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Diving Deep Into Undersea Adventure

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Diving Deep Into Undersea Adventure + 30 Herald Sun, Saturday, February 10, 2007 heraldsun.com.au + MISSION TO RAISE Tests this week on a submarine graveyard just outside Port Phillip Bay were a ‘‘dry run’’ for deciding FIRST the fate of one of 30 Australia’s most important war wrecks, as NEIL WILSON writes HEN retired rear ad- miral Peter Briggs is By Peter Coster asked what he is doing these days, HIS is not the Hunt Diving deep DHS 10-FEB-2007 PAGE W those unfamiliar for Red October, T but just as pulse- with nautical history wonder pounding as the movie what terrible virus he has hunt for a Russian nu- when he answers: ‘‘AE2.’’ into undersea clear submarine. K ‘‘AE who?’’ they ask? The sub we are look- This week, about 30 happy ‘‘AE2 ing for is real and lying Y sufferers’’ from across Australia 3km off the heads. M met for the first time at Queenscliff. Thirteen divers are adventure They are pursuing a cure for their waiting for the blurred C obsession: one of the greatest, but outline of a World War I sank off Turkey in 1915. of a giant whale shark. little-known, stories of Gallipoli. sub to squiggle its way We are about to dive on My high-density light They came together for a ‘‘dry across the screen of the one of six J-class Brit- shines along its rusted run’’ dive on a shipping graveyard depth sounder on the ish submarines given to gangways. in Bass Strait, just beyond Port dive boat Oceanic. the Australian Navy Danny Stevenson Phillip heads. ‘‘There it is,’’ shouts after World War I. The divers used the shell of a Bob the skipper, and glides past with his vid- World War I J-class submarine to Robbo the divehand Danny asks me if I eo camera as my dive test sophisticated equipment lets the shotline have dived on the J1. computer shows it’s they will use off the Turkish coast plunge down. ‘‘Only once,’’ I tell him. timetogoup. to probe the hulk of one of our The sub, lying on ‘‘Be careful. You can Too fast an ascent is FB123 first fighting submarines — sand at 40m below, is get inside but it can like shaking a bottle of HMAS AE2 (Australian E-Class near the limit of silt up.’’ fizzy drink. The 2) — built in 1913. compressed-air diving. When I was a boy at bubbles known as ‘‘the Peter Briggs and a host of old Cameraman Danny the Saturday matinees, bends’’ are deadly. submariners, scientists, histor- Stevenson is using a I thrilled to undersea We make stops at ians and divers have federal gov- sophisticated re- adventures. The J1 15m and then 10 and 5. ernment backing to test the breather system. comes through the Then we are back on strength of the AE2, 92 years after Danny and film pro- gloomlikeasubina board. We take off our it was scuttled. The expedition, in ducer Crispin Sadler John Wayne movie. fins and grin like the September, will determine if it is will dive on the Austral- It lies with its ribs boys who watched those possible to raise the old sub from ian sub, the AE2, which exposed like the gills Saturday movies. the Sea of Marmara. Mission: divers prepare for the search. The AE2 (top). A remote operating vehicle (ROV) could enter a half-open heads was chosen because it con- sitting up with its hydroplanes, Stoker had found a deep current of the general (Sir Ian Hamilton) hatch so a camera can see how the tains four wrecks of similar vintage rudder, conning tower and propel- that carried the AE2 toward the running the whole Gallipoli crew of 32 left the sub in 1915. to AE2. Six of the J-class subs ler exposed and intact. Sea of Marmara. Along the way he fiasco,’’ Briggs says. The AE2 ranks alongside Simp- sailed from England in 1919, offered As well as using ultrasonic surfaced and dived, twice hitting It was read to Hamilton at son and his donkey, Lone Pine and by Britain as replacements for the corrosion-testing and the ROV, ground, and fired one of his torpe- midnight at a meeting consider- the Anzac Cove evacuation as one tiny AE2 and her sister ship AE1, divers will wield hammers and does into the Turkish gunboat ing the Australian commanders’ of our great Gallipoli stories. which were lost in World War I. chisels to take samples at 25 Peykisevket. view that Anzac Cove be evac- ‘‘AE2 is a remarkable story of The 84m J-class subs were points along the sub’s 54m hull. AE2 also sent packing a battle- uated after that chaotic first day. heroism, determination and almost obsolete. Even after an Teams among the 15 specialist ship that had been lobbing shells He told