HMS A1

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Career Royal Navy Ensign
Laid down: 19 February 1902[1]
Launched: 9 July 1902
Status: Lost 1911. Wreck rediscovered 1989.
General Characteristics
Displacement: 190 tons surfaced, 207 tons submerged
Length: 103.25 feet (31 m)
Beam: 11.9 feet (3.6 m)
Propulsion: 16 cylinder Wolseley 450 hp (336 kW) gasoline engine, 87 horsepower (65 kW) electric motor
Speed: maximum 11.5 knots (21 km/h) surfaced,

maximum 7 knots (13 km/h) dived
Range: 500 nautical miles (926 km) at 11.5 knots (21 km/h) surfaced 20 nautical miles (37 km) submerged at 5 knots (9 km/h)
Complement: 11 (2 officers and 9 ratings)
Armament: One 18 inch (457 mm) torpedo tube, plus two reloads

HMS A1 was the Royal Navy's first British-designed submarine, and their first to suffer fatal casualties.

She was the lead ship of the first British A-class of submarines (a second, much different A (for Amphion) class submarine appeared towards the end of the Second World War), and the only one to have a single bow torpedo tube. She was actually sunk twice, first in 1904 when she became the first submarine casualty, with the loss of all hands, however she was recovered, but sank again in 1911, this time when she was unmanned. The wreck was discovered in 1989 and is now a protected wreck[2].

Contents

[edit] Design and build

She was an enlarged and improved Holland boat - 40 feet (12.2 m) longer than the Royal Navy's five Holland boats. The most notable improvement was the addition of a conning tower[1]. Subsequent A class boats were even larger and differed from her in several respects.

Like all members of her class, she was built at Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness. She was launched on July 9, 1902.

[edit] Casualty, recovery, loss and rediscovery

She was accidentally sunk in the Solent on March 18, 1904 whilst carrying out a practice attack on HMS Juno by being struck on the starboard side of the conning tower by a mail steamer, SS Berwick Castle which was en route from Southampton to Hamburg. She sank in only 39 feet (12 m) of water but the boat flooded and the entire crew were drowned[3]. One consequence was that all subsequent Royal Navy submarines were equipped with a watertight hatch at the bottom of the conning tower.

She was raised on April 18, 1904 and repaired and re-entered service. Following a petrol explosion in August 1910, she was converted to a testbed for the Admiralty's Anti-Submarine Committee. She was lost a year later when running submerged but unmanned under automatic pilot. Although the position of her sinking was known at the time, all efforts to locate her were fruitless. It was not until 1989 that the wreck was discovered by a local fisherman at Bracklesham Bay, approximately 5 miles away[4]. It is thought that she was only partially flooded when she sank and the resulting partial buoyancy meant that the wreck moved in the strong local currents. The wreck was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act on 26 November 1998[5] and redesignated to extend the area covered on 5 October 2004[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Submarine Heritage Centre
  2. ^ The Advisory Committee for Historic Wreck Sites Annual Report for 2005
  3. ^ Submarine losses 1904 to present day RN submarine museum website
  4. ^ Advisory Committee on Historic Wrecks Report for 1999-2000
  5. ^ Statutory instrument 1998 no 2708 protecting wreck of HMS A1
  6. ^ Statutory instrument 2004 no 2395

[edit] External links


British A-class submarine

A1 | A2 | A3 | A4 | A5 | A6 | A7 | A8 | A9 | A10 | A11 | A12 | A13

List of submarines of the Royal Navy

List of submarine classes of the Royal Navy
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