Submarines During World War 1

During World War 1, submarines were used in the British Navy during World War one. The design of the submarines in world war one was very similar to the ones which were used in world war two. There was a volunteer branch in the Navy called the British Submarine Service who worked in the early designs of the submarines. The first ship to be sunk by a submarine was called ‘Housatonic’. It was destroyed using a spar torpedo from the submarine. The submarine in this process also destroyed itself. There was soon a law around saying that the ships could be attacked from below and be sunk. Robert Whitehead in 1869 made a perfect self propelled torpedo. The Whitehead torpedo could go up to 700 meters. “The first Whitehead torpedo had a range of 700
Holland also had their designs for the submarines. The design which was from Holland was not completely safe because it had not been tested yet. “The Holland design had a single hull and, though crude, proved to be solid base to work on”(History Learning Site, n.d). Due to Britain having no design for submarines, the admiralty mainly relied on the American and the Holland design’s of the submarines. As mentioned in History learning site, at the same time, the French were using double hulled submarines which could flow better in water and had more stability in water(History Learning Site, n.d). There were 2 main types of engines. They were petrol and electric engines. There was 1 major danger when the submarines were using a petrol engine, it was that the engine would give of sparks which could blow the submarine to bits due to the petrol in the tank which could ignite if a spark reached it. Roger Bacon's invented the periscope which allowed the men inside to look outside the submarines to see where their enemy is. The Periscope was later improved by a well known optician called Howard
The Turkish people had been planning to invade Egypt and had begun to build a 20,000 man army under the command of the forth turkish command. The British had placed 70,000 troops were in Egypt in January 1915 and 30,000 troops were assigned to defend the Suez canal. Most of the units were from the Indian Army. The Suez canal was 101 miles long and connected the Red sea and the Mediterranean sea. This was a really important route for the Britain because this allowed their ships to go faster from India and other Asian and African parts. The Canal is 150 feet wide. This place is the only place where there is a large source of drinking water. The first fight occurred on 20th November, 1914 when 2 patrols met each other. “A patrol of the Bikaner Camel Corps met 200 Turk-controlled mounted Bedouin east of Kantara.” On 28 January 1915, the British had spotted a large batch of Turkish troops on the central across the Sinai. British and French ships entered the canal and open fired at them. On February 2nd both the patrols clashed until a sandstorm came in the way and paused the war until the following day. At early rise, the Turks decided to approach the east bank but the Indian machine gunners gunned down many soldiers who were approaching from the water and soon there were many dead bodies floating on the water. Many Arabs of the Turk side started surrendering and soon the whole Turkish force withdrew. The