British Columbia almost sank its own submarine navy

They were known as CC-class submarines, built by a Seattle shipyard in 1913 as coastal defence vessels for the Chilean navy. But the deal fell through and, with the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, B.C. Premier Richard McBride jumped at the chance to purchase the two of them—as a gift!—for the infant Royal Canadian Navy.

At a cost of $575,000 each, they were duly commissioned, according to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, as HMCS CC-1 and HMCS CC-2, and became the first Canadian naval ships to transit the Panama Canal during an eventful voyage to their new posting in Halifax.

(For trivia lovers, they were: 144 feet (44m) long; weighed 313 long tons surfaced, 373 long tons submerged; powered by a 6-cylinder gasoline engine (on the surface), battery-powered underwater; had a top speed of 13 knots and were armed with five torpedo tubes. Each crew consisted of two officers and 16 enlisted men.)

Because of neutrality laws, they had to be sneaked out of Seattle Harbour to meet with the Canadian tug Salvor which escorted them across Juan de Fuca Strait to Esquimalt.

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The story of how British Columbia took possession of her famous two-submarine navy in the opening days of the First World War is well known.

But the story of how, but for an extraordinary stroke of luck, Premier Richard McBride’s historic purchase from a Seattle shipyard might have become disaster, is not.

Which is where our story begins…

A thick haze shrouded Juan de Fuca Strait, that hot morning of Aug. 5, 1914.

In Europe, the First World War had erupted the day before. In Esquimalt, officers and men of the 5^th Regiment manned their guns at Black Rock, Duntze Head and Belmont batteries.

They were watching for the formidable German Pacific Squadron, normally stationed in China but now known to be prowling about somewhere in the vast Pacific.

One of the young militiamen on duty at Duntze Head that memorable day was Cpl. G. Harold Lewellyn. Fifty-three years later, he vividly recalled that historic morning:

“We’d all been fallen in, manned and loaded our guns, and were told to stand down. I and some of the Duntze Head fellows had wandered round to Black Rock, the examination battery. There was a signaller and a man with a telescope, looking at a signaller on the examination boat, out in the harbour mouth.

“These signallers had the old Morse (Code) flags, the short and the long, and were practising. I happened to be sitting on the ground alongside the man who was looking through the telescope. Well, we saw the signaller on the examination boat suddenly drop his flag, duck into the wheelhouse and come out with a pair of semaphore flags which are much faster.”

Mr. Lewellyn chuckled at the memory: “And the man with the telescope said, ‘What’s the matter with that man? He’s almost stuttering!’”

Then the fun began!

Instead of sailing forth to challenge the approaching stranger, as was his duty–“We don’t know whether the captain had been improperly instructed of his duties or whether he lost his head”–the examination vessel “turned round and beat it as fast as he could, siren screaming, into the harbour!”

Leaving the shore batteries with the warning that enemy ships were approaching Esquimalt!

With the alarm sounding, Mr. Lewellyn and his comrades ran back to their battery. As the unidentified vessels neared, the anxious soldiers saw that they were two submarines, riding on the surface.

Still, Duntze Head and Belmont batteries “waited and waited and waited for orders from Black Rock. But nothing came through.”

Watching the craft through his telescopic sight, Mr. Lewellyn was thinking, “My gosh, if these are German submarines, what are those men doing, standing on the deck? Then I spotted the leading submarine had a white ensign and reported it to my officer.

“And still we waited. Nothing happened and these submarines came gaily into the harbour! Well, there was nothing we could do now, they were there.”

On the 50^th anniversary of the submarines’ dramatic arrival, Maj. Kirkpatrick Crockett, in command of Black Rock battery that historic day, recalled that he hadn’t ordered the batteries to fire when, at the last moment, he’d spotted one of the unannounced visitors was flying a Union Jack.

Had the batteries opened fire, Mr. Lewellyn emphatically maintained, the subs would have been sunk within minutes.

“That same year, we had fired in the annual artillery competition. In our series there were two guns, with 20 rounds between them. When we got the order to fire at the towed target, there were 20 rounds fired, 20 hits scored–in 35 seconds.

“We were just militiamen but we had some crackerjack gun teams and gun layers…”

He blamed the near-tragedy on the fact the “war happened so quickly. Cmdr. Hose, who was in charge of Esquimalt Station, was away with [HMCS] Rainbow. And the naval officer left in charge had so many things piled on top of each other he just didn’t know where he was. So [the submarines’ unexpected arrival] was an absolute surprise.”

And almost an absolute disaster.

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Neither submarine saw action but both served as training vessels until 1920 when they were decommissioned and were scrapped five years later.

Thanks to the taxpayers of B.C. the CC-1 and CC-2 were the beginning of the Royal Canadian Navy’s century-plus submarine service.

Interestingly, political opposition to the purchase, which was criticized as being over-priced, and because of expert opinion that the vessels weren’t really seaworthy, led to a Royal Commission. But it ultimately approved the purchase and B.C.’s short-lived submarine navy is now history.

You can read more about the CC-1 and CC-2, and the RCN’s other submarines over the years from these Wikipeida sources: