Chapter 44 – Dacre

Many details in this chapter are taken directly from Lieutenant-Commander Dacre Stoker’s autobiographical account Straws in the Wind . Some wording changes have been included, but details of the submarine AE2 escape from the Narrows, hiding on the sea bottom all day (depths and descriptions), then surfacing at night, after 16 hours submerged, to charge the batteries and attempt to send a telegraph signal in the evening of 25 April 1915 are generally as Stoker’s own account (pp. 115-120).

In Stoker’s Submarine , Fred and Elizabeth Brenchley state that just before leaving England, submarines AE1 and AE2 were fitted with newly developed Marconi wirelesses,  for which Australia paid £75 each, and that “Earlier submarines straying away from their tender ships had used homing pigeons.” (pp. 19-20). The Brenchleys state that the AE2 telegrapher who attempted to send the Morse code signal was William Falconer. The Brenchleys state that Dacre Stoker’s cousin, Bram Stoker, was the author of the popular Dracula (p. 18).

A member of the AE2 crew, Torpedoman John Wheat, recorded in his diary of events after the AE2 drafted below 100 feet when attempting to move about on the sea bottom, on the morning of 25 April 1915:

“We did not rise to the surface but shifted a little nearer shore thinking it best to remain on the bottom till night. We all settled down to try and sleep again. About an hour after this we heard a steamer passing over us. Everybody sat up and listened but the sound of her screw slowly died away in the distance and we settled down again. In about 20 minutes we were awakened to the same noise again, but this time she seemed to circle round us twice. This was alarming as we thought it was probably a launch sweeping for us with an explosive sweep (an explosive sweep is a grapnel with a guncotton charge attached and connected to a battery in the boat, when the grapnel catches in anything and it is thought to be what they are sweeping for, the key is pressed making a circuit from the battery through the lead to the detonator in the guncotton charge, exploding same. This of course will blow up whatever the grapnel has caught in). We did not move and regularly every twenty minutes this launch passed over us sometimes circling round us. Once something struck the outside of the boat making a loud report in the stillness, nothing happened. Tho we did’nt need smelling salts to keep us awake.”

On rising to the surface in the evening of 25 April, Wheat records:

“…Immediately the conning tower lid was opened, a thick white mist rose off everything, owing to the bad air, for we had then been submerged 18 hours. As luck would have it nothing was in sight, so we immediately started our engines to charge our batteries. It was delightful to breathe some fresh air again and have a smoke. We were not allowed to smoke on the bridge as the smallest light would give us away to the enemy, so we had to smoke inside the boat at the bottom of the conning tower. It was not too bad as the Diesel engines were drawing fresh air down and aft to where they were situated in the boat, but slightly forward of the conning tower the air was so bad that a match would not burn for a fraction of a second.”

John Wheat’s diary is held by the Mitchell State Library of NSW, and a transcript can be viewed at:

http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/_transcript/2012/D16835/a3901.htm

The DVD Gallipoli Submarine , produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a documentary on the discovery of the wreck of submarine AE2 in the Sea of Maramara with underwater footage of the wreck and some re-enactment scenes. This documentary states that it was generally accepted that the air in an E-class submarine would become unbreathable after twelve hours (at approx. 29 min).