HMS M2

HMS M2

Some people I talk to say I have my facts wrong as it was the Japanese who developed a submarine that carried an aircraft. Well the information below must be a figment of my imagination along diving this wreck 30/04/89 from a Hard Boat out of Weymouth.

The trip out to the wreck site gives you a chance to see and feel the the power of the sea. You have to go through the Portland race which broke the Spanish invasion fleet on the 8th Aug 1588 The armada was wrecked and pulled to pieces splitting the fleet in two. This is why Drake is recorded as playing bowls. In fact he was a great seaman of his time and was well aware of the tides around Portland. But enough of Drake and back to the first submarines that launched a small seaplane was definitely HMS M2.

The wreck of the British submarine HMS M2 is quite unique. 295.9 feet long she was one of the four M class submarines laid down in 1916 during those dark days of the first world war. The M2 was completed in 1920, and was initially fitted out with a 12-inch battleship gun on her foredeck in the same way as her sister-subs M1 and M3. The Washington Treaty and the loss of the M1 in the channel caused the Admiralty to re-think the M2. In 1927 her 12" gun was removed and replaced with a watertight aeroplane hangar which housed the world's smallest seaplane. This was launched by Hydraulic catapult and recovered by crane after flight.

HMS M2 left her base at Portland on 26 January 1932, for an exercise in West Bay, Dorset, she was carrying a Parnall Peto aircraft serial N255. Her last communication was a radio message at 10:11 Hrs to her submarine depot ship, HMS Titania, to announce that she would dive at 10:30 Hrs. Other vessels watched HMS M2 dive, but never reappeared. Eight days later, divers found the wreck, in 32 Meters of water with the hangar doors open. The bodies of two crew, Leslie Gregory and Albert Jacobs, were recovered; 58 other men including two airmen remained entombed within the wreck which today lies upright and intact, her conning tower covered with jewel anemones that glow, the crane still obvious on her foredeck.

HMS M2 is protected by the Military Remains Act, which states that divers are not allowed to enter, tamper with or remove anything from the site. The M2 has been sealed off and is slightly buoyant and moves around slightly by tides. The crew and airmen are still on active service.