Australia's HMAS AE1 Submarine Found After 103 Years

The wreck of HMAS AE1, Australia's first submarine, has been found 103 years after it was lost on September 14, 1914 in waters just north of Australia. AE1 was the first Allied [1] submarine lost in World War I. AE1's disappearance marked Australia's first WWI disaster. AE1 had 35 crew, drawn from Australia, New Zealand and Britain.

[1] Germany's SM U-15 was the first submarine sunk in WWI, on August 9, 1914. 

The 2017 search team succeeded in finding AE1 using survey ship MV Fugro Equator, deep water cameras and a UUV with Side-scan sonar floating 40m above the seafloor. More funding, a reduced search zone due to previous searches, side-scan technology and possibly magnetometers, made the difference.

AE1 was found in more than 300m of water. 300m was way below AE1's 61m (see sidebar) "test depth" so the end likely came quickly, from extreme water pressure, in an implosion. 

The discovery solves Australia's oldest naval mystery.

That finding AE1 took 103 years may be an indicator how difficult and prolonged the search for Argentina's ARA San Juan may be.

HMAS AE1 sunk in Papua New Guinea's, Duke of York islands. The search was funded by the Australian government including the Australian National Maritime Museum. Also funded by the Silentworld Foundation and Find AE1. (Map courtesy BBC)
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HMAS AE1 was a UK built E-class submarine sold to the RAN. The “A” designates Australian vessel.

At 55m long, 760t (surfaced) and 810t (submerged) AE1 was a large submarine for 1914. Her 3,000nm (5,600 km) range at 10 knots made her semi-ocean going.

HMAS AE1. (Photo courtesy Sea Power Centre via Australia's ABC).

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Deep water camera photo of AE1 on the seafloor deeper than 300m. (Image courtesy the Australian Government via the BBC).
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There was no concerted search for AE1 in 1914 because Australia was busy fighting WWI and in 1914 there was no sonar gear to search for sunken submarines. Searches for the wreck began in 1976, but found nothing until late 2017. 

From Wikipedia – “Several factors have been identified as increasing the difficulty of finding AE1. 

The volcanic nature of the region has resulted in a rugged and highly variable underwater topography, with a high frequency of wreck-like acoustic anomalies. Much of the region is deep water, limiting the number of techniques and tools that can be used to locate and verify shipwrecks. 

Volcanic activity can also disrupt the local magnetic field, affecting the operations of magnetometers. Eruptions and underwater earthquakes cause the underwater landscape to change, and have the potential to break up or bury a shipwreck. 

Due to heavy military activity around New Guinea during World War II, along with the disposal of ships in later years, there are large numbers of other shipwrecks (both located and unknown) in any potential search area.”

The Australian Government has (or is) designating the AE1 site a war grave, in cooperation with the Government of Papua New Guinea.

Pete