HMS ''E34'' was a

British E-class submarine The British E-class submarines started out as improved versions of the British D-class submarine. The E class served with the Royal Navy throughout World War I as the backbone of the submarine fleet. The last surviving E class submarines we ...

built by John Thornycroft,

Woolston, Hampshire Woolston is a suburb of Southampton, located on the eastern bank of the River Itchen, Hampshire, River Itchen. It is bounded by the River Itchen, Hampshire, River Itchen, Sholing, Peartree Green, Itchen and Weston, Southampton, Weston. The ar ...

. She was launched on 27 January 1917 and commissioned in March 1917. HMS ''E34'' sank the

U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...

off

Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-o ...

in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

on 10 May 1918. ''E34'' was a mine-laying submarine. ''E34'' was mined near the Eijerlandse Gronden, the sands between the

Frisian islands The Frisian Islands, also known as the Wadden Islands or the Wadden Sea Islands, form an archipelago at the eastern edge of the North Sea in northwestern Europe, stretching from the northwest of the Netherlands through Germany to the west of Denm ...

Texel Texel (; Texels dialect: ) is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of Den ...

and

Vlieland (; ) is a municipality and island in the northern Netherlands. The municipality of Vlieland is the second most sparsely populated municipality in the Netherlands, after Schiermonnikoog. Vlieland is one of the West Frisian Islands, lying in t ...

on 20 July 1918. There were no survivors.

Design

Like all post-''E8''

s, ''E34'' had a displacement of at the surface and while submerged. She had a total length of and a beam of . She was powered by two Vickers eight-cylinder two-stroke diesel engines and two electric motors.Akerman, P. (1989). ''Encyclopaedia of British submarines 1901–1955''. 149–150. Maritime Books.

/ref> The submarine had a maximum surface speed of and a submerged speed of . British E-class submarines had fuel capacities of of diesel and ranges of when travelling at . ''E34'' was capable of operating submerged for five hours when travelling at . ''E34'' was armed with a QF 12-pounder 12 cwt naval gun, 12-pounder QF gun mounted forward of the conning tower. Like the other E-class minelaying submarines ('' E24'', '' E41'', '' E45'', '' E46'' and '' E51''), ''E34'' had three 18 inch (450 mm)

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s instead of five: two in the bow and one in the stern. Six torpedoes were carried. The two broadside torpedo tubes were replaced by mine tubes carrying a total of twenty mines. E-Class submarines had wireless systems with power ratings; in some submarines, these were later upgraded to systems by removing a midship torpedo tube. Their maximum design depth was although in service some reached depths of below . Some submarines contained

Fessenden oscillator A Fessenden oscillator is an electro-acoustic transducer invented by Reginald Fessenden, with development starting in 1912 at the Submarine Signal Company of Boston. It was the first successful acoustical echo ranging device. Similar in operat ...

systems.

Crew

Her

complement Complement may refer to: The arts * Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave ** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-class collections into complementary sets * Complementary color, in the visu ...

was three officers and 28 men.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:E34 British E-class submarines of the Royal Navy Ships built in Southampton 1917 ships World War I submarines of the United Kingdom World War I shipwrecks in the North Sea Royal Navy ship names Maritime incidents in 1918 Ships sunk by mines Ships built by John I. Thornycroft & Company Shipwrecks of the Netherlands