By Tim Lambert
Early Submarines
For hundreds of years, people dreamed of traveling underwater. However, the first submarine was launched in 1620. It was built by a Dutchman, Cornelius Drebbel. His submarine was made of wood and leather. It was rowed by oars. Drebbel demonstrated his submarine in the River Thames in front of a crowd, including King James I. However, at the time, there was no military use for such a primitive submarine.
The first attempt to use a submarine in warfare was during the American War of Independence. It was called the Turtle, and it was powered by hand-cranked propellers. A man named Ezra Lee attempted to bore a hole in the British ship HMS Eagle and attach a time bomb. However, he could not drill through the ship’s copper bottom.
In 1800, an American inventor, Robert Fulton, built a submarine for the French. It was called the Nautilus. On the surface, it was powered by a sail and below water by a hand crank. It contained ballasts that could be filled with water to sink. The nautilus was designed to pull mines to enemy ships. However, Napoleon refused to fund further development.
A submarine was first used to sink an enemy ship during the American Civil War (1861-1864). In 1862, the Unionists built a submarine called The Alligator. However, it sank in 1863 without being used in battle. In 1863, the Confederates built an iron submarine, powered by hand cranks. On 17 February 1864, the H. L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic using a mine on the end of a spar. Unfortunately, the submarine sank shortly afterwards, killing the crew of eight. However, the H. L. Hunley was raised from the seabed in 2000.
Engineers realised that human-powered submarines were not practical. In 1863, the French launched the Plongeur. It was powered by compressed air, and it was the first mechanically powered submarine. In 1888, the French launched the Gymnote, an electrically powered submarine. It was the first submarine armed with torpedoes.
Modern Submarines
It was the invention of the internal combustion engine that made modern submarines possible. They were used on the surface, and powered by electric batteries were used below water. On 17 March 1898, John Holland test ran the first modern submarine off Staten Island, New York. The US Navy obtained its first modern submarine, the USS Holland, in 1901. The first Royal Naval submarine was launched on 2 October 1901. It was named Holland 1.
On 14 December 1906, the first German U-boat was launched. During the First World War, German U-boats sank hundreds of Allied merchant ships. However, the Allies introduced weapons to counter the U-boats. The British invented sonar in 1915. Some U-boats were destroyed by mines and from the end of 1915 by depth charges.
In 1915, a German submarine sank a liner called the Lusitania. American public opinion was outraged because some of the passengers killed were US citizens. President Woodrow Wilson warned Germany. However, on 1 February 1917, Germany began unrestricted submarine warfare. That meant that any neutral ship attempting to trade with Britain was a target for submarines. Partly as a result of German actions, the USA declared war on 6 April 1917.
During the Second World War, Britain faced a threat from the U-boats, which were sinking the ships on which she relied for imports of food and raw materials. However, on 9 May 1941, a British destroyer, Bulldog, forced the U-boat U-110 to surface. The British boarded the U-boat and captured a Kriegsmarine Enigma cipher machine and a full set of codebooks. Now able to decipher German messages, the British were able to route convoys around groups of U-boats (known as wolf packs). As a result, British losses dropped dramatically.
U-boats were also vulnerable to attack when they were on the surface. Shortly before World War II, the Dutch invented the snorkel, which allowed submarines to spend more time submerged. However, snorkels had certain disadvantages, and the Germans did not use them till the last stage of the war. In the Pacific, US submarines sank huge numbers of Japanese ships.
On 21 January 1954, the first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, was launched. On 17 March 1959, USS Skate became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole.
In 1960, the US Navy launched the USS George Washington. It was the first submarine armed with ballistic missiles.
The song Yellow Submarine by the Beatles was released in 1966.
Lastly, 11 April is National Submarine Day.
