‘Little did we think when we parted with him … we would never see him home again … The thought is terrible.’
Elizabeth Smail
The signal which was hammered out by Morse code keys and crackled along telegraph lines was shocking. Australia had lost its first military unit – just 40 days after the nation was committed to battle in World War I. The secret message relayed from the Australian fleet via Thursday Island to Navy Office, Melbourne, on 16 September 1914 contained the bitter and startling news.
It is with the deepest regret that I have to make the following report with regard to the loss of Submarine A.E.1 and all hands on presumably the evening of 14th September 1914. At 7 a.m. on morning of 14th September, Submarine A.E.1 proceeded out of Rabaul harbour with orders to patrol East of Cape Gazelle, in company with ‘PARRAMATTA’; that Destroyer proceeding from Herbertshohe where she had been at anchor the previous night. The general orders were to patrol in the vicinity named above keeping a lookout for any enemy, and return into harbour before dark.1
The communication from Rear Admiral Patey, RN, onboard his flagship HMAS Australia was at a loss as to where and how Australia’s first submarine had disappeared. He believed he had acted properly in such an emergency, reporting that Yarra had proceeded on night patrol from Rabaul Harbour at ‘about 7 p.m.’.
At about 8.0 p.m. on 14th September, as the Submarine had not arrived, I ordered ‘PARRAMATTA’ and ‘YARRA’ to search for her, and ‘ENCOUNTER’ to go at daylight and assist. On the morning of the 15th September, nothing having been seen, I ordered the ‘PARRAMATTA’ and ‘YARRA’ to make a sweep 30 miles to the N.W. of Duke of York Island. In this they were joined by ‘WARREGO’ … Nothing was seen.2
ACNB advised the Minister for Defence ‘the weather was fine but hazy, the sea smooth, no enemy in the neighbourhood’. It believed the only consolation was that the water in the vicinity of where the submarine was last seen was very deep and the hull would have been unable to withstand the pressure very long – ‘death would be mercifully sudden’ – a small consolation.3
The following day the names of those missing and their next-of-kin were despatched and telegram boys began knocking on doors throughout the nation and overseas, in Britain and New Zealand. Each would state the same scant facts but with a different name. Some family members already had had strong premonitions but tried to dismiss these by repeating the phrase; ‘there is a war on’. Mothers were told they worried unnecessarily. Alfred Francis would dispute this. Petty Officer Thomas Guilbert had grown up as extended family with Alfred Francis, and with Alfred employed in the navy dockyards they maintained a strong relationship. It was with regret that Alfred farewelled his best friend as Australia’s submarines left England. He awoke abruptly in mid-September 1914 and told wife Lydia he was convinced he heard Tom’s voice saying ‘Help me Alf’.4 Lydia reassured her husband it was just a nightmare. Within days the couple heard that the Coxswain of AE1 and his crew were ‘lost’. For Alfred and 35 families their futures had changed and their lives would never be the same.
The Minister for Defence, Senator Pearce, made the public announcement; it grieved him to report the loss of ‘the Australian submarine AE1, with 35 officers and men’.5 Prime Minister Andrew Fisher declared: ‘They died in the service of their country, owing to the risks and dangers of the seafaring life’.6 He stated that Australians needed to be kept informed of matters of the kind, ‘so that their minds may be free from the apprehension of news of any disasters being withheld’.7 Fisher would regret making this statement because over the ensuing months and years the true disaster of this war would be hideous. Senator Pearce added a human touch – his government deeply deplored the disaster and extended ‘its sincere sympathy to the wives and families of those on board’.8 In almost uncharacteristic impassioned language the Australian Naval Board congratulated the crew, who for the most part had been those who brought the boat to Australia demonstrating ‘their thorough efficiency’, and ‘the navy has to mourn the loss of good comrades’. Those who made up ACNB appreciated that:
Many homes will mourn to-day, but although our men did not fall by the hand of the enemy, they fell on active service and in defence of the Empire. Their names will be enshrined with those of heroes.9
ACNB however publicly acknowledged: ‘It was thought that she must have sighted an enemy and given chase’. There needed to be some brave act to explain the loss of Australia’s first submarine.
The Sydney Morning Herald headline read:
AUSTRALIANS IN ACTION – OCCUPATION OF RABAUL.
This was perceived as the first of many future victories for the imperial forces. But further down was the subheading ‘THE LOST SUBMARINE’. It was too difficult to believe that the first victory could be overshadowed by such a loss – the ANZAC landings on the beaches of Gallipoli were still seven months away.
