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Meeting Report of the Ipswich and District Historical Transport Society on September 24th 2025.

A total of 61 members and visitors attended the first meeting of our season.

The subject of this meeting after the AGM was “Submarine Accidents and Disasters”  an illustrated talk by Peter Briggs.

Peter knows much about this subject since he spent 28 years as a submariner in the Royal Navy. He surprised me with the fact that submariners in recent history are not volunteers but, as in his case, are told to join that branch of the service when needed.

There were four main periods of submarine development:

1774 to 1899  – The submarine pioneer era.

1900 to 1920 – The rapid development period, accelerated by war.

1920 to 1959 – The pre-nuclear submarine period.

1959 onwards – The nuclear submarine era.

The first submarine accident took place as early as 1774. In that year, the carpenter John Day died attempting to test his submarine invention in Plymouth Harbour. Funded by gambler Christopher Blake, Day attached his wooden diving chamber, the Maria, to a sloop and took it to a location near Drake’s Island. After adding 50 tons of ballast, the vessel sank rapidly, and Day was never seen again, resulting in the first recorded death during a submarine experiment. It turned out that Blake had taken bets on whether the vessel would sink which he agreed to share with Day. After the event Blake disappeared without trace, presumably with the cash.

The Holland series were the first series of submarines built for the Royal Navy. They were designed by John Phillip Holland and were built under licence to the Electric Boat Company. Five of them were built between 1901 and 1903. Holland 1 was eventually sold for scrap in 1913. While being towed to the scrapyard, she encountered very severe weather and sank about a mile and a half off the Eddystone Lighthouse. No one was on board the submarine at the time, and, since it had been seen to be sinking earlier in the journey, the crew of the tug were ready to release the tow rope, preventing any damage to the tug. The vessel was discovered and raised in 1982 and is displayed in The Royal Navy Submarine Museum.

The A series of submarines came next. A4 had a very curious accident. She was involved in an underwater signalling experiment off Spithead in October 1905. A bell had been lowered into the water from a dinghy some distance away from the submarine and was being used to signal to the submarine, which was running awash. A flag on a boat hook protruding through a ventilator which had been left open was used to indicate that the signal had been heard. The experiment had been performed successfully on the previous day, but the sea was much rougher on the 16th October and consequently the submarine stayed inside the breakwater.

Unfortunately seawater flooded through the open ventilator causing the boat to develop a 40 degree inclination on the bow. It dived to 90 feet and then partially filling with chlorine gas when seawater came in contact with the battery acid. The crew managed to blow the ballast tanks to surface the boat and evacuate onto the deck, but there was an explosion whilst she was being towed back to port and she slowly sank.

Moving forward – HMS Thetis was built by Cammell Laird in Birkenhead, England and launched on 29 June 1938. In June 1939 she started on her first diving trial. The crew made ready to dive but she would not respond and more ballast was needed. Two forward torpedo tubes were checked to see if they had filled with water – these are filled if no torpedoes are present as part of the ballast.

There are small holes in the rear door on the inner end of the tubes. The crew did not know that when the tubes had been painted with enamel paint; the holes had been painted over. When the holes were unplugged and checked for dripping water; only a little came out. They decided to open the rear door, through which the holes had been drilled. They did not realise that the bow cap was also open and so seawater rushed in, flooding the vessel and sending her to the bottom. Before the men could be rescued; those that had survived the inrush of water, succumbed to asphyxiation as the oxygen level fell and the carbon dioxide they breathed out increased. A total of a 100 men were lost.

Thetis was salvaged, repainted and renamed HMS Thunderbolt. She too was sunk by Italian depth charges in 1943 and lies at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

These are but a few of the stories told by Peter. After one or two questions from the audience; our Chairman; Sylvia Kerridge, thanked Peter and he was given warm applause.

Mervyn Russen

Peter Briggs (with his permission)

HMS Holland 1 on display at the Royal Naval Submarine Museum at Gosport  (Creative Commons attribution Share alike 2.0 Generic licence)

HMS A3 on the surface (Attribution – In the public domain)