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HMS E18

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Air & Sea transport

    E18 shortly after passing through the Oresund in September 1915. Note
      the camouflage paintwork to prevent detection by shore observers

   Career
   RN Ensign
   Laid down: 1914
   Launched:
   Commissioned: 6th June 1915
   Status: Lost with all hands, late May 1916
   General Characteristics
   Displacement: 662 tons (surfaced
   807 tons (submerged)
   Length: 54.86 m
   Beam: 6.86 m
   Draught: 3.81 m
   Propulsion: Twin-shift, 2 x 1600 bhp Vickers diesel, 2 x 840 shp
   electric motors
   Speed: 15.25 knots (surfaced)
   9.75 knots (submerged)
   Range: 325 nm surfaced
   Endurance: 24 days
   Complement: 3 officers, 28 ratings
   Armament: 2 x 18" bow tube
   2 x 18" beam tubes
   1 x 18" stern tube
   (10 torpedoes)
   1 x 12 pdr deck gun

   HMS E18 was an E-class submarine of the Royal Navy, launched in 1915
   and lost in the Baltic Sea in May 1916 while operating out of Reval.

History

1915

   The E18 entered service in the UK in 1915, commanded by
   Lieutenant-Commander R.C. Halahan. She was dispatched to the Baltic
   from Harwich on August 29th with her sister-ship HMS E19, first
   travelling to Newcastle to repair one of E19's main armatures. They
   left Newcastle for the Baltic on the 4th of September. The two
   submarines separated and passed through the Oresund between Denmark and
   Sweden on the night of the 7th-8th September. During the passage E19 at
   one stage found herslf only metres from E18's stern and decided not to
   enter together. E18 encountered two German destroyers. She dived into
   water only 23 feet deep and - for almost three hours - progressed by
   crashing into the seabed and rising back up to break the surface. After
   several hours resting in deep water she surfaced in the morning only to
   be fired on by the cruiser Amazone; after escaping her she was set upon
   by another two destroyers one of which came close to ramming her. On
   the 12th she met up with E19 & E9 off Dagerort, arriving in Reval (now
   Tallinn, Estonia) on the 13th.

   She operated out of Reval through the autumn of 1915. On October 11th,
   she was in position to attack the pre-dreadnought SMS Braunschweig
   whilst patrolling off Libau (now Liepāja, Latvia), but her bow torpedo
   tubes could not be opened and the opportunity passed.

1916

   After operations were halted for the winter, the E18 resumed patrols in
   the spring of 1916. Her second last patrol was to the Gulf of Riga with
   E1 to shell beaches from the 28th April, returning to Reval on the 2nd
   of May.

   In late May, she sailed for her final patrol; E1, E8 and two Russian
   submarines left the same day. Records differ on her exact fate, but it
   is certain neither she or any of her crew ever returned.

   The diary of Francis Goodhart, captain of E8, states that she and E18
   left port together on May 25th; E8's patrol was uneventful, and she
   returned to Reval on the 31st. However, E18 failed to return; by 5th
   June Goodhart noted that the crews were "very worried". On the 6th, he
   noted that he had "Heard from Essen that their W.T. had vaguely
   indicated presence of a submarine off Redshoff on Tuesday. Very slender
   hope..." By the next day, June 8th, he recorded that a meeting had
   noted she had sailed with only 15 days food; the situation was "very
   hopeless now, I fear. No news whatsoever".

   Michael Wilson, a historian, records that E8 and E18 sailed on the 25th
   and parted the next day. On the 26th, at 4:42 PM, E18 torpedoed the
   German destroyer V100, blowing off her bow. Had it not been for the
   calm seas, it is likely she would have sank from the damage; as it was,
   she was towed back to port with several of her crew killed, requiring
   major repairs. Two days later, on the 28th, E18 was sighted by a German
   aircraft off Memel (now Klaipėda, Lithuania), E18 was last sighted on
   the 1-6-1916 sailing north by the German u-boat UB30 northwest of
   Steinort. Wilson further states that it is believed she was lost "most
   likely by striking a mine" on her return to Reval west of Osel.

   Various sources record her simply as having been sunk on May 24th by a
   German decoy ship, though this clashes with the known sinking on the
   26th and the observations reported by Wilson and Goodhart in subsequent
   days. It is quite possible that this is a garbling of an encounter
   between one of the Russian submarines and a decoy vessel around the
   same time.

   Tsar Nicholas II sent a telegram of condolences on the loss of E18, and
   awarded Halahan the Order of St. George, with the other two officers
   receiving the Order of St. Vladimir and each of the crew being
   posthumously awarded a medal. It is interesting to note that the Orders
   were not normally awarded posthumously. Two of E18's crew did not sail
   on her last mission; one, who had measles, later transferred to E19.
   The other was E18's signalman Albert Edward Robinson who was replaced
   on this mission by E8's telegraphist for unknown reasons; he was later
   sent home in January 1917 and joined E4 on her recommissioning. The
   wreck of E18 has never been located .
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_E18"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
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