The fate of HMAS Sydney (II) is considered the RAN's most enduring mystery, but an equally enigmatic disappearance occurred some 27 years previously. Overshadowed by time and the story of a more famous sister, this incident is almost forgotten today - but it was a savage blow for the RAN, depriving the infant Navy of 35 brave men and half its submarine force.
At the 1909 Imperial Conference, Australia agreed to the construction of a 'Fleet Unit', a balanced combination of warships capable of tactical operations on its own as well as forming part of a proposed Eastern Fleet. It was to consist of an armoured (battle)cruiser, three second-class cruisers, six destroyers and three submarines. Orders were duly placed for improved classes of the vessels agreed at the conference, two larger, faster and more capable submarines being substituted for the original three. These were the latest 'E' class boats (of which 55 were built for the Royal Navy) and were designated AE.1 and AE.2 respectively - the 'A' for Australian.
Both submarines were built by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness and cost £105,415 each. They were commissioned simultaneously at Portsmouth on 28 February 1914, AE.1 commanded by LCDR T.F. Besant RN and her sister by LCDR H.H.G.D. Stoker RN. They departed Portsmouth for Australia on 2 March, sailing via Suez and Singapore. Two-thirds of the 18,000 km journey was made under their own power, the rest being completed under escort (and tow) of HMAS Sydney (I). The flotilla arrived in Sydney on 24 May 1914 (Empire Day), and the submarines immediately went into refit at Cockatoo Island to make good defects that had emerged during the voyage.
Ten weeks later - on the outbreak of war - they were still there. They were quickly prepared for war service, being ready by 10 August. Towards the end of the month, in company with their parent ship Upolu and escorted by the venerable HMAS Protector, the two submarines sailed northward from Port Jackson. The convoy's initial destination was Palm Island just north of Townsville, where the sailors and soldiers of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF) were exercising preparatory to commencing operations against Rabaul, the-then capital of German New Guinea. The little convoy arrived on 2 September, after being delayed by Protector's slow speed and chronic condenser defects in Upolu. Thus, when the assembled squadron - Sydney, Encounter, the submarines, armed merchant cruiser/troopship HMAS Berrima and the supply ship Aorangi - sailed the same day for Port Moresby, Upolu and Protector were ordered to proceed independently to Rabaul.
The convoy reached Port Moresby on 4 September and left again three days later for a rendezvous with Australia and the destroyers Parramatta, Yarra and Warrego in the Louisades on the 9th. The following day the ships sailed for Blanche Bay. The plan of operations was for Sydney and the destroyers to land naval parties at Herbertshöhe (now Kokopo) and Kabakaul, some four miles (approx. 6.5 km) east; Berrima to put the military component ashore at Rabaul; Encounter to patrol off Cape Tawui (north of Blanche Bay); the submarines to patrol off Cape Gazelle to the east; and for Australia to stand off at sea as distant support. Australia, Encounter and the submarines were so placed to guard against hostile incursions by Admiral von Spee's Pacific Squadron or other German warships.
It was while engaged on this duty that AE.1 was lost with all hands. In company with Parramatta (LEUT W.H. Warren RAN), she sailed from Herbertshöhe at 0700 on 14 September, their only orders to search in St George's Channel. To this end the destroyer turned south, while AE.1 headed north-east towards the Duke of York Islands. The still morning was hazy and this got worse during the day, obscuring the submarine from Parramatta's view, the latter turning north-west to regain contact. She sighted the submarine off Berard Point (Duke of York Is) about 1430, and the two vessels 'spoke' briefly before the destroyer steered easterly to continue her patrol.
AE.1 was last seen from the destroyer about 1530, running south-west and apparently heading back to harbour. She was never seen again. Warren was not particularly concerned (later reporting that 'she would have had to leave at that time to arrive in harbour before dark') and Parramatta did not return to Herbertshöhe until 1900. Yarra put to sea an hour later to commence a search, followed by Parramatta at 2330. The destroyers searched throughout the night, being joined the following day by Warrego, Encounter and a flotilla of motor boats and steam launches commandeered from Rabaul and Herbertshöhe. In desperation the search area was extended to cover all waters between New Britain and New Ireland, but to no avail - no wreckage or other evidence was ever found, and AE.1 was presumed lost with all hands.
In the absence of eyewitnesses and without any effective sub-surface search capability (this was long before the days of ASDIC/SONAR), speculation as to the cause of the loss was rife in the squadron. Although no formal inquiry seems to have been carried out, the eventually accepted opinion, later expressed by the Official Historian, was that:
out of many hypotheses the least improbable is that the AE.1 dived for practice in the ordinary course when nearing the mouth of Blanche Bay, and came up so close to the coastal reef - which there forms a precipitous, if not overhanging, edge to the deep channel - that her thin steel plates were cut through by the coral rock. The objection to this hypothesis is that no traces of oil were found; whether that objection is insuperable must be left to technical experts. (Jose, 3rd Ed. 1935, p. 97).
And so the matter stood for 60 years. In 1975-6 Commander J.D. Foster RAN, while Deputy Commander Australian Defence Co-operation Group Papua New Guinea, researched the circumstances surrounding AE.1's disappearance and established a probability area around Mioko Reef and Credner Island - almost in direct line between the submarine's final sighting and Herbertshöhe, around the course AE.1 was likely to have taken when returning to harbour for the night. Approval was given for the survey ship HMAS Flinders to conduct a search of this area using her side-scanning sonar and, on 17 May 1976, she located a contact 1,000 m NE of Credner Is at a depth of 240 m. Unfortunately, the tantalizing possibility that this was the wreck of AE.1 has remained just that - a possibility. The sonar was unable to provide positive identification (although it was established that the object was not a natural feature), and no further search has been undertaken.
Thus, the loss of Australia's first submarine, her officers and ship's company remains an intriguing but largely-forgotten mystery.
References:
Bastock, John. Australia's Ships of War. Sydney : Angus and Robertson, 1975.
Foster, J.D. "'Tom Besant where are you?' The mystery of HMA Submarine AE1". Defence Force Journal, No. 5, July/August 1977, pp. 19-23.
Jose, A.W. The Royal Australian Navy 1914-1918, 3rd Ed. Sydney : Angus and Robertson, 1935.
Lind, L.J. H.M.A.S. Parramatta 1910-1928. Garden Island : Naval Historical Society of Australia, 1974.
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