It is only because Great Britain possesses an abundance of men endowed with their courage, their endurance, and their ability that the British Navy is able to keep the seas clear of the enemy.10
Characteristic of the period the sympathetic emphasis was on the AE1 captain and a special column titled ‘COMMANDER BESANT – “THE LIFE I’VE CHOSEN”’. It was quickly mentioned that Besant was ‘the nephew of the late Sir Walter Besant’. He was considered:
one of the most skilful and alert of the officers of the Royal Navy engaged in the submarine service, especially lent to the Commonwealth to bring the AE1 out to Australia.11
Readers were reminded that upon his arrival in Sydney this newspaper had described him as ‘this quiet young officer, clean-shaven and of youthful appearance’, who impressed as an officer ‘of exceptional parts’, the type of ‘man, alert and fearless, who would go anywhere and do anything at the call of duty’. Heroes were needed and ‘the Empire has lost one more brave Commander in her submarine service’.12
The Sydney Morning Herald which had so robustly congratulated the RAN on acquiring two submarines now stopped just short of condemning them. Submarines were now seen as:
of all the vessels of war these are the most perilous; a vessel which spells destruction to the enemy – the deadly torpedo hurtles through the water and of all the men of the Royal Navy those who go down to the sea in submarines are the least sure of the fate that awaits them.13
The newspaper failed to mention that AE1 and AE2 and half their crews were RAN. Earlier congratulations at being at the cutting edge of technology were now subdued. The state-of-the-art submarines were now something less, they were ‘deadly instruments of war’; as dangerous ‘to the enemy’ as they were ‘to those who man them’. Whilst the newspaper acknowledged that every officer and man who joined the submarine service was the pick of the navy and ‘the bravest of the brave’, the lengthy article ended with the comment:
With no enemy in sight – with the most modern equipment – with all these provisions for the safety of the men on board – what untoward accident accounts for the loss of AE1? That is one of the secrets that is buried with the submarine.14
Little did the newspaper realise how prophetic this statement would be, because 100 years later ‘the secrets’ would continue to be buried ‘with the submarine’. Australian naiveté had been breached by ‘the first lesson of naval power’ that ‘sooner or later’, the result would be a sacrifice of ‘brave men and fine ships’. This was a hazard navy personnel accepted ‘particularly those who enter such service as that in submarines’. The loss of AE1 had ‘brought the truth home to Australia’ and was made ‘all the grimmer for the atmosphere of mystery which surrounds it’.15
One of the better written exposés, if not most technical, appeared in Adelaide’s The Register on 24 September. It attempted to explain what no one within the RAN was explaining to the Australian public – in layman language. Whilst not offering a conclusion on the cause of the sinking, the article concentrated on why the submarine may not have been able to resurface. The article explained that the submarine submerged by ‘admitting water in the ballast tanks’ and resurfaced by ejecting the water from the ballast tanks by means of electric pumps – but ‘the pumps may have failed’. Another theory was that the submarine may have dived deeper than intended until the ‘water pressure was too great for her to rise again’. This had occurred off Plymouth when A7 sank in 23 fathoms of water. The article did not encourage hope and finished on a most poignant last entry by Lieutenant Sakuma, Commanding Officer of Japanese Submarine 6, which was lost with all hands in 1910.
Water began rushing in; the switchboard was drowned; all electric lights went out; the electric fuses blew; the boat filled with poisonous gas so that we could only breathe with difficulty. We worked our hardest to empty the main ballast tank with handpumps, and I believe we succeeded though, being in darkness, we could not see to read the gauges. I write this in the dim light from the conning tower. 11.45 a.m. I earnestly beseech His Majesty to forgive and aid the families of my comrades, my men, who must lose their lives with me in this boat now being lost. This is my last wish. 12.30 pm. It is with extreme difficulty that I can breathe. I cannot continue any more.16
According to the article this series of events may well describe what had happened to the men of AE1.
Had AE1 hit a mine? Had the submarine struck a reef and gone ‘to the bottom’?17 This was the stuff of adventure books with a tragic twist and there needed to be a definitive answer, preferably one which involved bravery and glory. The rumours, innuendo and supposition began, with every whisper reported in a printed media yet to be overwhelmed by war stories.
It was not just heroes who were needed but villains also. This was not an age when British military commanders were held accountable and in 1914 it was believed the RN ruled supremely. Yet the news was not good early in this war – the Germans were better prepared and equipped. Their ships were scattered throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans attacking warships and cargo ships at will. Coast watchers loyal to Germany flashed signals from islands advising of British ship movement s. At the outbreak of war SMS Konigsberg was stationed in German East Africa and ordered to raid British commercial shipping. It was a coast watcher who signalled Konigsberg that HMS Pegasus lay at anchor in Zanzibar Harbour. Surprising the British cruiser in harbour on 20 September the German cruiser opened fire. The accurate bombardment continued for around 20 minutes before the Commanding Officer of Pegasus struck the colours (surrendered). Pegasus was inferior in armaments and although the British crew attempted to defend their ship none of their guns was ready – 38 seamen were killed and 55 injured. Pegasus sank later in the day.
Villains were needed and such an attack quickly came to symbolise what was now an invidious, vicious, sinister enemy who did not fight fairly, like gentleman should. ‘The Konigsberg’s task was easier than target practice … it wasn’t fighting; it was murder’.18 On 10 September the German cruiser SMS Emden from the China Station, after being lost to the British for six weeks, appeared suddenly in the Bay of Bengal. During the period 10–14 September German warships captured six British ships. Britain lost 14 warships in the first eight months of World War I, the majority in the Northern Hemisphere, and this would affect Admiralty priorities. German propaganda further inflamed. The German newspaper Morgenpost reported: ‘The loss of the Australian submarine AE1 is evidence that the German fleet in the Pacific is not idle’.19 Australian newspapers headlined ‘LOSS OF THE AE1 – GERMANS TAKE CREDIT’.20
Embellishment quickly followed: ‘THE AE1 WAS SHE SUNK? A NAMELESS SCHOONER ON FIRE’.
A strange patch of oil floating on the quiet surface of the water, a nameless schooner with a gun-mounting from which the gun was missing, discovered on the coast in flames and sinking … There are those who, unable to believe that the AE1 was destroyed by hostile agency, feel that the bitterest circumstances in the disaster lies in the thought that those onboard of her died before they had been able to strike a single blow against the enemy’.21
The language was dramatic. One headline read ‘MYSTERY OF AE1 WAS IT GERMAN TREACHERY?’. An RAN sailor serving ‘on an Australian cruiser’, on leave in Adelaide said his warship investigated a cloud of smoke. A party of sailors was landed and they found ‘a small vessel which had evidently been beached’ and was on fire. A ‘German and number of natives’ were captured and told of how they were challenged by AE1.
The German skipper, notwithstanding the fact that the vessel, a scout, had two 12 pounders onboad, promptly ran up the white flag. The submarine then came alongside, whereupon the German vessel trained the guns upon the little Warcraft and poured their rounds into her at such close range that destruction was inevitable. Immediately after the sinking of AE1 the German ordered his crew to throw the guns overboard. The scout was then run ashore, benzene was poured over her, and she was set alight.22
A similar story was related by a sailor to his parents in Perth. His version differed only slightly. A German motor boat had surprised, attacked and sank AE1.
