HMS J2
.jpg) The J2 submarine in service with the Australian Navy in the 1920s.
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HMS J2 was a submarine of the British Navy , which in the First World War was reached and used in 1926 scuttled. The boat belonged to the J- class , which consisted of a total of seven units, and was commissioned in April 1915. The keel-laying took place on May 3, 1915 at the shipyard of the Royal Naval Base in Portsmouth . After being launched on November 6, 1915, it was put into service on June 1, 1916. First in command of the submarine was Lieutenant Commander AM Winser.
Technology and modifications
The submarine was a maximum of 83.97 m long and 7.04 m wide. It was partly a double-hulled boat , the double-hull extending over about 47 m of the total length of the hull. J2 had a fuel supply of 91 tons of oil and achieved a sea endurance of 5000 nautical miles (at 12.5 kn cruising speed). Three 12-cylinder Vickers diesel engines with (together) 3670 hp enabled the submarine to reach a remarkable top speed of 19.5 knots. The test depth was 50 m, the maximum depth was around 90 m.
In the course of their service were all submarines of the J class rebuilt, among other was on J2 's bow raised during a shipyard time spent in 1918-19 and as a Klipperbugs modified, which brought the boat improved seaworthiness; even in bad weather, speeds of up to 17 knots could be achieved. Before all boats in the class were handed over to the Royal Australian Navy , apart from a loss due to the war, all four 457 mm bow torpedo tubes were dismantled in 1919.
Operations in the First World War
After the commissioning, J2 was detached to the 11th submarine flotilla in Blyth and from there took part in patrols in the northern North Sea from August 1916 . Together with the sister boats J1 , J4 and J5 and in cooperation with surface forces, the submarine operated in the following ten months against German submarines that wanted to sail through the North Sea into the Atlantic or came back from enemy voyages. Although 26 German submarines were sighted in June 1917 alone and eleven attacks were carried out by various ships, there were no successes in sinking. In the summer of 1917, Lieutenant VM Cooper, a new commander came on board.
Sinking of U 99
In the morning hours of July 7, 1917, shortly after 7 a.m., in hazy weather northeast of the Moray Firth , about 70 nautical miles east of the Pentland Firth , the tower crew of J2 sighted the German submarine U 99 under the command of Lieutenant Max Eltester, who left Wilhelmshaven on June 12, 1917 to attack British shipping between the Shetlands , the Orkneys and the Norwegian coast. Without being noticed by the German crew, J2 was able to approach the German submarine up to about 3600 m and at 7:40 a.m. fired a fan from all four bow torpedo tubes at U 99 . The German submarine was hit by at least one torpedo , exploded and sank within a few seconds. With the U 99 the entire crew of 40 men went under, there were no survivors.
Deployments in 1917/18
On August 2, 1917, J2 was also involved in a so-called friendly fire incident when it sighted a British convoy east of the Orkney Islands . The commander put J2 in about 40 m depth due to wait for the passing of the vessels, thereby however captured two destroyer the escort securing the submarine and dropped several water bombs at J2 , whereby light damage occurred on the boat. In the following months, the submarine continued to operate in the northern North Sea, but no more successes could be achieved. In the summer of 1918, J2 was docked in Liverpool for a longer shipyard layover. The boat remained there until the end of the war in November 1918.
Post-war period and whereabouts
After the end of World War I who decided British Admiralty , the submarines of the J class to the Royal Australian Navy to deliver. After J2 was temporarily taken out of service, it was put back into service on March 25, 1919 under Australian command (Lieutenant Claud B. Barry). Before the transfer to Australia via Gibraltar , Malta , Colombo and Singapore , the bow torpedo tubes of all J- class boats were removed. At the end of June 1919, the boats, including J2 , reached Thursday Island accompanied by the supply ship Platypus . On arrival, all boats were in comparatively poor condition and had to be sent to the shipyard by spring 1920 .
J2 and its sister boat HMAS J5 were stationed in Geelong from May 1920 . As a result of austerity measures, economic problems and budget bottlenecks as well as because of the high maintenance costs, the submarines were rarely used and only completed a few maneuvers . On July 12, 1922, all boats of the class were finally decommissioned and placed in the reserve . After J2 was sold to the Melbourne Salvage Syndicate on February 26, 1924 , it was gradually cannibalized by the latter. The hull of the submarine was finally sunk on June 4, 1926 off Port Phillip , about three nautical miles from Barwon Heads . The wreck, which is almost 40 m deep, is still at position 38 ° 18 ′ 55 ″ S , 144 ° 34 ′ 44 ″ E. and has been since then Discovered in the early 1980s, it was a popular destination for recreational divers .
literature
- Harald Bendert: Submarines in a duel. ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg 1996, p. 19f.
- Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing near Munich 1998, p. 30.
- Anthony Preston: The History of the Submarines. Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen, German edition 1998.
Web links
- Side of the Australian Navy on J2 (English)
- J- class submarines at Navypedia (English)
- On the situation of wrecks (English)
Footnotes
- ↑ http://www.navypedia.org/ships/uk/brit_ss_j.htm
- ↑ http://www.navypedia.org/ships/uk/brit_ss_j.htm
- ↑ http://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-j2
- ^ Paul Kemp: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars. Urbes Verlag, Graefelfing near Munich 1998, p. 30.
- ↑ Harald Bendert: U-boats in a duel. ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg 1996, p. 19.
- ^ Harald Bendert: U-Boats. P. 20.
- ^ Paul Kemp: Submarine losses. P. 30.
- ↑ http://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-j2