‘Our loss was great.’
Stoker Charles Suckling
Robyn Rosenstrauss remembers visiting her grandmother in Balmain, Sydney. The elderly lady would gesture to the small timber chest of drawers 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, Engine Room Artificer (ERA) Class 1 James Alexander Fettes, died.
Albert Messenger of Ballarat, Victoria, was born after his eldest brother had hastily left the country due to an ‘incident’ in a hotel. For Albert, Jack was the serious looking adult in uniform staring down from a grainy black and white photo hung on the family parlour wall. But the family referred to ERA John Cameron Messenger as ‘the family hero’ – a hero lost at sea. Isabella Messenger never recovered from the loss of her first-born child and fell into deep depression. Albert and his sister Mabel were raised by their eldest sister Ruth. Vera Ryan (nee Messenger) lives with the family legacy and believes the search for answers about the fate of the 35 officers and men onboard Australia’s first submarine, AE1, must continue. For their descendants have never had closure.
It was a brave decision for Australia to include submarines in its nascent navy. A submersible made of wood and held together by iron hoops, named the ‘Turtle’, was used by the American colonial forces on 6 September 1776, in an attempt to break the British blockade in New York Harbour during the American War of Independence. It was not successful but naval warfare changed forever when, during the American Civil War, the Confederate submarine HL Hunley rammed a torpedo into the Union warship Houstonic and sank it in Charleston Harbour. The submarine was from that point officially a weapon of war but by 1911 and the birth of Australia’s navy their capabilities were still largely unknown. The Royal Navy (RN) commissioned its first submarine, Holland 1, in 1901.
The crew of AE1 consisted of three officers and 32 sailors. As was the custom, the officers were RN or ex-RN; one was even aristocracy. Lieutenant Commander Thomas Fleming Besant, RN, was the Commanding Officer. The life of a submarine crew was unlike those on surface ships. Submariners developed a unique dependency and trust of each other regardless of rank. The shortage of trained Australian sailors made it necessary to loan RN personnel, making for an interesting blend of seasoned sailors from Britain, youthful Australians, and one New Zealander. Telegraphist Cyril Baker was a Boy Seaman when he enlisted in the Australian navy from Launceston, Tasmania. He was delighted to be able to combine two state-of-the-art technologies – submarines and telegraphy. Proud of his heritage Cyril had an Australian flag and a kangaroo tattooed on his left forearm. New Zealander Able Seaman John Reardon enlisted in this navy of the Southern Hemisphere in 1908 but he expected that on completion he would return to where he was born, the beautiful South Island coastal town of Kaikoura, with £250 – enough to set himself up for life.
AE1’s journey from Portsmouth, England, to Australia was epic. In 1914 a journey around the world was still an amazing achievement and the confines of an ‘E Class’ made it even more so. Human habitability had received only minimal consideration in the design and development of the submarine. By the time AE1 reached the Mediterranean, living conditions within the black-hulled boat were so oppressive that the decision was made to paint the hull white until it reached Australia. Stoker Charles Suckling described the voyage as one filled with:
mechanical difficulties and mishaps overcome by hook and crook, the miles were pushed astern, the weariness of it but lightly relieved by a few days in ports of call.1
The voyage, 13,000 miles (20,800 kilometers) took 83 days, 60 days of which were spent at sea. This shattered any previous record. The Times (London) declared it: ‘manifestly the most remarkable [voyage] yet performed by a submarine’.
AE1 Able Seaman Fred Dennis, RN, wrote to his sister about how happy he was to finally arrive: ‘It’s a long way’. This land was so different to England but Fred was delighted with Sydney and its residents: ‘It’s a splendid place’. He decided immediately to transfer permanently to the RAN and enthusiastically told his wife Florence and their three children to begin their own journey. Able Seaman Henry Fisher, RN, also brought his family to settle in Australia. Wife Lily was quickly on her way by ship from Portsmouth with children Eva aged five, Arthur, three, Ruby two and six-month-old George. Soon 18 in AE1 called Australia home and 32 children were dependents of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
Britain declared war against Germany on 4 August 1914. Able Seaman John Hellyer, onboard the Australian flagship HMAS Australia, paused from his duties long enough to write:
There’ll be some fighting and a few of us may fall, but we’ll show them how we do it, for we’re British.2
Australian warships were dispatched by the British Admiralty to capture German Pacific Islands and flush out German warships. Australia’s submarines were undergoing a lengthy maintenance period and their crews, unseasoned by war, were anxious lest hostilities be over before they joined the fray. ‘Our self-pity was extreme’ wrote one.3 The submariners could never have imagined how ‘extreme’ their part in World War I (WWI) would be. At the beginning of September their boats arrived to join the Australian fleet off New Guinea, having broken yet another world record, steaming 1,200 miles (1931.2 km) without an escort.
On 14 September at 7am submarine AE1 left Rabaul Harbour, New Britain, with orders to patrol east of Cape Gazelle in company with HMAS Parramatta. Signals were exchanged between Parramatta and AE1 at intervals. AE1 was seen off Duke of York Island in St George’s Channel about 3.30pm but did not return to harbour. A search was made by Australian warships but there was no trace – no oil slick, no wreckage. Australia’s first submarine had simply disappeared.
FOOTNOTES
1 Suckling, Charles. Diary, 3DRL/6226, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
2 Hellyer, John. Diary, MSS 0815, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
3 Suckling, Diary.