Owing to the water in which the submarine was at the time being too shallow for her to dive, she afforded an excellent mark for the projectiles, which soon made short work of her thin plates. The motor boat then made off, but ran aground and had her side stove in.23
The Sydney Morning Herald raised the suggestion that the German vessels Komet and Planet may have been responsible for the sinking. The Australian fleet had initially failed to find Komet hidden in a small bay camouflaged by natural foliage. ‘The Komet was armed with a quick-firer, and was capable of sinking a vessel similar to the missing submarine.’ The Australian submarine might also ‘have been sunk by the German steamer Planet, which was captured two days after the AE1 was reported missing’.24
This was so early in the war and predominant language was of glory and imperial loyalty. As Australians began to pay an extraordinary price in this war the language would not remain so robust and human error and bureaucratic incompetence would no longer be such unattractive scenarios. In 1914 it was better to believe Australia’s first submarine and its crew were victims of an unscrupulous enemy.
Though Lieutenant Besant and his companions perished without the firing of a single shot, the fact that their death lacked the qualities of the spectacular detracts no whit from its nobility or its example. They obeyed their orders, and they died in that obedience. They gave their lives for their King and for the Empire as surely and as unhesitantly as though the AE1 had sunk, bows toward the enemy, rent and shattered from stem to stern beneath a crashing rain of shells.25
To the families the media speculation, questions and theories were initially secondary. Sons, brothers, husbands and fathers had disappeared and the grief was real and deep. The original list of names provided to the media was incomplete. Navy Office had been unable to keep up with the relevant paperwork. In the desperate need to get to war further volunteers from the submarine spare crew had been called for. Men like Chief ERA Joseph Wilson, Leading Stokers John Meek and Sidney Barton, Able Seamen George Hodgkin and Frederick Dennis, and Stoker William Guy, had lost little time in volunteering to make up the six extra crew needed by each submarine to commit to four watches instead of three. It was also suggested that additional engine room personnel were in AE1 because of mechanical problems. But the oversight of leaving AE1 Second Captain, Lieutenant Charles Moore, RN, off the list was more difficult to understand because he was with the submarine since before commissioning.
When British newspapers published the news the featured headline was: ‘LOSS OF A SUBMARINE. AUSTRALIAN VESSEL WITH 34 HANDS; PEER’S SON MISSING’. Those mentioned by name were ‘Lieutenant Commander Thomas F Besant and Lieutenant Commander the Hon. Leopold F Scarlett (son of Lord Abinger)’.26 Whilst other British newspapers recognised that Scarlett was a Lieutenant, their published crew lists showed no Lieutenant Charles Moore. For a brief consoling interlude the Moore family may have believed he was not in AE1 until the letter, dated 16 December 1914, was finally received from ACNB. The letter to his father Colonel (later Sir) Henry Moore of the King’s Own Royal Regiment included ‘the profound regret of the Naval Board and Australian Navy at the extremely sad loss of your son’ and how:
deeply concerned we were and how we sympathised with the added pain that must have been caused by the omission to report your son’s loss in the first official list.27
The blame was shifted to the ‘mutilation of the cipher message’ as it was transmitted from the flagship to New Guinea and Melbourne, ‘necessitating its passing through several wireless stations and over many miles of land wire’28 – but the personnel records were held in Melbourne.
Isabella Messenger, mother of ERA John ‘Jack’ Messenger, was stunned when she received the telegram with the horrible news that her son was ‘lost’. ‘Lost’ was too gentle a word. Had Jack been killed? As she looked at the harsh black print on faded yellow paper yet again she received contact from Clyde Smith, of Sydney, a former shipmate of her son. Smith stated that Jack had left some personal effects and details of his private affairs prior to leaving on his journey north on AE1.29 Jack had written regularly to his mother and the photo he had sent of himself in Paris would, like the other images, remain precious. But she had not seen her son for three years and the family had so cherished the idea of his coming on leave when the submarine arrived in Australia. Unfortunately the ERA was essential to the refit and just as a leave opportunity arose, the war broke out. If only Jack had been able to visit Ballarat on leave – if only war had not been declared; if only ….
The submariners of AE1 by necessity had left the bulk of their belongings on their support ship. This was a small mercy because when larger ships were sunk belongings stood no such chance of survival. The lists were gradually compiled, items sorted by sailors doubtless affected by what was left of lives. Able Seaman George Hodgkin, the former fleet boxing champion, left photos, letters, a modest bank account and some wonderful stories including knocking out a fellow AE1 sailor who panicked when the submarine struggled to resurface. Chief Petty Officer Harry Stretch left his belonging and savings to sister, Emma Usher. His silver watch and chain, gold cuff links, telescope and medals would be handed down to later generations.30
The 5 feet 10 inch, hazel-eyed 23-year-old Able Seaman John Reardon, would never collect the £250 for his navy service and return home to Kaikoura, New Zealand and his own farm. John had one tattoo; on his left forearm were clasped hands over an anchor. Scottish Stoker James Guild had been raised by his grandparents and father. For his Perth General Station signalman father William, to lose his only son was a ‘sore blow’.31 James had decided to leave the navy and signed a business partnership with a friend. Former ANF Stoker Petty Officer Charles Wright’s will enabled his widowed mother Jane to receive his saving bank balance of £72/19/4, life assurance and £58 in navy deferred pay and allowances. This would ensure she lived out her remaining years in comfort.32
But too few AE1 sailors had had the foresight or the time to complete wills and this would complicate and diminish the lives of their wives and children. The colourful and extrovert Lancastrian, Petty Officer Henry Hodge, had earned some extra money sewing on men’s ranks and rates and his trusty sewing machine was his prized possession. This would be considered too large an item to return so wife Ida Louisa would receive a small remuneration in lieu, together with the standard £8 war service pay her husband was deemed entitled to.
