SUBMARINE LOSSES 1904 TO PRESENT DAY These pages tell the story of all British submarine losses, from 1904, through the two world wars, up to the loss of HMS Artemis on 1st July 1971 The entire database will take a minute to load. The losses are listed in chronological order, with an index at the top. Submarine losses 1904 to present day
Interesting, but they don't usually give the casualty figures for the losses. All too often, no-one survived. Just looking at the numbers of submarines lost is sobering enough.
The full casualty listings can be found here: Royal Navy Casualties in World War 2 Included are Pre-WW1 Submariners by Date, and then subsequently by year.
And I make it about 91 on Olympus which was carrying the crews of several other submarines. Was it really necessary to put so many men into one vessel which was going to have to negotiate minefields?
Subs Lost and Casualties When the Sahib was lost all the crew managed to get clear. On man died when an Aicraft strafed the Crew in the water. The rest were picked up by an Italian Corvette.
As regards the Olympus, as it seems to have been sunk only 2 or 3 miles out from Malta, the minefield may have been fresh. With limited shipping, and redundent crews merely being extra mouths to feed on the island I suppose they thought the risk was worth it. It also seems that most of the crew survived the mine explosion but were drowned whilst awaiting rescue in the middle of the night. Interestingly the wreck may have been discovered: Divers locate HMS Olympus off Malta | X-Ray International Dive Magazine
Is anyone bothered by deliberate distortion? The lead paragraph indicates the Admiralty specifically choose to protect the sub and sacrifice the crew, while the document quotation shows that the decision was made to sacrifice the sub when the crew's situation became desperate. In other words, it was a miscalculation rather than a deliberate abandonment of the men. Is this typical of the Mail's journalistic standards?
AE1 and AE2 though both built in Britian and partly manned by Brits on exchange to RAN, were Royal Australian Navy Submarines. So why do they appear on this list? Australia's very small Navy was placed under command of Admiratly, this still does not mean that the subs were Brit.
Cobber, technically, that list is correct, if one takes Australia's position within the Empire at that time. As a Dominion state, its move towards independence didn't really start until Statute of Westminster 1931 and Westminster Adoption Act 1942. Though the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 effectively gave Australia independence to run its own affairs there were were enough clauses in it for Britain to have a say in Australia's foreign affairs and control its military before and during WW1.
Mate what you write may be Technically correct in your way of thinking. Well technichally the Australian Colonie's were self goverening from around 1851. The southern Colony's had their own very small navy's from around 1880, paid for and manned by the colony's. What is Technically written andand what actually happened are two different things. Australia voluntered to place it's force's under the command of the Brit highest command and it's Admiralty, Although you say technically Britian could have had some direct say, they didn't and at several conferences Australia decided that in case of war they would place their navy under command of the Admiratly, this does not make them British in any way.
Not British by any way of thinking but under British control for sure. I'd guess the people putting the list together did not go into the politics of the time. They had enough on their plate putting the list together!
