HMAS AE2 (originally known as AE2) was an E-class submarine of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). One of two submarines ordered for the fledgling navy, AE2 was built by Vickers Armstrong in England and was commissioned into the RAN in 1914. Together with her sister submarine, , the boat then sailed to Australia in what was, at the time, the longest voyage ever undertaken by a submarine.

After the start of World War I, AE2 was sent to German New Guinea with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force, then spent time patrolling around Fiji. With no need for submarines in the Pacific or Indian theatres, AE2 was towed to the Mediterranean, and arrived off Egypt in early 1915. The boat was assigned to the Dardanelles Campaign, and was the first submarine to successfully penetrate the waterway and enter the Sea of Marmara. With orders to "run amok" inside Turkish territory, AE2 operated for five days before mechanical faults forced her to the surface, where she was damaged by the torpedo boat . The submarine was scuttled by her crew, all of whom were captured.

AE2 was the only RAN vessel lost to enemy action during World War I. The Rahmi M. Koç Museum began searching for the wreck in 1995, and found it in 1998. After another expedition in 2008, the Australian and Turkish Governments decided to leave the boat in place.

Description

The E class was a version of the preceding D-class submarine enlarged to accommodate an additional pair of broadside torpedo tubes. AE2 was long overall, had a beam of and a draught of . 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 boat had two propellers, each of which was driven by an eight-cylinder, Accompanied by her sister boat, , the other of the RAN's first two submarines, AE2 reached Sydney from England on 24 May 1914, manned by Royal Navy (RN) officers with a mixed crew of sailors drawn from the RN and RAN. During the capture of New Guinea, AE1 disappeared without a trace. AE2 arrived in Port Said, Egypt, on 28 January 1915, and was ordered to join the British 2nd Submarine Flotilla, and proceeded to take part in patrols in support of the Dardanelles Campaign.

Dardanelles Campaign

On 10 March, the submarine ran aground off Mudros when returning from a patrol, as the harbour lights used to aid navigation had been switched off in AE2s absence, which Stoker was not prepared for. The submarine was towed to Malta for repairs and returned to operation in April.

The aim of the Dardanelles Campaign was to knock Germany's ally, the Ottoman Empire, out of the war and open up supply lines to the Russian Empire via the Black Sea. Plans were made to capture the Turkish defences by a land attack, with landings at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove.

thumb|left|HMAS AE2

AE2s first attempt was made early on 24 April, but the boat only made it into the strait before the forward hydroplane coupling failed, making the submarine impossible to control underwater and forced Stoker to retreat. The submarine ran aground beneath a Turkish fort, but the fort's guns could not be lowered enough to fire, and AE2 was able to free herself within four minutes.

The submarine made appearances across the Sea of Marmara over the following five days to give the impression of multiple boats, and several attacks against Turkish ships were made, although all failed because of increasing mechanical problems.

Search and discovery

thumb|upright|A replica of AE2s conning tower at the [[Western Australian Maritime Museum]]

Since 1995, Selçuk Kolay, director of the Rahmi M. Koç Museum in Istanbul, had searched for the remains of AE2. In 1996, he discovered what he believed to be the wreck lying in of water.

On 9 September 2007, Australian and Turkish naval authorities began an undersea investigation to determine if AE2 could be raised and restored. Such a plan would see the submarine transferred to a viewing tank at Çanakkale. As part of the inspection, a drop camera was inserted through the submarine's open hatch and into the control room. The survey team discovered that the wreck of AE2 had suffered further damage since the 1998 inspection dives. The bow portion of the external hull casing had been destroyed and the rear of the conning tower now showed significant damage. Following an April 2008 workshop by the Turkish Institute of Nautical Archaeology and the Submarine Institute of Australia, the recommendation was made against raising the wreck. Moving the submarine to a viewing tank, or alternately relocating the wreck to shallower water, were advised against because of the AU$80–100 million cost of such projects.

An ROV exploration of the wreck by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation took place in June 2014. Several significant discoveries were made, including confirmation of the existence of a portable wireless telegraph pole and antenna wire. During the exploration, sacrificial anodes were fitted to the wreck, and the location was marked with a buoy to minimize damage by passing ships.

Legacy

In 2009, Edith Cowan University was commissioned by the National Archives of Australia to research and produce a computer game/simulation called AE2 Commander, funded under the $15,000 Ian Maclean Award. As well as being a realistic WWI submarine simulation, it is investigating how original archival sources can be used as part of computer simulation and serious gaming. An initial version of the AE2 Commander game and website went live on 17 April 2011. The game presents a combination of digitised documents from the collections of the National Archives of Australia and Australian War Memorial along with the embodiment of various archival sources in the setting and narrative of the game.

Commemorative bronze plaques have been installed along sites associated with AE2s voyage from Australia to the Dardanelles. A Defence Housing estate under construction in Ermington, New South Wales, on the site of a former naval ammunition store is to be named AE2. In recent years, AE2 has been referred to as the Silent ANZAC.

Citations

References

Further reading

  • RAN webpage for HMAS AE2
  • AE2 Commemorative Foundation
  • AE2 1997 and 1998 Expeditions, History and Pictures History of AE2 and expedition notes on the discovery and verification of the wreck.
  • British and Australian Submarines in the Dardanelles, 1915 Includes a full animation of the AE2's passage of the Dardanelles on 24–29 April 1915, based on Stoker's report of the voyage.
  • The Diary of Able Seaman 7893 Albert Edward Knaggs R.A.N. A diary of one of the submariners who served on the AE2.
  • 'Submarine losses 1904 to present day' - Royal Navy Submarine Museum