the Anzacs to stay. mateship among a crew who ac- extensive refit, their service was divers will spend 40 minutes at a over the peninsula to Allied an- ‘‘What became critical was that complished ‘mission impossible’,’’ short-lived. time on the wreck over 10 days. chorages off Gallipoli’s beaches. in that first week after the landing, says Peter Briggs, president of the A £500,000 defence budget cut They will work beneath where ‘‘Stoker had done enough,’’ AE2, and E11 which followed, Submarine Institute of Australia. in 1923 led to four subs — J1, J2, skipper Lt Cdr Henry Stoker Briggs says. ‘‘He’d come up stopped the Turks being able to ‘‘And it’s a story unknown to J4 and J5 — being sold to the scuttled AE2 and ordered her through the Narrows, found the move their troops and ammunition 98 per cent of Australians.’’ Melbourne Salvage Company, Australian and English crewmen counter current and also had run by ferry, to be fresh at the peninsu- The SIA syndicate wants to stripped, and towed out of the to abandon ship on April 30, 1915. aground. He could have gone home la within 12 hours,’’ Briggs says. showcase the AE2 story near Gal- heads by SS Minah and sunk They spent the rest of the war as and collected a medal but, instead, ‘‘Instead, it took a week or more lipoli, in Canberra and at the during target practice in 1926-27. PoWs. Four died as prisoners. he kept going, bailed the water out, for Turkish reinforcements to trav- National Maritime Museum in IVING boss Richard Taylor Before being scuttled, the AE2 recharged the batteries and went el overland. So if that pause hadn’t Sydney by April 2015 — the 100th supervised 15 divers who created history by becoming the up to the Sea of Marmara. been injected by the two subs it anniversary of the campaign. D this week went to 35m on J5. first Allied vessel to negotiate the ‘‘He then proceeded to expose would have been a lot different and Their $750,000, 10-day mission to Visibility was good off the Narrows of the Dardanelles, slip- his submarine all over the Sea of a lot worse for the Diggers.’’ Turkey will determine if it is envir- heads, but in the Sea of Marmara ping through minefields and past Marmara, so the Ottoman forces By April 30, AE2 had fired all but onmentally and structurally sound it can be anything from just half a forts to the Sea of Marmara. thought they had three or four the last of its torpedoes and could to raise the AE2 for display at metre to 8m. The initial Allied strategy to submarines on their hands as op- no longer dive. After it was holed Canakkale on the Dardanelles. So ‘‘The idea has been to use our storm Istanbul by sea failed cata- posed to one hyperactive by surface gunfire, Stoker decided far, Canberra has put in $368,500 equipment to inspect the wreck, strophically: six of 18 warships were Australian.’’ to scuttle it. and provided the ROV. The SIA’s take samples to test corrosion, sunk or crippled in the Narrows on HE AE2, which had evaded a Now, Australians will return to Commodore Terry Roach is also test its hull thickness,’’ says offi- March 18. The British then decided horde of gunboats and ships the AE2. And the 94-year-old live seeking private sponsors. cial photographer Mark Spencer. on an April 25 invasion. T pursuing her up the Narrows, torpedo in the stern won’t be the He hopes a documentary on the Spencer led the first Australians Stoker’s sub hit the seabed in an caused a furore among the Turkish only danger. Poisonous conga eels expedition will be shown in every to dive on the AE2 after it was aborted attempt on April 24. On navy and panic in Istanbul. keep the wreck company. Australian school. found in 1998 by Turkish explorer its second try, it was silently The British E11 followed AE2, the By 2009, AE2’s fate should be This week’s organisers included Selcuk Kolay. passing the Narrows as Anzac first of 18 more British subs over decided. retired Oberon sub commanders ‘‘AE2 appeared in surprisingly troops quietly alighted in landing nine months. But what altered our ‘‘It may mean leaving it on the boats on the other side of the Roach and Briggs, project manger good condition,’’ Spencer says. history was when AE2 surfaced bottom, with methodic protection FIRST Capt (ret.) Ken Greig, Defence ‘‘Standing on the casing just Gallipoli peninsula. after 16 hours late on April 25, her to reverse the trend of erosion as Science Technology Organisation after the conning tower was a bit of ‘‘The two boats (subs) who tried crew finally breathing fresh air much as we can,’’ Briggs says.
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