Able Seaman William Tribe did not leave a will. Wife Kate would receive a fortnightly pension of 84 shillings for herself and 45 shilling per fortnight for her three children – five-year-old William, four-year-old Kate and one-year-old Rose; life would be difficult until she was granted a once-only war gratuity payment of £134/5/-. But Kate Tribe would not be paid this until 1921.33
Chief ERA Joseph Wilson and wife Elizabeth Cecilia Wilson had six children between 1904 and 1914, yet he did not make out a will. When the declaration for war gratuity was completed in 1920 Elizabeth was on a meagre war widow pension of £7/9/- per fortnight. On the declaration Elizabeth was required to list Joseph’s parents and brothers as family members who possibly could make a claim on the payment of £134/7/-. It would be left to the generosity of these members of the Wilson family whether or not they would pursue their claim.
ERA John Marsland had been crucial to the operation of not just AE1 but AE2. He was an Artificer through and through and took out an Australian patent (No. 13754 of 1914) for a locknut. The Admiralty did not wish to use it. But the RAN encouraged his wife Nellie to complete the patent process on behalf of herself and children because the Commonwealth Government was prepared to pay her the sum of £50 for the right to use the locknut in the RAN. He also left his treasured banjo in its wooden case and the journal 13,000 Miles in a Submarine in 83 days. In 1921 Nellie too would finally receive a war gratuity. Signalman George Dance’s leather writing case with precious letters inside was sent home to wife Annie. Like other RAN/RN widows she would receive a fortnightly government pension. This would be cancelled as soon as she remarried – a woman was not entitled to a government pension if she was married.34
The personal possessions of Coxswain Petty Officer Thomas Guilbert – a box of letters, photos, foreign silver and copper coins, a whistle and a bank book with a balance of £14/10/3d – were returned to wife Violet in England and his extended family including his mate Alfred Francis. Alfred was haunted by the voice he believed to be Tom’s pleading for help, and assisted Violet as much as he could. The Commonwealth war gratuity was granted in 1921 but the decision made in Navy Office, Australia, was that this be held in trust until the Guilbert boys, six-year-old Albert Thomas Martin and one-year-old George Henry, turned 18.35
The parents of Leading Seaman William Guy of Bristol, England, received a letter from their son the day after they were informed he was a casualty of war. The letter was dated 13 September and had been despatched on a collier. He told his parents this was such a pleasant surprise because he did not think he would have such an opportunity for months.
We are looking for the enemy. We have not had the chance to fire an angry shot yet, but we are anxiously looking for the chance to blow the Germans up … I am all right and happy. Cheer up and look bright, better days to come.36
Cyril ‘Buds’ Lefroy Baker was to have turned 22 in November 1914. Launceston’s Alberta Baker asked if she might have her son Cyril’s telegraphist badges, as he was so proud of achieving this most important and modern RAN rating. The RAN agreed but encouraged her to observe:
an old custom in the Navy which is often of benefit to the next of kin. Clothes etc, not of personal value to the next of kin (unless treasured in any way) are sold in the Fleet (when the deceased’s friends are willing of course) and from sentimental grounds the bids often realise a sum much in excess of their real values, the same things being sold over and over again, which, where it is needed, is sometimes a great help to some poor wife or mother, and of much more value than a few old clothes.37
This was done with the best intentions, given the harsh economic times facing working-class Australians, but the clothes and belonging were Bud’s.
Alberta Baker’s response was the same as Alice Bray’s who was very upset at the suggestion and underlined her resolve.
I want everything belonging to my late son, John. Please do not sell any of the articles... nothing of his to be sold.38
Stoker John Bray enjoyed collecting and Alice was grateful. She received four guide books, two ‘books of views’, letters, postcards, two watches, a gold brooch, a silver match box, a compass, a ruler, a collection of foreign stamps carefully placed in a book and a book on the value of stamps. His religious convictions were enshrined in his two bibles and two naval temperance badges. John Bray was recognised for his ‘jovial and courteous disposition’ and was ‘held in high esteem by a large circle of friends’. A blacksmith with the Austral Drill Company’s foundry before enlisting, he was a supporter of the ‘Myers’ Creek Church of England Sunday School’ and the 23-year-old’s death was ‘received with profound regret’ in the Eaglehawk, Bendigo, community.39 Alice was unhappy with what she ultimately received because she believed there were ‘far more effects than you advised me of’.40 The Brays believed the navy owed families more caring attention than they received. The family published a memoriam in the Bendigo Advertiser.
Bray – In loving memory of John Bray, lost in AE1, 14th Sept., 1914.
THE SAILOR’S GRAVE
The moon shines down on a nameless grave,
Where buried in waters deep
gallant sailor – a British tar –
Lies taking his last long sleep.
But the Angel above who looks after Jack
With a spirit of gentle love
Will take up the soul of our true brave,
And bear him to realms above.41
Sydney’s Alice Corbould too was unhappy with what she believed was an unsympathetic officialdom. She and her two daughters waited ‘seven weeks’ for the return of her only son’s belongings and then, ‘articles of clothing came to hand, at Epping Railway Station … only discovered by accident’.42 Leading Seaman Gordon Corbould fitted the bronzed Aussie stereotype perfectly. He was a lifesaver with the Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club and The Sydney City Mission Herald described him as ‘a manly man, six feet tall, broadened out, and as handsome as ever, brave as a lion, and God-fearing’.43 Each ensuing year on 14 September Alice inserted a notice in The Sydney Morning Herald. In 1915:
CORBOULD. --In loving memory of my son,
Gordon Clarence Corbould, and his brave comrades, who lost their lives in submarine AE1 on September 14, 1914. Can any man die better than facing fearful odds, for the freedom of his country and the altar of his God. Inserted by his loving mother, Alice Corbould.44
Elizabeth Smail was devastated and asked the Department of Defence for all her son’s belongings. From the Melbourne home that Petty Officer Robert Smail had purchased for his family, Elizabeth wrote:
His navy clothes. They are not of much use to me but as they are my dear boy’s I would like to have them. I could not have it on my mind that anything belonging to my boy should be sold. ... If there is anything to pay I will pay this end. I am his mother and next-of-kin. Little did we think when we parted with him on 28 June we would never see him home again. The thought is terrible.45
On receipt of the valued effects:
Thank you ... these little trifles of his personal belongings mean a lot to me … the last I shall ever have to remind me … it is the last we will ever have of my poor boy.46
Struggling with her emotions she could only concentrate on the last effects of her favourite son. She endeavoured to remain gracious, ‘trusting I am not troubling you too much’, but she believed there were more clothes. 47
When the Department asked Isabella Messenger if she wanted any of her son Jack’s belongings returned, she replied:
Would you be kind enough to forward the remaining articles belonging to my son John Messenger as soon as possible as we do not wish any of his belongings to be sold.
