Free Republic

A bold bid to locate the wreck of Australia’s first submarine has been successful, with the final resting place of 35 World War One servicemen off Papua New Guinea captured on underwater camera. The fate of AE1 has long been a mystery, with a three-day search after it disappeared on patrol in waters between New Ireland and New Britain on September 14, 1914, just seven months into service, proving fruitless. It can now be revealed the boat suffered a catastrophic failure, probably during a practice dive, and struck a hard rocky bottom southeast of the Duke of York islands group....

<p>SYDNEY—One of Australia's oldest naval mysteries has been solved after the discovery of the wreck of the country's first submarine more than 103 years after its disappearance in World War I.</p> <p>The AE1 vanished off the New Guinean island of New Britain on September 14, 1914, with 35 crew aboard from Australia, New Zealand and Britain.</p>

One of Australia’s leading submarine experts believes that the nation’s greatest wartime mystery — the loss of submarine AE1 and 34 crew in 1914 — could soon be solved. Former submariner and retired Rear Admiral Peter Briggs said an “object” found on the ocean floor near Rabaul in Papua New Guinea was possibly the lost submarine HMAS AE1. Admiral Briggs was closely involved in the 1998 campaign to locate and preserve her sister boat the AE2 lost in the Dardanelles in April 1915. In September this year the Navy Mine Hunter HMAS Yarra conducted a detailed search of waters to...