HMS E7
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS E7 |
| Builder: | HM Dockyard, Chatham |
| Cost: | £105,700 |
| Laid down: | 30 March 1912 |
| Commissioned: | 16 March 1914 |
| Fate: | Scuttled, 4 September 1915 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | E class submarine |
| Displacement: | 665 long tons (676 t) surfaced 796 long tons (809 t) submerged |
| Length: | 178 ft (54 m) |
| Beam: | 15 ft 5 in (4.70 m) |
| Propulsion: | 2 × 1,750 hp (1,305 kW) diesel 2 × 600 hp (447 kW) electric 2 screws |
| Speed: | 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) surfaced 9.5 knots (17.6 km/h; 10.9 mph) submerged |
| Range: | 3,000 nmi (5,600 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph) 65 nmi (120 km) at 5 kn (9.3 km/h; 5.8 mph) |
| Complement: | 30 |
| Armament: | 4 × 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes (1 bow, 2 beam, 1 stern) |
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.
Service history
E7 had a short career in World War I. She took part in the Second Heligoland Bight Patrol along with E5, D2 and D3. 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 of the British submarine E7 entangled in Turkish antisubmarine nets off Nagara Point, which the "Turgut Reis" under Kapitänleutnant Ulrich von Tippelskirch had laid.
The U-Boot's commander, Oberleutnant zur See Heino von Heimburg, Prince Heinrich of Prussia, and UB-14 's cook, a man by the name of Herzig, set out in a rowboat to observe the Turkish attempts to destroy E7. After several mines that formed part of the net had been detonated to no avail,[Note 1] von Heimburg and his group rowed out and repeatedly dropped a plumb line until it contacted metal. Then, von Heimburg dropped a Turkish sinker mine with a shortened fuse right on top of E7.[1] 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 Turkish shore batteries and E7 's scuttling charges, von Heimburg and company narrowly escaped harm.[2] While most sources credit E7 's sinking to the Turkish efforts, author Robert Stern contends that von Heimburg and UB-14 deserve partial credit for the demise of E7.[3]
References
- Submarines, War Beneath The Sea, From 1776 To The Present Day, by Robert Hutchinson.
- The Royal Navy Submarine Service, A Centennial History, by Antony Preston.
- ↑ The type of net in use had electric contact mines that were triggered from the shore. See: Stern: p. 29.
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