, plus two on the broadside, one firing to port and the other to starboard. The boat carried one spare torpedo for each tube. No guns were fitted. ''AE1'' was built by

Vickers Limited Vickers Limited was a British engineering conglomerate. The business began in Sheffield in 1828 as a steel foundry and became known for its church bells, going on to make shafts and propellers for ships, armour plate and then artillery. Entir ...

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. In 2023 t ...

, England, having been laid down on 14 November 1911 and launched on 22 May 1913 and commissioned into the RAN on 28 February 1914. After commissioning, ''AE1'', accompanied by , the other of the RAN's first two submarines, reached Sydney from England on 24 May 1914. Officers for the submarines were

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

(RN) personnel, while the ratings were a mix of sailors drawn from the RN and RAN.''Navy to hunt for lost sub'', in ''The Sydney Morning Herald''.

Deployment and loss

At the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, ''AE1'', commanded by Lieutenant Commander Thomas Besant, was part of the

Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) was a small volunteer force of approximately 2,000 men, raised in Australia shortly after the outbreak of World War I to seize and destroy German wireless stations in German New Gui ...

sent to attack German New Guinea. Along with ''AE2'', she took part in the operations leading to the occupation of the German territory, including the surrender of

Rabaul Rabaul () is a township in the East New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, on the island of New Britain. It lies about 600 kilometres to the east of the island of New Guinea. Rabaul was the provincial capital and most important settlement in ...

on 13 September 1914. The submarine's involvement was recognised in 2010, following an overhaul of the RAN battle honours system, with the retroactive award of the honour "Rabaul 1914".Royal Australian Navy, ''Navy Marks 109th Birthday With Historic Changes To Battle Honours''Royal Australian Navy, ''Royal Australian Navy Ship/Unit Battle Honours'' At 07:00 on 14 September, ''AE1'' departed

Blanche Bay Blanche Bay is a bay near Rabaul, New Britain, Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niug ...

, Rabaul, to patrol off

Cape Gazelle Cape Gazelle is a cape in East New Britain province, Papua New Guinea located in the far north-east of the Gazelle Peninsula The Gazelle Peninsula is a large peninsula in northeastern East New Britain, Papua New Guinea located on the island of ...

with . When she had not returned by 20:00, several ships were dispatched to search for her. No trace of the submarine was found, and she was listed as lost with all hands. The disappearance was Australia's first major loss of World War I. After the discovery of the submarine in December 2017, Rear Admiral Peter Briggs, retired, said the likely cause of its loss was a diving accident. He added: On 14 September 2018, a team of researchers headed by the National Maritime Museum director Kevin Sumption concluded their investigation into the sinking of ''AE1''. They concluded that a ventilation valve, which was likely open to make the tropical conditions a little more bearable while the submarine was cruising on the surface near the Duke of York Islands, was insecure when the submarine dived, causing a flood of the submarine's engine room and total loss of control of the ''AE1''. The submarine subsequently sank below 100 metres and imploded, killing everyone on board instantly.

Searches for wreck

Beyond the search immediately after the submarine's disappearance, there were no concentrated efforts to locate the wreck of ''AE1'' until the 1970s, when John Foster, a RAN officer working in Port Moresby, became interested in the story. After researching wartime records, Foster persuaded the RAN to deploy the survey ship HMAS ''Flinders'' in 1976. ''Flinders'' found one potential sonar contact, but did not have a sophisticated enough

side-scan sonar Side-scan sonar (also sometimes called side scan sonar, sidescan sonar, side imaging sonar, side-imaging sonar and bottom classification sonar) is a category of sonar system that is used to efficiently create an image of large areas of the se ...

to make a determination either way. During a deployment to Papua New Guinea in 1978, ''Flinders'' conducted several ad-hoc searches, again with no useful result. In 1990, while sailing between New Britain and New Ireland,

Jacques Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful Aqua-Lung, open-circuit SCUBA ( self-contained underwater breathing apparatus). T ...

diverted his ship, ''Calypso'', to investigate the potential contact found in 1976. His original plan was to investigate up close with a submersible, but mechanical issues prevented it, and ''Calypso'' instead performed a

magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, ...

search of the area, finding no wrecks.Hunter, ''The Search for AE1 Continues'' Papua New Guinea map

Foster had continued archive research into ''AE1''s disappearance, supplemented with visits to Rabaul and nearby islands to see if references to the submarine appeared in any community's oral histories. By 2002, he was focused on the waters off

Mioko Island Mioko is a populated island in the Duke of York Islands archipelago in Papua New Guinea.Duke of York Islands group: a priest from a Catholic mission had stated that members of the community had spotted a wrecked submarine on Wirian Reef while diving for shells. Attempts to dive the reported site of the wreck in 2002 and early 2003 were unsuccessful: the former was called off due to high shark presence, the latter expedition also was hampered by shark activity and found no wreck at the reported location. A third expedition in November 2003, supported by the Maritime Museum of Western Australia and the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-owne ...

