SUBMARINE DISASTER

Otago Witness, Issue 3489, 25 January 1921, Page 23

SUBMARINE DISASTER

LOST WITH ALL HANDS. LONDON, January 22. Official: Submarine K 5 was lost with all hands near the entrance of the Channel o-n Thursday. The Admiralty is investigating the cause. Submarine K 5 belonged to the supertype which was evolved during the war. She carried eight torpedo tubes, one 4in and one 3in gun. Her crew of 60 mostly belonged to Portsmouth. The disaster occurred 100 miles off Land’s End, where five of the K class submarines were accompanying the Atlantic Fleet on a cruise in Spanish waters after the fleet had been taking refuge for several days in Torbay owing to storms. It is unofficially stated that the K 5 was rammed while she was submerged during exercises designed to test the vulnerability of big ships to submarine attack. January 23. Commander Gaimes, of the submarina K 5, discovered a secret passage into Heligoland and laid a minefield practically in the anti-submarine gate of the boom near the island. A German patrol boat was cruising 200 yards off, and Commander Gaimes heard the laughter, but they probably mistook him for a German officer. The K 5 class was already in service when Germany was boasting of submarine Deutchland's transatlantic cruise. They are declared to be as effective as the largest destroyers, and made the U-boats obsolete. The Admiralty declares that the report that K 5 was rammed while submerged is unfounded. The Sunday Express states that official circles are of opinion that the K 5 was lost while diving, and was possibly blown up by an internal explosion or a drifting mine some distance below the siyface. A court of inquiry will be held when the fleet anchors at Rosa Bay.