Isabella would also be ‘extremely obliged if you referred to him as Engine Room Artificer’;48 dealing with death and grieving mothers was new for the Department of Defence.
The Messenger family received Jack’s war service bonus of £37 and a supplementary £5. This allowed the family to purchase their Ballarat home but Isabella remained greatly affected. Personal belongings included Jack’s bible, a chronometer, a box of compasses, a drawing book of sketches, a wooden boat and assorted books.49 Isabella clung to that word ‘lost’ used in that telegram – she would not accept that her eldest son was anything else. Following the end of WWI, when Isabella received a commemoration card from the Australian War Memorial (AWM), on which she was to write particulars for engraving on the AWM Honour Roll wall, she refused and never returned the card. ERA John Messenger’s name was inscribed on the Honour Roll of the family’s Ballarat Presbyterian church.
ERA Messenger was 25. His youngest brother Albert was born 20 years later. Albert was a toddler when Jack disappeared to England. From 1914 on Jack would remain a grainy photo on the parlour wall, a stern looking adult but exalted as ‘the family hero’. Isabella’s depression deepened and it was left to daughter Ruth to raise Albert and his youngest sister. Albert entered the Presbyterian ministry. An Arch of Victory and Avenue of Honour eventuated in Ballarat. Ruth’s work in that organisation was pivotal, ensuring that a tree in Jack Messenger’s name was one of the first planted.
On each 14 September, generations of the Messenger family continue to:
charge our glasses face our pictorial record of submarine AE1 and ERA J.C Messenger and drink a toast to their memory.50
News of the sinking of AE1 arrived before the passage to Australia of the families of Able Seaman Arthur Henry Fisher and Able Seaman Frederick Dennis. The families faced differing financial futures. Fisher had ensured a trust fund of £134/5/- for his four children though the authorities disallowed wife Lily a war gratuity. Florence Dennis was not so fortunate; George had been unable to make such a provision and she received only £11/13/- from the navy. In 1921 she was granted the once-only war gratuity payment but it was little use in easing the burden of raising three children alone. Fred’s brother, Able Seaman Ernest John David Dennis, was killed on 1 November when HMS Monmouth was sunk in action.
Stoker Petty Officer John Moloney had brought his wife and their baby to Australia. It was a huge change for the 16-year-old Beatrice and she believed that John would remain in Sydney for an indefinite period. As he left to rejoin his submarine they had a huge argument and her parting words to him were ‘I wish you were dead’. Beatrice returned to England and those words would forever torment her.51
May Wilson also arrived in Australia to make a home for herself. She was pregnant when husband Stoker Percy Wilson travelled to war. Percy never met his daughter but he chose her name, May Adelaide Wilson, after his wife and mother. May requested that Percy’s bible, notebook and letters be returned to her.52 She and baby May returned to live in Kent, England. For the Australian Wilson family the tragedy of war left an indelible impact. Percy and his siblings had struggled since mother Adelaide committed suicide following the birth of her youngest son William, and father Peter deserted the family. Percy’s younger brother John Swanson Wilson also joined the RAN to help support the family but John found navy life too difficult and deserted. Following the disappearance of his brother and AE1 he enlisted in the AIF under the name John Swanson and boarded a troop transport with the 3rd Reinforcements of the 17th Battalion on 9 August 1915. John survived the Gallipoli campaign before returning to Alexandria and transferring to the 5th Company, 2nd Battalion of the Australian Machine Gun Corps. Whilst serving on the Western Front he was wounded and mentioned in dispatches for ‘conspicuous service’. The 25-year-old Sergeant John Swanson Wilson was killed in action on 19 September 1917 and buried in the Hooge Crater Cemetery at Zillebeke, Belgium.53
The young wife of ex-RN Able Seaman James Benjamin Thomas was another young Englishwoman who had agreed to make a new life on the other side of the world. Emma disembarked after the long journey to Sydney with two toddlers, James and Emily. She searched the gathered crowd on the wharf but there was no sign of her husband. Instead she was met on the wharf by James’s Marrickville neighbour. The telegram boy had confirmed to the neighbour that the official telegram was notification that James was missing. The neighbour ‘went inside, took off her apron and put on her hat and her gloves’ and left immediately for the wharf. It was the care and assistance of Australians she had never before met which convinced Emma that this country was indeed somewhere she should stay. Emma Thomas was eventually assisted financially by the pension given to her by the Australian Government and the war gratuity. She started a shop and convinced two sisters and a brother to emigrate from England to ensure she could maintain her independence and the future James had foreseen.54
Cases of personal effects belonging to Lieutenant Commander Besant and Lieutenants Moore and Scarlett were returned to England by RN ship.55 Besant liked silver and had gathered silver: boxes, cigarette cases, a flask, a watch and chain, a ring, a pair of cuff links, sugar tongs and six tea spoons. He was a smoker and had an assortment of pipes. There were a set of plaid curtains, a magnifying glass, and a camera plus riding breeches, an evening suit, an opera hat, walking sticks, a fishing net, a grass mat, a camp bed, a gun and case, a tennis racquet, a ‘typewriting machine’ and a chess set. The 30-year-old AE1 Captain carried with him Masonic regalia. There was a telescope, a case of nautical instruments and geometrical instruments, but most of all, there was his eclectic library of books.56
Moore had gathered a varied assortment of photos, silk handkerchiefs, small pictures, candle sticks, brass, a glass ash tray box, curtains, a grass mat, assorted buttons, letters and papers. There was an ink stand, a small tin box containing trinkets, mascots, and a mirror. His love of golf was evident in assorted golf clubs, balls, and clothing. There was an ‘opera hat’; a gun case and gun; a tennis racquet, and a hockey stick.
