Home » Themes » Conflict » World War One
HMA Submarine AE1Print Page 
The plaque commemorates the contributions of His Majesty’s Australian Submarine (HMA) submarine AE1 in World War One. The plaque location is indicated by the red poppy in the second image.
Australia's first submarines, the AE1 and the AE2, were launched in 1913 and were manned by composite Australian and British crews.
At the outbreak of World War One, the two submarines were sent from Sydney to German New Guinea with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force and helped to capture the German colony. On 14 September, a day after the official German surrender of the colony, the AE1, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Thomas Besant, left Rabaul harbour to patrol Cape Gazelle and never returned. The fate of the submarine was never discovered but it is probable that it was caught on a coral reef and sunk. The wreck of the AE1 has never been found.
Location
| Address: | Fairbairn & Limestone Avenues, Eastern Precinct, Australian War Memorial , Campbell, 2612 |
|---|---|
| State: | ACT |
| Area: | AUS |
| GPS Coordinates: | Lat: -35.280169 Long: 149.147612 Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate. |
Details
| Monument Type: | Plaque |
|---|---|
| Monument Theme: | Conflict |
| Sub-Theme: | WW1 |
| Actual Event Start Date: | 04-August-1914 |
| Actual Event End Date: | 28-June-1919 |
| Link: | http://www.dva.gov.au/consultation-… |
Dedication
| Actual Monument Dedication Date: | Friday 23rd May, 2014 |
|---|
HMA Submarine AE1
Battle Honours : Rabual 1914
In early September 1914, HMA Submarines AE1 and AE2 deployed with the Australian fleet to occupy Germany`s regional possessions in the South-West Pacific and remove the threat posed by the German East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron. Following a successful operation to seize Rabaul, AE1 was conducting a patrol with the destroyer HMAS Parramatta in St George`s Channel, to the south and east of Duke of York Island, when she vanished on the afternoon of 14 September 1914. Despite an extensive search conducted over a three-day period, no trace was found of the submarine or its 35 crew (14 Royal Australian Navy and 21 Royal Navy).
Entombed but not forgotten
Submarines Association of Australia
