I AM BRITISH! On This Day - World War I Centenary: 99 years ago, on the 23rd of October 1915 HM Submarine E8 torpedoed and sank the German Armoured Cruiser SMS Prinz Adalbert in the Baltic Sea. Launched at HM Dockyard, Chatham early in 1914 and commissioned on the 14th of June, she spent her initial service based at Terschelling in the Dutch West Frisian Islands. By 1915 she had joined with five of her E-Class submarines and five C-Class Submarines of the British Baltic Submarine Fleet based at the port of Reval (Tallinn) in the Russian Empire to in league with the Russian Imperial Navy choke supply of Iron Ore to Germany. On the 23rd of October E8 sighted the Kaiserlichemarine Cruiser steaming 20 miles West of Liepaja with two destroyers, closing to an approximate range of 1,300 yards E8 fired a spread of 18 torpedoes, striking the Cruiser amidships below her main armor belt, an almost immediate explosion - likely from one of the 8.3 or 5.9 magazines - her keel broken the Prinz Adabert sank within minutes. The action would prove decisive, the Germans subsequently withdrawing all Heavy Naval Units from the Baltic in fear of other losses. The E8s Commander Francis Goodhart, was for his boats success awarded the Cross of St. George by Tsar Nicholas II. E8 and her fellow submarines continued serving in the Baltic until the last year of the war, withdrawing from Reval to Helsinki due to the Bolsheviks seizure of power. E8 and the remaining five others were scuttled there by their crews on the 4th April 1918 to prevent capture by two advancing Deutsches Heer Brigades. During her time in the Baltic Aksel Berg, later a Soviet Admiral and the founder of Soviet cybernetics, was E8s liaison officer.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 18:00:01 +0000
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