A sea chest of personal belongings was sent also to the Scarlett family in Britain. They were finding it difficult to believe the loss of a man Lieutenant Stoker of AE2 referred to as ‘about the most lovable character I have ever known’. 57 Major Hugh Scarlett (Later 7th Lord Abinger) was serving with the British Expeditionary Forces 2nd Cavalry on the Western Front. It seemed bad news was coming from all sides of the world. Writing to his Australian wife Marjorie, he tried to put off accepting the truth about a favourite brother.
I can’t at all realise your news about Lello. I hope they may have made a mistake. I can’t think about it … We live here so from day to day that one grows queerly callous … I will write to Mammy, but not until I hear something more definite.58
The following day the news had become more real and he wrote:
We can very ill afford to lose poor old Lello. Everyone has grief in their families at present but if he had to be taken I should have rather he had been with me here. He had brightness and cheerfulness enough for all of us hadn’t he? They say that once a man gets into a submarine you can’t keep him away from them, but I am still hoping that your sad news will not be confirmed.59
Before this first week in October 1914 was over a photo of AE1’s Third Officer appeared in the newspapers and his brother had to concede no mistake had been made. He wondered if they could name their next child John Leopold Campbell Scarlett, should it be a boy.60
Australians were greatly moved by the death of the crew of their first submarine and poems were written and published in newspapers the width and breadth of the nation ‘as the horrors of war were more vividly brought home to Australia’.61
IN MEMORIAM
‘THE BOYS OF THE AE1’
Somewhere out in the Southern Sea
And full many a fathom deep
Is the ‘Bed’ of a gallant lad of ‘Ours’,
Which lies in the ‘silent sleep’;
Somewhere, away in a lonely spot,
The seagulls dirge of a sorrowing bird,
On the rest of a hero’s grave;
For heroes they who ploughed the way,
With many a thrilling run,
For a Navy New and a Flag of Blue
The boys of AE1.
Somewhere out in a Southern Home
A shadow grey will creep;
Somewhere, too, in the far Homeland,
Mothers and wives will weep,
No marble slab will mark the spot,
Where the waters claimed a toll,
From the men with a heart, who played a part
Of men, with a hero’s soul.
Tho’ unmarked the grave, of our seamen brave,
A place on ‘The Scroll’ they’ve won.
And, out of the deep, will a memory creep,
Of boys of the AE1.
Somewhere out in the battle line,
‘Midst a hellish shot and shell,
They play the man – as Britons can –
And they fight and die that a flag
Might fly for our glorious liberty;
‘Twas the same hope stirred the men interred
In the grave of a merciless sea.
For they were the men who answered when
A Mother called her Son,
And died at their post – a valiant host –
As men of the AE1.
W.E. Vincent
The human tragedy was not lost on a reader of Adelaide’s The Register on 23 September 1914.
The brave men at their duty met their doom
Sudden and sharp – the ocean bed their tomb
No rear o battle warned them death was nigh;
Silent and sudden plunged they into gloom
Submerged! You think of them in ocean bed,
Sea gems and treasures all around them spread;
But lost, lost, lost, no more to come again!
Your own beloved, now among the dead!
After the darkest hour there cometh dawn!
Did they awaken to a glorious morn,
And hear a Voce in gentlest accents say –
‘Who follows Duty, shall be newly born!’
The compassionate, if not loyalist, prose was not confined to national daily newspapers. The tiny The School Paper for grades seven and eight students, produced by the Victorian Education Department cost just one penny. The issue released on 2 November 1914 devoted itself entirely to the ‘MISSING’.
There was a lengthy poem written by English poet and New Zealand resident Will Lawson.
They heard no clamour of battle,
No charging squadron’s cheers;
No murderous Maxim’s rattle
Was dinned in their dying ears;
For, wrapped in the ocean boundless
Where the tides are scarcely stirred
In deeps that are still and soundless,
They perished, unseen, unheard.
O! Brave are the heroes, dying
‘Mid thunder of charge and gun;
But our halfmast flags are flying
for the crew of AE1
Lean hull through the light waves leaping,
Afar o’er the seas she sped,
Patrolling the long swells sweeping
With the sunlit clouds o’erhead,
She answered swift to her helm;
Yet the scattering spray that cleared her
Could smother her and o’erwhelm.
She plunged with a swirling run.
We may seek, but we shall not find her,
Or the crew of the AE1
The cruisers were dimly creeping
Like ghosts ‘neath a dawn-lit sky,
Seeking, searching, and sweeping;
But the deeps made no reply,
Hour after hour, they waited
For the lift of a conning-tower,
And a periscope that vibrated
To her engines’ eager power,
Or the gleam of a white wake hissing
In the rose of the rising sun.
They have posted them sadly “Missing –
The crew of AE1.
When Australia’s brave sea story
Is written and told, we know
Their names will be lit with glory;
And, wherever the six stars go,
Wherever, with bugles blowing,
Australia’s flag shall wave,
It will tell of a dark tide flowing
O’er a lonely ocean grave.
And the sound of the women weeping
For husband, lover, and son
Shall stir them not in their sleeping –
The crew of the AE1.
