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Old 05-19-18, 03:19 PM   #1
Kapitan
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Join Date: Mar 2005
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Default Had a spring clean and found this

Well like many people we tend to hoard normally junk that we don't need any more or broken, well i was doing some cleaning around the house and came across this.



I had the sense to look inside before throwing it out and thank god i did (my dad would never have forgiven me otherwise)

Inside lay pictures and items from my Great Great uncle who went down with HMS K13 on January 29th 1917 in the Gereloch during a training dive that went wrong, sadly he was one of the 30 killed in the incident.


HMS K13 at her Launch one of very few known pictures of her as K13

HMS K13 was a K class steam powered submarine, a large submarine of the day displacing 2,000ton surfaced, the idea behind steam powered submarines was to allow them to keep up with a battle fleet, great idea in principle terrible in practice as many would find out.

Given Aircraft at the time were well in their infancy meant that the air threat wasn't an issue during world war I and so a quick diving time was not really required, that said reasonably quick would have been nice but the K class took a staggering 5 minuets to dive!

The K class would be caught up in a lot of tragerdies not just because of the war but because of design problems and the fact steam power was not the best source of propulsion on a submarine, in fact nearly all 300 victims of the entire K class submarines died not as a result of enemy action but because of blunder and accidents probably the best known incident was the battle of may island.

This training exercise would see the deployment of 9 K class submarines including the now raised and recommissioned K13 (now called K22), the exercise was a disaster, HMS K4 & K17 had collided and sunk (K4 a year earlier ran aground on Walney island and also collided with HMS K1 the K1 had to be scuttled off the Danish coast).
In less than 90 minuets 2 K class submarines were sunk and a further 4 (including HMS K22) had been damaged along with the light cruiser HMS fearless who had been escorting them.

Moral among the crews of these class were at best sadistic often dubbing the class and the Kalamity K's or the Killers even the first sea lord Jackie Fisher stated "The most fatal error imaginable would be to put steam engines in submarines"


Leading Stoker Frederick James Howard my Great Great Uncle who died on HMS K13

HMS K13 was eventually raised repaired and put back in to service as HMS K22 and would see out the rest of the war being scrapped on December 16th 1926.

The box yielded other surprises this time from across the pond in Canada,


William James Howard who had previously served on HMS Blonde in the Royal navy had transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy and served on board HMCS Stadacona and also HMCS Niobe.


HMCS Niobe 1897 (formally HMS Niobe) transferred to Canada in 1910 she would survive the war being broken up in 1922

I do know that during William's career he spent time in Malta here he has a picture of HMS Barham 1890 which would be over shadowed by the later HMS Barham which exploded in spectacular fashion on camera after being torpedoes by U331 in the second world war.


A protected cruiser HMS Barham was launched in 1890 and sold for scrap in 1914 picture is from Malta



A christmas card from William to Mother from HMCS Niobe

In 1917 William would also disappear we believe in the Halifax explosion he was one of 3 brothers all of which lost their lives in the first world war, oddly despite repeated requests by our family the Canadian government has yet to release his service file to us, the only information we have is that it is extremely large for a serving sailor, this year if all goes well should mark the end for my time in the United Kingdom, i too will be heading to Canada to start a new life i also intend to find out why the Canadian government is holding onto his file over 100 years later.



At the top Frederick James Howards Death Penny
Below William James Howards Death Penny

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