PNG - The Search for the AE1

Broadcast: 27/03/2007

Reporter: Steve Marshall

Transcript

MARSHALL: During the early days of the First World War, the Royal Australian Navy suffered a savage blow in these very waters. Somewhere beneath me lies a watery grave and we've joined one man's quest to find it and solve one of Australia's most enduring maritime mysteries.

Rabaul Harbour - spectacular and steeped in history. Its menacing volcanoes lure visitors from around the globe and hint at the region's tumultuous past.

Beneath the surface of the water lies a diver's paradise. Shipwrecks litter the sea floor.

At a nearby hotel, Royal Australian Navy officers - past and present - pour over maps and charts. They've joined forces to find the wreckage of Australia's very first naval loss.

Retired Royal Australian Navy Commander, John Foster, is on a crusade. He's spent the past thirty years searching for Australia's first ever submarine, the AE1.

CMDR JOHN FOSTER (ret.): [Sub hunter] Submarines have accidents all the time. They get sunk quite frequently in wartime but this one has just disappeared without any, any hint of something going wrong. It's a mystery where he went and that's the thing, solving the mystery - find out what might have happened.

MARSHALL: It was a murky end for the AE1 and its thirty-five Australian and British crewmembers. It inexplicably disappeared during the 1914 mission to seize the colony of German New Guinea.

The AE1 was one of two submarines built in England for the Royal Australian Navy. Their sizeable torpedo bays made them a force to be reckoned with, but the AE1 service was all too brief, ending less than two weeks into the New Guinea campaign.

John Foster's made several attempts to find the AE1 but this time he's better equipped. HMAS Benalla, on of the Royal Australian Navy's high tech survey ships. It's been working in the area for the past month and Navy HQ has agreed to help John Foster's quest - but the clock is clicking. He has just forty-eight hours to find the wreckage of the lost sub.

CMDR JOHN FOSTER (ret.): I feel some confidence about it and I'm also feeling nervous about it because there's been so many dead ends over the years you know that you're just worried about perhaps having another one.

MARSHALL: We're off to the Duke of York Islands, deep water and a jagged reef surround them. It's here that the AE1 sub was last seen.

During the afternoon of September the 14th, 1914, Australia's AE1 submarine slipped through here on its way back to base but tragically it never made it home. It's thought the sub may have performed a practice dive and hit a reef killing all thirty five men on board, but just where the sub came to rest at the bottom of the ocean floor has remained a mystery for more than ninety years. John Foster firmly believes the men who perished that day should not be forgotten.

CMDR JOHN FOSTER (ret.): First of all we've got to find it because it's a war grave and the people who are descendant relatives need to know that even though it's ninety years past time. It's part of our national heritage you know? It's our first naval loss ever and it's hardly publicised at all.

MARSHALL: Commanding Officer Richard Mortimer delicately negotiates HMAS Benalla past the same submerged rocks that might have claimed the AE1 sub. The charts for these waters were drawn up in the early 1990's and are unreliable. The poor weather adds to an already difficult task.

RICHARD MORTIMER: [Commanding Officer, HMAS Benalla] We will end up mowing the lawn which is actually a term we use and we'll just run up and down the coast initially for us to establish exactly where that coastline is and where the reef line is and then just move out in predetermined steps from the coastline into progressively deeper water.

MARSHALL: Finding the sixty metre submarine on the vast ocean bed is no easy task. This sonar will improve the chances. It'll drag behind the ship and scour the ocean floor up to two hundred metres below.

PAUL PRIDDY: [Chief Petty Officer, HMAS Benalla] What it is, it's basically got an echo sounder on each side and instead of just pinging straight up and down, it pings out to the side and so it will give you a 3D image the same as upstairs but we should be able to get a lot closer down to the sea floor with the weight and the cable.

MARSHALL: It's a slow process but eight hours into the search, the sonar detects a strange shape on the ocean floor.

RICHARD MORTIMER: We've got a hump coming down that's a natural feature. You can see how rounded it is, then it's this one here that we're interested in.

MARSHALL: It's a promising find. The position is marked for a closer look the next day. The search continues into the night but a day full of optimism ends in catastrophe. The deep-water sonar's got snagged near the ocean floor and ripped from the ship. The recovery effort swings into gear. Engineers make a giant grabble to hook 200 metres of sonar cable lying somewhere on the seabed.

(TO PAT COOGAN) Confident?

PAT COOGAN: Big ocean, small cable!

CMDR JOHN FOSTER (ret.): Bit of a blow as you say but we still can push on in the shallower waters around the reef areas which haven't been searched before and that's what we're doing now so hopefully we still might get somewhere but all is not lost. Put it that way.

MARSHALL: The following morning the search for the thirty thousand dollar sonar takes priority but the grapple comes up empty. The search for the sub continues in shallower water. HMAS Benalla's sole remaining sonar is attached to its hull and has less range. The team pushes on, returning to yesterday's potential object. At sixty metres, the ocean floor is within range. Hour after hour the ship criss-crosses the area gathering information to build a 3D image.

RICHARD MORTIMER: And as you can see there, there's two sections sitting quite close to each other on an indentation on the slope of the reef there that shows quite clearly vertical extend. We also saw on the single boom chase itself a nice vertical extend of about four metres. So that's four metres proud of the surrounding seabed. Not huge but then also equally it is a significant find.

MARSHALL: After more painstakingly analysis, the moment of truth arrives.

RICHARD MORTIMER: We've got confirmation on two different systems that there is definitely a feature there. There's a non-natural mound there.

CMDR JOHN FOSTER (ret.): There's a shape to it that's commensurate with something man made.

RICHARD MORTIMER: Exactly.

MARSHALL: So between yourselves, what's the agreement or acknowledgement?

CMDR JOHN FOSTER (ret.): Well I'm going to stick my neck out and say it's a possible submarine.

RICHARD MORTIMER: Yeah I would concur with that.

MARSHALL: Looking at the map, it's clear the object also lies on the likely route the AE1 took back to base.

JOHN FOSTER: I will be happy to see a remotely operated vehicle brought up to inspect what's down there. It will prove one way or the other what it is. I just hope that's what it is but I think we've got a very good chance this time.

MARSHALL: After thirty years of frustration, John Foster might finally be on the verge of piecing together the puzzle of the AE1 sub. Perhaps more importantly, finding out why 35 men perished on that fateful September afternoon in 1914.

CMDR JOHN FOSTER (ret.): It's not much fun finding somebody's grave but having done so, we're probably bringing back memories of these fine men from ninety years ago which otherwise wouldn't happen.

MARSHALL: For John Foster the search will continue. He'll be back to investigate further. Until then, the mystery of what happened to Australia's first submarine remains unsolved.