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The AE1 and the AE2 Submarines - Australia's first submarines
Australia's first submarines, the AE1 and the AE2 , were launched in 1913 and were manned by composite Australian and British crews.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the AE1 and the AE2 were sent from Sydney to German New Guinea with the Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force and helped to capture the German colony. On 14 September, a day after the official German surrender of the colony, the AE1, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Thomas Besant, left Rabaul harbour to patrol Cape Gazelle, and never returned. The fate of the submarine was never known, but it is probable that the submarine was caught on a coral reef and sunk.
The AE2, commanded by Lieutenant Commander H. S. Stoker, achieved fame for its operations in the Dardanelles. The AE2 was ordered to sail through the Dardanelles, and disrupt Turkish shipping in the Sea of Marmora. No other submarine had yet managed to breach the Turkish defences, but in the early hours of 25 April 1915, the AE2 got past minefields and land-based guns, and after torpedoing a Turkish destroyer, it reached the Sea of Marmora. The AE2 remained at large for five more days before sustaining irreparable damage while under heavy fire. Stoker was forced to sink the submarine and surrender. He and his crew spent the rest of the war in Turkish captivity. Stoker was awarded the Distinguished Service Order after the war.
RAN submarine AE2
AWM H11559
More About:
- Australian
submarine heritage
West Australian Maritime Museum background article on the AE1 and the AE2 ; it includes AE2 crew list link - Anniversary talk - The Australian submarine AE2, 30 April 1915
- Richard Pelvin, "First through: the epic voyage of AE2 ", Wartime , 6 (April 1999), pp. 3-12
- Royal Australian Navy ship histories
Brief histories of HMAS AE1 and HMAS AE2
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