HMAS AE2

The E class was a version of the preceding D-class submarine enlarged to accommodate an additional pair of broadside torpedo tubes. AE2 was long overall, had a beam of and a draught of . and submerged. The E-class boats had a designed diving depth of , but the addition of watertight bulkheads strengthened the hull and increased the actual diving depth to . The boat had two propellers, each of which was driven by an eight-cylinder, diesel engine as well as a electric motor. This arrangement gave the E-class submarines a maximum speed of while surfaced and submerged. They carried approximately of fuel oil that gave them a range of at while on the surface and at while submerged. AE2 had four 18-inch torpedo tubes, one each in the bow and stern, plus two on the broadside, one firing to port and the other to starboard. The boat carried one spare torpedo for each tube. No guns were fitted. ==Construction and service==

AE2 was laid down on 10 February 1912 by Vickers Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness, England, and launched on 18 June 1913. She was commissioned into the RAN at Portsmouth, England, on 28 February 1914 under the command of Lieutenant Henry H.G.D. Stoker, RN. Accompanied by her sister boat, , the other of the RAN's first two submarines, AE2 reached Sydney from England on 24 May 1914, manned by Royal Navy (RN) officers with a mixed crew of sailors drawn from the RN and RAN. During the capture of New Guinea, AE1 disappeared without a trace. AE2 arrived in Port Said, Egypt, on 28 January 1915, and was ordered to join the British 2nd Submarine Flotilla, and proceeded to take part in patrols in support of the Dardanelles Campaign. Dardanelles Campaign On 10 March, the submarine ran aground off Mudros when returning from a patrol, as the harbour lights used to aid navigation had been switched off in AE2s absence, which Stoker was not prepared for. The submarine was towed to Malta for repairs and returned to operation in April. The aim of the Dardanelles Campaign was to knock Germany's ally, the Ottoman Empire, out of the war and open up supply lines to the Russian Empire via the Black Sea. Plans were made to capture the Turkish defences by a land attack, with landings at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove. AE2s first attempt was made early on 24 April, but the boat only made it into the strait before the forward hydroplane coupling failed, making the submarine impossible to control underwater and forced Stoker to retreat. The submarine ran aground beneath a Turkish fort, but the fort's guns could not be lowered enough to fire, and AE2 was able to free herself within four minutes. The submarine made appearances across the Sea of Marmara over the following five days to give the impression of multiple boats, and several attacks against Turkish ships were made, although all failed because of increasing mechanical problems. ==Search and discovery==

Since 1995, Selçuk Kolay, director of the Rahmi M. Koç Museum in Istanbul, had searched for the remains of AE2. In 1996, he discovered what he believed to be the wreck lying in of water. On 9 September 2007, Australian and Turkish naval authorities began an undersea investigation to determine if AE2 could be raised and restored. Such a plan would see the submarine transferred to a viewing tank at Çanakkale. As part of the inspection, a drop camera was inserted through the submarine's open hatch and into the control room. The survey team discovered that the wreck of AE2 had suffered further damage since the 1998 inspection dives. The bow portion of the external hull casing had been destroyed and the rear of the conning tower now showed significant damage. Following an April 2008 workshop by the Turkish Institute of Nautical Archaeology and the Submarine Institute of Australia, the recommendation was made against raising the wreck. Moving the submarine to a viewing tank, or alternately relocating the wreck to shallower water, were advised against because of the AU$80–100 million cost of such projects. An ROV exploration of the wreck by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation took place in June 2014. Several significant discoveries were made, including confirmation of the existence of a portable wireless telegraph pole and antenna wire. During the exploration, sacrificial anodes were fitted to the wreck, and the location was marked with a buoy to minimize damage by passing ships. ==Legacy==

In 2009, Edith Cowan University was commissioned by the National Archives of Australia to research and produce a computer game/simulation called AE2 Commander, funded under the $15,000 Ian Maclean Award. As well as being a realistic WWI submarine simulation, it is investigating how original archival sources can be used as part of computer simulation and serious gaming. An initial version of the AE2 Commander game and website went live on 17 April 2011. The game presents a combination of digitised documents from the collections of the National Archives of Australia and Australian War Memorial along with the embodiment of various archival sources in the setting and narrative of the game. Commemorative bronze plaques have been installed along sites associated with AE2s voyage from Australia to the Dardanelles. A Defence Housing estate under construction in Ermington, New South Wales, on the site of a former naval ammunition store is to be named AE2. In recent years, AE2 has been referred to as the Silent ANZAC. ==Citations==