Irish-American John Philip Holland, designer of the first practical military submarine boats, is the father of the modern submarine. His designs— short, fat, and fishlike—approached the hydrodynamic ideal, as demonstrated by USS Albacore (AGSS-569) more than 50 years after the Holland boats first saw service.
Holland’s most successful boat, the Holland VI, became the USS Holland (SS-1) when commissioned in 1900. His prototype also was adopted by several other of the world’s navies, including Russia. The Royal Navy was the first to follow the U.S. Navy’s lead at the turn of the century. The best option was to buy the rights from Holland’s American company—an ironic decision, because the inventor originally had intended to use his “wrecking boats” in Ireland’s cause against England.
British admirals were not enthusiastic about underwater warfare at first but felt bound to keep pace with events. They feared that if Holland’s prophesies proved correct, submarines would mark the end of the magnificent British fleets that had won and held the Empire. The words of Lord St. Vincent, commenting on William Pitt’s negotiations with Robert Fulton for his Nautilus in 1805, the year of Trafalgar, still rang true: “ . . . a mode of warfare which they who commanded the seas did not want, and which if successful would deprive them of it.” Most admirals and politicians hoped that submarines would fail, and many officers despised both the boats and their unorthodox crews. Admiral Sir John Hopkins, formerly Commander-in-Chief America and West Indies station, blandly remarked about the Hollands: “In habituating our officers and men to them we shall realise more clearly these weakness against us.” Hopeful Hopkins!
In 1902, five boats went down to Portsmouth from Vickers building yard at Barrow-in-Furness and were relegated to the upper reaches of Fareham Creek. There they joined other undesirables such as powder barges, prison hulks, and quarantine vessels. This meant that when going to and from sea they had to pass serried ranks of big warships whose resplendent officers looked down on them—both figuratively and literally.
It was a relief when the Army Mining Engineers handed over their duties of harbour and coastal protection to the submariners in 1905. Thereupon the growing submarine flotilla adopted the Army’s Fort Blockhouse, to become HMS Dolphin at the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour. With Gosport as their depot, the submariners could slip in and out of harbour without disdainful comments. Submarining was still deemed no occupation for a gentleman; submariners were said to look like “unwashed chauffeurs”; and Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, Controller of the Navy at the turn of the century, opined that “submariners captured in wartime should be hanged as pirates.”
Understandably, the fledgling submariners withdrew into their steel shells to form what was virtually a private navy, and the effects were profound and long lasting. Few admirals appreciated submarine capabilities, and consequently, inadequate equipment and misguided employment followed. The Submarine Service was labelled “The Trade” at a time when trade was anathema to the ruling classes, and communications with the Admiralty and Fleet were often tenuous. Submariners had to learn their trade the hard way, and accidents—frequently related to the dangerous gasoline-fueled engines-—were common. White mice were carried on board every British submarine and were considered as part of the crew. Being extremely sensitive, they would squeak at the slightest escape of gasoline. However, the Holland boats suffered more than their fair share of fires, explosions, collisions, and other near disasters.
His Majesty’s Submarine Torpedo Boat No.1, soon known as Holland 1 in Britain, was launched secretly on 2 October 1901, the birthday of the British Submarine Service. Overlooking the fact that she is rumoured to have capsized on launch, the 63-foot-long “submergible” (“just three feet shorter than a cricket pitch,” as she was typically described in the Edwardian press) served faithfully for a dozen years.
The hull of No. 1 was supposed to be safe at a diving depth of 100 feet, but tests by the Director of Naval Construction in the 1980s indicated that Holland 1, and presumably her sisters, should not have passed below 60 feet. By chance while operating in the Solent between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, the boats did not likely venture below 58 feet. The intrepid submariners of the period were perfectly confident, not realizing that they had a mere two feet to spare.
On her final voyage, en route to the scrapyard with nobody on board, Holland 1 foundered and disappeared off the Eddystone Light, Plymouth—an event of historic good fortune.
In 1981, a newspaper clipping from 1913 directed the Royal Navy Submarine Museum to the wreck, identified by divers at a depth of 63 meters. After 69 years on the sea floor, the boat appeared to be in amazingly good condition, with little visible corrosion. Since No. 1 had been stripped of most minor equipment before being sold to the breakers, full restoration involved manufacturing valves, hand wheels, and so on from the original drawings, which were detailed and complete. No. 1 went on display in the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, adjacent to her original Gosport home.
The salvage of Holland 1 was hailed as one of the most important marine archaeological operations of modern time, and the submarine immediately attracted worldwide audiences. Unfortunately, however, the museum became aware of a major conservation problem.
Rust—normal corrosion that is dealt with easily—is not the problem; it is much more serious than that.
In the Spring of 1993, Holland 1, still looked immaculate. The museum director boasted continually about Irish genius (because of his own Irish roots), how Holland submarines were built to last, and how even the porcelain head (Doulton WC pattern 612) was pristine. Nevertheless, a few bubbles and flakes on the external paintwork suggested that it might be prudent to examine beneath the protective coatings that metallurgists and anticorrosion experts had administered to combat rust.
The Royal Navy Submarine Museum is located in Gosport, Hampshire, England. It is open daily, except 24 December to 1 January. Museum hours are 1000 until 1530 November to March and until 1630 April to October. Admission is £3.50 for adults. For more information contact: The Director Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Haslar Jetty Road, Gosport P012 2AS, UK, or call 705-529-217.
Some of the superficial corrosion thus discovered was severe enough to warrant further expert consultation, and samples of the hull were trepanned and analysed in a metallurgical laboratory. These tests revealed that moisture had worked its way down between the skin of paint and the low-grade steel hull. Shotblasting was recommended, to be followed by fresh treatment with an improved antirust agent. The laboratory’s Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy noted chloride and oxygen peaks, but these did not immediately trigger alarm bells.
At that time, word was beginning to circulate about exploding cannon balls and disintegrating guns that had been fetched up from ancient wrecks. These had evidently been penetrated in entirety by salts from the sea. Ultimately, when the hull of the Holland 1 had been stripped bare, the final diagnosis was the same: Chlorides had worked their way into the heart of the whole hull and all machinery. The ingress of oxygen from the air probably had been slowed by antirust products and paint, but it inevitably followed the same routes as the salts. The resulting chemical changes generated hydrochloric acid and robbed the metal of ferrous material, leaving in substantial carbon in lieu. The changes were—and are—splitting the metal horrendously, with the cast-iron engine bedplates worst affected.
In short, the Royal Navy’s first submarine is suffering from metallic cancer. There is no cure for such a large artifact, but the rapid disintegration can be arrested by washing out the chlorides in a 5% solution of sodium carbonate.
For this purpose, the museum is building a glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) tank around the submarine, and the washing will begin as soon as possible thereafter. In the GRP tank, a pump will circulate the washing liquid, which will be renewed four times over a period of about four years. After that time, the museum will extend the tank into an environmentally controlled museum gallery. The treatment is expected to give the submarine another 100 years of life. The museum will light the tank from inside and install glass panels near the top for viewing the Holland boat.
The conservation of Holland 1 will be a pioneering process—predictably of considerable interest to marine archaeologists everywhere.