RN Subs

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E5

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E5 had a very short career before and after her commissioning. She had an engine room explosion on 8 June 1913, 20 days before commissioning. 13 were killed.

A further three men were killed when there was an oil blow back into the starboard engine off St Ann's Head. The submarine depot ship HMS Adamant and HMS Alligator carried the medical team out to meet E5 on her way into Pembroke Dock. CERA James Alexander Greenall, son of Henry & Alice Greenall of Preston, Lancs., was killed at the scene. Engineer Commander Walter Lancelot Moore lost both legs and an arm and suffered third degree burns, dying in hospital at Pembroke Dock and returned for burial in Hampshire, believed Winchester. Leading Stoker Lewis Alfred Clarke of Esher in Surrey died in Pembroke Dock Naval Hospital. Greenall and Clarke are buried at Pembroke Dock Military Cemetery in plots R244 (Greenall) and R246 (Clarke). Ten other men were seriously injured, although all civilian staff from Barrow were safe and unharmed.

E5 Found

By James Tozer for the Daily Mail 21st November 2016

Found, a WWI submarine that took twenty-nine men to their doom: The fate of brave British sailors who vanished at sea is finally revealed after the ship's hull is found off the Dutch coast one hundred years later. Submarine E5, which is reported to be the first British Submarine to fire a torpedo in WWI, vanished in 1916.

Divers have now found the hull of HMS E5 off the coast of the Netherlands. The Submarine is thought to have struck a mine while rescuing survivors from trawler. The hatches were found open in poignant indication that crew may have tried to escape

For just over one hundred years it has kept its secrets, lying almost forgotten on the seabed. But now the descendants of the twenty-nine brave crewmen who died at last know its fate.

Divers found the remarkably intact hull of HMS E5 off the coast of the Netherlands after securing an agreement for a brief suspension of the busy shipping lane beneath which it rests.

Built in Barrow-in-Furness and commissioned in 1913, HMS E5 – the Royal Navy didn't start naming its submarines until 1942 – was feared to have struck a mine while rescuing survivors from a stricken trawler near Heligoland Bight on March 7, 1916.

The Submarine’s resting place remained a mystery until amateur maritime archaeologists won permission to examine a wreck off Schiermonnikoog, near the German border.

Encrusted with limpets and barnacles, it proved to be that of the 178 foot E5, its hatches open in a poignant indication that its crew made a vain effort to escape.

Its conning tower, which once bore its identifying 'Pennant Number' of 85, lay nearby on the seabed but there was no sign of major damage to the hull, indicating that it was not sunk because of enemy action.

Remy Luttik, who led the Zeester diving team, said: 'A piece of the puzzle of the maritime history of the North Sea has surfaced. The results offer hope for relatives looking for their missing loved ones.'

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