The M1
Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:14 am
There was a good documentary on BBC2 last Thursday on the fate of the M1, one of a series of 3 M Class subs the Admiralty thought fit to equip with 12" battleship guns and - in the case of the M2 - a mini aircraft hanger.
The M1 was hit by a freighter in the English channel in 1925. Its thought they lost it in a dive (due to the unbalancing effect of the huge weight of the gun), blew all ballast & came up under her - 12" guns ain't meant to be fitted to subs!
Divers went down to the wreck and found that the impact had knocked gun off= mountings, thereby opening up the forrad compartments. However, some unlucky sods survived in the rear compartments, a la the Kursk.
The crew they had no escape equipment, but a hatch was open so they obviously tried to get out. The sub was at 70 metres, quite shallow...'cept if you're human. No bodies were ever recovered.
Apparently they had been issued with suicide pills in case of that kind of event, never heard of that before.
After piloting a big fat LFN sub to a watery grave last night I couldn't help but reflect on this!
/bux
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/archaeology/marine_wreck6.shtml
http://www.submariners.co.uk/Dits/Articles/m1.htm
The M1 was hit by a freighter in the English channel in 1925. Its thought they lost it in a dive (due to the unbalancing effect of the huge weight of the gun), blew all ballast & came up under her - 12" guns ain't meant to be fitted to subs!
Divers went down to the wreck and found that the impact had knocked gun off= mountings, thereby opening up the forrad compartments. However, some unlucky sods survived in the rear compartments, a la the Kursk.
The crew they had no escape equipment, but a hatch was open so they obviously tried to get out. The sub was at 70 metres, quite shallow...'cept if you're human. No bodies were ever recovered.
Apparently they had been issued with suicide pills in case of that kind of event, never heard of that before.
After piloting a big fat LFN sub to a watery grave last night I couldn't help but reflect on this!
/bux
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/archaeology/marine_wreck6.shtml
http://www.submariners.co.uk/Dits/Articles/m1.htm