Members of the Australian fleet had received their baptism of fire and seen the dying and the wounded when members of the combined expeditionary force landed to capture wireless stations and put an end to German outposts in New Guinea – but this was different. Onboard HMAS Australia Able Seaman Hellyer wrote ‘we fear the worst, her loss we mourn, gone forever from our sight’.62 No one was more affected than the submariners in AE2. Able Seaman Charles Suckling expressed the sadness in his diary:
To us their companions and jesting rivals over many a mile of sea, who were also losing, in many cases friends of long years standing, our loss was great.63
The company of other Australian Squadron ships did little to relieve ‘the sense of loneliness felt in AE2’.64
Able Seaman John Harrison Wheat (7861) who was born in Sale, Victoria, on 3 August 1893, had enlisted in the RAN on 22 February 1913 and been sent to England. Like his fellow AE2 crew members he realised that but for a strange twist of fate, he could have been drafted to AE1; he could be entombed within the lost submarine. ‘This cast a great gloom over us as we all had friends who had gone’.65 His Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Stoker, ‘was distressed’. The two submarines had shared travels and adventure; the officers were friends.
There seems to me to live a straw in the wind ‘twixt AE2, at anchor in Rabaul Harbour, and her sister ship, the steel tomb, hundreds of fathoms deep.66
Stoker’s crew had raised £14/11/6 to be sent to AE1 families. Captain Stephen H. Radcliffe, RN, Commanding Officer of HMAS Australia, sent the sum of £246/15/- donated by the crew of the flagship. He was genuinely surprised by the generosity of his officers and men. Their wishes were that £100 be used for the immediate relief of AE1 wives and families resident in Australia. The remaining £146/15/- he suggested should to be kept, until it was ascertained from London if any similar fund had been raised for British families.67
Members of the public were also endeavouring to fundraise and ACNB hesitated. Before it would distribute Australian fleet donations it wished to investigate if AE1 families were deserving and in need of financial support, particularly in view of ‘the scale of pensions about to be introduced under the new Commonwealth “War Pensions Act”’. Letters were sent to parish clergymen to visit and scrutinise, an unsavoury request in the eyes of men like the Rector of Albert Park Parish, Melbourne. He ‘did not enjoy’ asking ‘personal questions’ and could understand the element of resentment he felt in return. Whilst not knowing Petty Officer Smail’s mother very well because ‘she was a Presbyterian’, he found the family had indeed being ‘partly dependent on her son’s wage … Her husband is alive but is an invalid’.68
The Rector of St Paul’s Vicarage, Ballarat, visited the Messengers. ‘The family bears a very good name for honesty and respectability’ but, ‘the domestic relations are somewhat unhappy – not through drink or laziness, but through the difficult situation’, which had been ‘hard on both husband and wife’. He detected ‘the deceased lad appears to have been very devoted to his mother’ and the ERA had provided the family with financial assistance. Jack’s father had lost one leg, and been unable to work ‘for a considerable time’. He was nonetheless a valued expert ‘in the supervision of removal of machinery’ and when he was able to work could ‘earn very fair wages’. He believed the family was deserving of assistance because there were seven children living and although some were not living at home they ‘are not able to make any substantive contribution to the home’ and their younger brothers and sisters.69
The Rector of St John’s Launceston was asked to visit the Baker family.
They do not appear to be in very good circumstances living as they are, in the back portion of a house attached to a boot shop … The family is thoroughly respectable.70
He did feel however that additional income was probably unjustified.
Mary Waddilove was discounted for additional financial support because her ‘husband was living’, yet she was the next-of-kin listed on the service card of 25-year-old Stoker William Waddilove. It took time but Mary finally received the £135 owing from William’s RAN back pay and allowances and her future would be more secure. When a Sydney clergyman visited Leading Seaman Corbould’s mother and sisters he found that Alice Corbould had been rendered ‘very eccentric’ by her only son’s death and ‘somewhat sore about having to answer a lot of questions’. Despite the fact that Gordon had been her ‘sole support’ Alice Corbould was angry with the navy, angry with the world and told the clergyman that she would ‘rather starve or work’ than receive money resulting from Gordon’s death.71
Delays in RAN payments, including back pay and deferred pay, had left some families struggling. Rector Bainbridge of St Peter’s Church, Eaglehawk, Bendigo, visited the mother of Stoker John Bray. He found Alice Bray to be a widow, having ‘lost her husband in a mining accident just 12 months ago, and is in failing health and poor circumstances’. John Bray was her eldest son and ‘she depended chiefly upon him for support’. There were four other children, one was out of work and ‘three of whom are earning, but very little’. He wished to accentuate to navy authorities that ‘mining and other industries have suffered greatly on account of the drought’. He stipulated that this was a ‘respectable and industrious family and their case for monetary assistance, a most desiring one’.72
Life for Able Seaman Jack Jarman’s family just got worse. Jack had been unable to purchase his release from the RAN and now he was dead. Elizabeth’s second husband was an invalid. A daughter aged 20 worked in a drapery store but earned very little and ‘my second son is only in his sixteenth year, not self-supporting as yet unable to give me any assistance’. She asked the RAN if she could be provided with ‘a compassionate allowance (not permanent) as I am in poor circumstances’. The clergyman who visited the Jarman family supported this request. He believed Elizabeth Jarman McGrath was ‘as straightforward, honest, a reliable woman’ who was now ‘eking out her income by taking lodgers’. Navy Office wrote back that they were currently not in the position to offer such assistance.73
The Rector of Balmain Parish found the family of ERA James Fettes in considerable difficulty. They were a proud family but through a harsh life as a fireman, ‘the husband is often sick with bad legs and earned very poor wages, practically an invalid’. One daughter living at home was earning only 10/- per week and unable to assist in family support. There were serious health problems with two daughters. A son had a young family to support. James Fettes ‘was in the habit of regularly sending to his mother (Margaret) part of his pay’ and the family was therefore partially dependant on this financial support. The Fettes family would suffer financially and emotionally from what had occurred on 14 September 1914.74 There was no body but ERA James Fettes would be commemorated on the family tombstone, above his parents.
