Today (12 November) marks the 100th anniversary of the loss of the extraordinary WW1-era submarine HMS M1 with all 62 crew in the Channel off Devon.
While sister-sub HMS M2 is a popular recreational dive off Portland, the protected wreck M1 lies at a depth of 74m some 30km off Start Point and is rarely dived.
Dom Robinson, underwater photographer Rick Ayrton and a team of technical divers visited the site earlier this year from the dive-boat Seeker with the centenary in mind, and the recorded dive can be seen on the YouTube channel Deep Wreck Diver (below).
“HMS M1 was one of the most incredible submarines ever built,” says Robinson. The 90m-long vessel was armed with a 12in gun, the biggest the Royal Navy could fit. Taken from a pre-dreadnought battleship, it was 12m long and weighed more than 50 tonnes.
The Royal Navy was concerned to keep the armament secret from the Germans during the war, but in fact it was never fired in anger. It was while the submarine was on exercises long after the war in November 1925 that it disappeared. Swedish merchant ship the Vidar is thought to have struck and damaged it while it was lying close to the surface.
The wreck was discovered by a salvage company in 1967, and in 1999 the well-known submarine expert Innes McCartney dived and identified it.
Double hit?
Robinson dived the protected site in challenging ‘lumpy’ sea conditions this year, his first time on the wreck.
He noted the large quantities of fishing-net, which snagged him at times, and stayed around the conning-tower area to work out the damage while other members of the team explored elsewhere, reporting that the bow and stern areas remained completely intact.
A big dent aft of the conning tower on the starboard side and another on the tower itself were noted, and would tie in with members of the Vidar crew having reported hearing two bangs.
The M1 lies port-side down, with parts of the conning tower and gun-mount fallen to the seabed, including the wheel used for traversing the gun, though most of the long barrel is now buried in sediment.
Robinson came across a porthole probably used when firing the gun, and the open hatch first reported by McCartney and through which some of the crew might have tried to escape. The footage also reveals two periscopes, the helm, speaking tubes, a propeller and, oddly, a shovel.
“Many of those people on board must have been veterans of the First World War,” reflects Robinson of the M1 crew lost a century earlier.
“They must have survived some really dangerous times. Submarines were bad in peacetime, they were even worse in wartime, so we should ensure that they aren’t forgotten.”
Also from Deep Wreck Diver on Divernet: Never-before-seen Britannic dive footage released