, conducted searches off Mioko and nearby islands, again with no success.Green, ''The search for the AE1'' Further oral evidence supporting the wreck of ''AE1'' being off Mioko was learned during one of the 2003 expeditions: Foster discovered that the

Tolai people The Tolai are the indigenous people of the Gazelle Peninsula and the Duke of York Islands of East New Britain in the New Guinea Islands region of Papua New Guinea. They are ethnically close kin to the peoples of adjacent New Ireland and tribes l ...

had a legend of a "devil fish" appearing offshore on the day that ''AE1'' disappeared. In February 2007, a new effort to locate the submarine was mounted by the RAN, when the survey ships and attempted to locate the submarine off

. ''Benalla'' located an object on Wirian Reef of the appropriate dimensions using sonar on 1 March, but was unable to verify the nature of the object due to a damaged magnetometer.Australian Associated Press, ''Missing WWI sub may have been found'' The minehunter was sent to investigate the object further in late 2007. Sonar and remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) imagery of the object revealed shape and dimensions similar to the submarine, but subsequent analysis by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation identified the object as a rock formation. Foster organised another search in May 2009, partially funded by Channel Seven's ''Sunday Night'', based on claims by a Rabaul-based salvage diver that he had seen the wreck in Simpson Harbour back in 1971, in proximity to the wreck of the Japanese merchant ship ''Keifuku Maru''. Diver searches of the site specified by the salvager failed to find either wreck. A follow-up search later that year by the Western Australian Maritime Museum found that ''Keifuku Maru'' had been buried under of rock during the 1994 Rabaul caldera eruption, but found no evidence of ''AE1'', buried or otherwise. John Foster died in 2010 with the search for ''AE1'' continued by others. During early 2012, the minehunter and the survey ship detected a potential wrecked submarine in Simpson Harbour. Although initially suspected to be ''AE1'', the wreck was determined to be a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

-era Japanese midget submarine.Coutts, ''Submarine wreckage located in Rabaul harbour'' ''Resolution'' later conducted sonar surveys of areas in which ''AE1'' may have been lost, with no wrecks found. Between 6 and 9 September 2014, ''Yarra'' conducted searches around the Duke of York Islands, prior to a memorial service for the centenary of the submarine's disappearance.Barlass, ''A century on and a sonar blip: has navy found WWI submarine?'' Although numerous sonar "contacts of interest" were made during the search, including one which was singled out for further investigation, all were found to be natural terrain.Australian Associated Press, ''Possible clue found in hunt for AE1 sub'' In September 2015, plans for a new search were announced by Find AE1 Limited. The search off Mioko Island was carried out in November, and was conducted by a mining survey ship towing a multibeam echosounder array. At the time of the search, Find AE1 stated that if the attempt was unsuccessful, they planned to petition the Australian government to bring in the search equipment used during the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The 2015 search was ultimately unsuccessful.McPhedran, ''Best shot at solving mystery of lost submarine AE1 with hi-tech search off Papua New Guinea'' Several factors have been identified as having hampered the efforts to find ''AE1''. The volcanic nature of the region resulted in a rugged and highly variable underwater topography, with a high frequency of wreck-like acoustic anomalies. Much of the region is deep water, which limited the techniques and tools that could be used to locate and verify the wreck. Volcanic activity was also identified as a factor, due to the disruption it causes to local magnetic fields, affecting the operations of magnetometers. There were concerns that eruptions and underwater earthquakes may have caused the underwater landscape to change, or break up or bury the wreck. Additionally, the search areas contained large numbers of shipwrecks due to heavy military activity around New Guinea during World War II, along with the disposal of ships in later years.

Discovery

In December 2017, another search—the 13th—was conducted using the Dutch survey ship , off the Duke of York Islands. This expedition was funded by the Commonwealth Government and the Silentworld Foundation with additional assistance from the Submarine Institute of Australia and the Australian National Maritime Museum. As a result of this effort, the submarine was found at a depth of and was seen to be well preserved and in one piece. was enlisted to survey the wreckage. During the survey, it was discovered that the submarine's rear torpedo tube was fully opened. The exact location of the wreck was not announced by the Australian government at the time of discovery, in order to protect it from "unauthorised salvage attempts". The government's stated position is that the wreck will be treated as a war grave.

Memorials

In 1933, a stained-glass window commemorating the losses of ''AE1'' and ''AE2'' was added to the naval chapel at Garden Island in Sydney. In September 2015, a floating sculpture to commemorate ''AE1'' was unveiled outside the Australian National Maritime Museum.Fletcher, ''Remembering AE1: '...the ocean bed their tomb'' The sculpture takes the form of a stainless steel wreath, in diameter, which projects patterns of light onto the water at night. In 2008 a memorial plaque was dedicated to HMAS ''AE1'' at the Tasmanian Seafarers' Memorial at Triabunna on the east coast of Tasmania, commemorating the loss of L.S. Cyril Lefroy Baker RAN, Telegraphist, the first Tasmanian killed in his country's service in World War I.

Citations

References

Books

* *

Articles

* * * * * * * * *

Reports

Websites

* * * * *

External links

Lives of the First World War community for ''AE1''
including names for all 35 members of the mixed RN and RAN crew who lost their lives
RAN webpage for HMAS ''AE1''

AE1 Incorporated: The Search for Australia's First Submarine

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

Fugro press release on discovery of HMAS AE1
{{DEFAULTSORT:AE1 1913 ships Ships built in Barrow-in-Furness British E-class submarines of the Royal Australian Navy Maritime incidents in September 1914 Ships lost with all hands World War I shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean World War I submarines of Australia World War I submarines of the United Kingdom 2017 archaeological discoveries