laststandonzombieisland

In 1901, 24-year-old LT Forster Delafield Arnold-Forster, RN, arrived at the Vickers shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness to take command of a curious, rather hush-hush craft. He found the project shrouded in secrecy, located inside a building labeled “Yacht Shed” with parts marked for “Pontoon No. 1.”

His description of what would become officially HM Submarine Torpedo Boat No. 1, launched without ceremony on 2 October 1901, was downright unflattering.

What surprised me most when I did find the boat was her small size. She was only 63 ft. long and was shaped like a very fat and stumpy cigar. She had fins and a tail with a single propeller and two rudders, one for steering and the other for diving.

There was a small conning tower on top just big enough to put one’s head and shoulders in. Her speed turned out afterwards to be seven knots on the surface and never more than about four knots under water.

The ingenious designer in New York evidently did not realize that the average naval officer has only two eyes and two hands, the little conning tower was simply plastered with wheels, levers, valves and gauges with which some superman was to fire torpedoes, dive and steer and do everything else at the same time.

At 63 feet long, the Phillip Holland-designed boat wasn’t much of a looker, but what she represented mattered.

Commissioned for target practice in August 1902 and for fleet operations by 1903, Holland No. 1 was soon made public, with postcards in wide circulation and news reports circling the globe.

The Admiralty ordered four more or-less identical sisters, which were in service by the end of 1903.

Holland No. 1, in 1913, was lost in a tow, unmanned, in severe weather, and sank about a mile and a half off Eddystone Lighthouse.

After slumbering through two world wars, she was raised in the 1980s, restored, and is now on public display at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport.

Incredibly, her lead batteries were cleaned and recharged, then found to be in good working order.

As for the RN’s first submarine skipper, Arnold-Forster returned to surface ships, commanded a series of destroyers, gunboats, and cruisers, earned a CMG during the Great War, and retired in 1922. Upgraded to a light admiral on the Retired List, he passed in 1958, at which time the RN had 26 active submarines and the country’s first SSN, the future HMS Dreadnought (S 101), had just been ordered from Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness- small world.

Currently, 2 October 1901 is seen as the start of the HM Submarine Service, and this week marks 125 years. Their motto is “We come unseen.”