The Navy's New Toy Shook The High Level Bridge

The Admiralty of the day having been persuaded that there was something to be said for the submarine, Vickers prepared the way for the building of the boats by entering into a licensing arrangement with the Electric Boat Company. The period of the licence was 25 years but it seems worth recording that friendly relationships have extended over many more years than that.

So we come to the first five submarines ever ordered for the Royal Navy. HMS Holland 1 was the first to enter the water on 2nd October 1901 but no one can now tell us whether she was truly launched into Walney Channel or lowered by crane into Devonshire Dock.

Vickers records contain a photographic negative of a Holland being launched, they also contain a negative of a Holland being lowered into the water - or hoisted from it - by the old hammerhead crane which preceded the present 250 tonner. You can take your pick.

Holland 1 launching ?

By present standards the Holland's are in the midget submarine category, Holland 1 for instance, displaced 120 tons. She was 63ft 4ins long overall and had a beam of 11ft 9ins. One 18 in torpedo tube was fitted forward and four 18in torpedoes were carried.

The scantlings of the hull were designed to withstand pressure at a depth of 100 ft and if one wished to enter or leave the boat then one did so via a conning tower of armoured steel 4in. thick and 32in in diameter. This was fitted with observation ports.

Surface propulsion was provided by a four-cylinder single acting petrol engine driving a single screw. The engine had a water jacket cooling system and pistons of the trunk type with long surfaces. The connecting rods were attached directly to the pistons and at maximum power the captain could expect 260 revolutions per minute, 190 horsepower and a surface speed of 8 or 9 knots. The boat's range at that was 400 miles.

When dived, propulsion was by an electric motor claimed to be powerful enough to give a speed of seven knots. An endurance of four hours at this speed was claimed for the boat but this must surely have been an exaggeration.

Having got their submarine, the Royal Navy scarcely knew what to do with it. Remember that they had never, ever had anything like Holland 1 before.

Eventually an American crew with experience of submarines in the United States was sent for and with Captain Cable USN in charge they assisted the British captain Lieut. D Arnold-Foster RN with the trials and initial training.

There was a certain amount of pessimism and undoubtedly some of the fun associated with a new toy. She was first trimmed down in the dock with chains passed beneath her hull to pull her up again if she got stuck on the bottom. The first true dive and underwater run was done in Morecambe Bay.

Strange new words were entering the vocabulary of the Royal Navy. The man at what we would now call the hydroplanes was regarded as the man working the diving-rudder wheel. He was known to the Americans as the boss driver. He later became - in Navy terms - the diving coxswain. Succeeding generations of submariners abbreviated this to coxswain, obviously much less of a mouthful.

At the beginning of April 1902, Holland 1 went off to sea for trials in deep water. Eyewitnesses reported that she submerged in less than six seconds, suddenly disappearing from the awash condition "and then again coming into sight some yards distant with great rapidity and ease."

Yet the boat almost came to grief when running up and down Devonshire and Buceleuch Docks. When passing the cruiser King Alfred, a sudden swirl created by the big ship's propellers sent the submarine crashing into the dock wall close to the high level bridge.

She hit the wall hard and people rushed across the bridge to see what all the noise was about. It was reported at the time that Barrow shipyard workers took great pride in telling how their first submarine had "shaken the high level" yet lost only two rivets from her hull! A commentator of the time remarked that the submarine must have been "splendidly constructed" so Barrow's reputation for quality has been hard earned.

Obviously a submarine had to have means of allowing the captain to look around when running awash. This was the optical tube, not much trusted, long and bulky and not easy to use and later to be replaced by the more efficient and effective periscope.

Eventually the Holland captains became accustomed to the contraption but one enthusiast decided to paint a dummy periscope in spiral stripes in all the primary colours. It was an experiment and the idea was that when one turned the tube rapidly by means of an electric motor this multicoloured barber's pole would become invisible. It didn't, so another bright idea came to grief.

The submarines were given a mother ship while at Barrow and this was the gunboat HMS Hazard. She was on hand for things like deep diving and the greatest recorded depth achieved by a Holland in the Royal Navy is 78 ft, achieved by Holland 2.

The air service did not fail as was once the case with an American submarine. Holland 2, after experiencing a few leaks from weeping rivets, etc, surfaced none the worse for her deep submergence.

When all five Holland's had been completed by Vickers the first major cruise planned for them was the circumnavigation of the Isle of Wight. That is not much by today's standards and does not sound very ambitious but three of the boats broke down before getting past Spit Sands Fort, four miles from the start. Only one got as far as Cowes.

Eventually all the problems were ironed out. To quote Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, very much "in" when the Submarine Service was being born, "We are learning to walk. One day no doubt, that walk will develop into a run." It certainly has.

Holland's 2, 3, 4 and 5 were slightly bigger than Holland 1 and had a more powerful petrol engine. Nos. 1 and 2 were sold in 1913. No. 3 was sunk in experiments in 1911, No. 4 was dismantled in 1912 and No. 5 sank while on tow to a ship-breaking yard.

The boats were no more than experimental craft but what a lot the Royal Navy and Vickers learned from them.
 

Reproduced from
Ulverston News (1976)

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