theGREAT WARsubm
T
HE E-class patrol submarine was Barrow just 11 years before E1 went and deadly in all theatres of war. Lt Cdr Max Horton enjoyed a similar
the backbone of the Royal Navy’s down the slipway in Kent. With the accuracy of forward-firing reputation to Nasmith, and had the honour
submarine arm during World War E-class submarines, built in three torpedoes still proving problematic, the of being the first submarine commander
1, and more than a third of the 55 batches, were just under 55 metres long
E-class was built with two beam tubes, to draw blood in the war, with the sinking
boats were built by Vickers at Barrow-in- and displaced around 800 tons, had an
firing from the side of the boats. of the German cruiser Hela on September
Furness. operational radius of 1,500 miles and
With two tubes in the bows (although 1914.
Although the first of the class was could remain submerged for 20 hours.
the first eight of class had just one) and For that attack, and the sinking of
launched at Chatham in 1912, they They carried a crew of 30, three of
a stern tube, plus a 12pdr gun which was a German destroyer three weeks later,
were powered by Vickers engines and whom were officers.
fitted to many of the class from 1915, Horton was awarded the DSO.
represented a significant improvement An E-boat could dive in under a minute,
they were a force to be reckoned with. Sent to the Baltic Sea as part of a
over the preceding D-class. and had a safe diving depth of 200ft, with
The submarine depicted below is British flotilla, Horton sank another
Barrow-built E11, which won its spurs in destroyer and a number of merchant
Indeed, they were an indication of the an estimated crushing depth of 350ft.
the Sea of Marmara under the command vessels and damaged the German cruiser
speed of development in the submarine With a submerged speed of almost ten
of Lt Cdr Martin Nasmith. Prinz Adalbert.
world – the first of the clumsy and crude knots, and 14 knots on the surface, these
He led three patrols from between May By 1920 he had added two bars to his
Holland boats had been launched at submarines were to prove both effective
and December 1915 – a total of 96 days DSO.
in enemy waters – led to the destruction Although the E-class caused most grief
of more than 80 vessels of various sizes, to the enemy, it came at a cost, with
and his daring raids on Constantinople almost 50 per cent of the vessels being
caused panic in the Turkish population, a lost by Armistice Day.
major propaganda coup, although he did Most of the surviving boats were sold
not bag the targets he was seeking. in the early 1920s, and the last of the
During this time E11, which became class – E48, which was employed as a
known as the Scourge of the Marmara, target vessel – survived until 1928.
fought with ships, aircraft and even
cavalry, and was responsible for the
destruction of a section of coastal railway
line, a raid led by First Lieutenant Lt Guy
D’Oyly Hughes.
Nasmith won the Victoria Cross for his
raid on Constantinople (the rest of her
crew were awarded the Distinguished
Service Medal) and the boat survived the
war, paying off in 1919.
While Nasmith caused havoc in the
Dardanelles, another Barrow boat, E9,
was terrifying enemy shipping in the
Baltic.
● The cramped and hazardous engine room of submarine E34
Picture: RN Submarine Museum
EEboat cut_NN_July .indd 1boat cut_NN_July .indd 1 119/6/07 11:44:289/6/07 11:44:28
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