Following its investigation, ACNB replied to the Captain of HMAS Australia in 1915 informing him that 18 AE1 ratings were Australian residents, 13 had left widows and collectively 32 children; two unmarried sailors had supported their widowed mothers. They had divided the money donated by his crew and each of the widows received £7. Each of the children received £2 and the ‘aged widows’ received £2/2/5.75 Delays continued in ascertaining RAN pay and allowances owed and its distribution. Those in authority failed to appreciate financial hardship and their duty of care. War gratuities would not be forthcoming until 1920–21. The war pension promised did eventuate but the Department of Defence struggled to ensure that those who should receive did, as they were overwhelmed by seemingly never-ending casualty lists from Turkey and the Western Front.
Robyn Rosenstrauss remembers visiting her grandmother in Balmain, Sydney. The elderly lady would gesture to the timber sea chest which took pride of place in her home. ‘That’s Jimmy’s box’ she would tell her granddaughter. As a child Robyn never knew who ‘Jimmy’ was; she simply accepted that he and the box he had carved were very important to his sister Margaret Nobel (nee Fettes), her grandmother. Later Robyn became interested in ‘Jimmy’ and continues to wonder where and how her great uncle, ERA James Alexander Fettes, died.76 It is a question asked by all the descendants of the officers and men of AE1, a crew quickly forgotten as greater tragedies of war unfolded.
In 1927 the RAN prepared a special file for the Australian War Memorial in an effort to have the men of AE1 enshrined on the Honour Roll of that institution. It was necessary to refute the claim that there were no Australians onboard either of Australia’s first submarines!77
FOOTNOTES
1 AWM50 18/2, ‘Submarine AE1 Loss’, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
2 AWM33 18, ‘Admiral Patey’s report on the participation by the Australian Seagoing Fleet in the operations of the Pacific, including the loss of AE1 off the Duke of York Islands’, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
3 AWM50 18/2, ‘Submarine AE1 Loss’, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
4 Oliver, Hazel. Email, 29 August 2013.
5 The Mercury (Hobart), 21 September 1914.
6 Stock and Station Journal, 22 September 1914.
7 bid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 September 1914.
11 Ibid
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 The Register (Adelaide), 24 September 1914.
17 Ibid.
18 The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 December 1914.
19 The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 September 1914.
20 Ibid.
21 The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 October 1914.
22 The Register, 19 October 1914.
23 The West Australian, 18 November 1914.
24 The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October 1914.
25 The Muswellbrook Chronicle (NSW), 17 October 1914.
26 Manchester Courier, 21 September 1914, courtesy of Barrie Downer.
27 MP472/1 16/14/8314 ‘Loss of Submarine AE1. Submitting report from Lieutenant Stoker as to the reasons he assigns for above loss’, National Archives, Melbourne.
28 Ibid.
29 Herald, 21 September 1914. Also The Mail (Adelaide), 26 September 1914.
30 AWM50 18/7 Part 7, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Nominal List of effects of deceased’, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
31 Dundee Courier, 21 December 1914, courtesy of Barrie Downer.
32 AWM50 18/7 Part 7, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Nominal List of effects of deceased’.
33 Ibid. Information on effects and entitlements gathered also from AWM50 18/1 Part10, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Effects of naval deceased – Nominal list of ratings serving in AE1’, Australian War Memorial, Canberra; AWM50 18/1 Part 5, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1 – sundry receipts including receipts of saving banks, pass books’, Australian War Memorial, Canberra; and A6770 RAN personnel service cards, National Archives, Canberra.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Western Daily Press, 17 November 1914, courtesy of Barrie Downer.
37 AWM50 18/1 Part 2, ‘Official correspondence AE1’ and AWM50 18/1 Part10, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Effects of naval deceased – Nominal list of ratings serving in AE1’.
38 Ibid.
39 The Mail (Adelaide), 26 September 1914.
40 AWM50 18/1 Part 2 ‘Official Correspondence AE1’ and AWM50 18/1 Part10, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Effects of naval deceased – Nominal list of ratings serving in AE1’.
41 The Bendigo Advertiser, 21 September 1914.
42 AWM50 18/1 Part 2, ‘Official correspondence AE1’ and AWM50 18/1 Part10, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Effects of naval deceased – Nominal list of ratings serving in AE1’.
43 The Sydney City Mission Herald, 1 December 1914.
44 The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 September 1915.
45 AWM50 18/1 Part 2 ‘Official Correspondence AE1’ and AWM50 18/1 Part10, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Effects of naval deceased – Nominal list of ratings serving in AE1’.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 AWM50 18/1 Part 2 ‘Official Correspondence AE1’ and AWM50 18/1 Part10, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Effects of naval deceased – Nominal list of ratings serving in AE1’.
50 Courtesy of Ian Messenger.
51 Moloney family recollections.
52 AWM50 18/1 Part 2 ‘Official Correspondence AE1’ and AWM50 18/1 Part10, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Effects of naval deceased – Nominal list of ratings serving in AE1’.
53 Wilson family papers.
54 Story from Emily Parkin (nee Thomas) who in 2013 was 100 years old, courtesy Vera Ryan.
55 AWM50 18/1 Part 2, ‘Official correspondence AE1’.
56 Ibid, and AWM50 18/1 Part10, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Effects of naval deceased – Nominal list of ratings serving in AE1’.
57 Brenchley, 2001, p. 26.
58 Emails Lord E. Abinger, Scarlett family papers.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 The Muswellbrook Chronicle, 3 October 1914.
62 Hellyer, Diary.
63 Suckling, Diary.
64 Ibid.
65 Wheat, J.H. Diary, 3DRL/2965, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
66 Brenchley, 2001, p. 25.
67 AWM50 18/2, ‘Submarine AE1 Loss’, Australian War Memorial, Canberra and AWM50 18/1 Part 2, ‘Official correspondence AE1’.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid.
70 Ibid,
71 Ibid.
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 Rosenstrauss, Robyn. Email.
77 AWM50 18/7 Part 7, ‘Records of HMA Naval Establishments, Sydney, submarine AE1, Nominal List of effects of deceased’, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
