HMS M2 was a Royal Navy aircraft-carrying submarine shipwrecked in Lyme Bay, England, on 26 January 1932. She was one of three M class boats completed. The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ... An aircraft is any machine capable of atmospheric flight. ... USS Los Angeles A submarine is a specialized watercraft that can operate underwater. ... A shipwreck is the remains of a ship after it has sunk or been beached as a result of a crisis at sea. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Religion... January 26 is the 26th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1932 is a leap year starting on a Friday. ... The M class submarines were a small class of Diesel electric submarine used by the British Royal Navy during World War I. The main distinguishing feature of the M class was a 12_inch gun mounted in a turret forward of the conning tower. ...

Four M-class submarines replaced the order for the last four K class, K17-K21. Although they were similar in size, the M-class was an entirely different design from the K-class although it is possible that some material ordered for the K-boats went into them. In the event the end of the First World War meant that only three were completed. The K class submarines were a class of steam-propelled submarines of the Royal Navy designed in 1913. ... Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...

M2 was laid down in 1916 at Vickers shipyard at Barrow in Furness in 1916 and like the other members of her class was armed with a single 12-inch gun as well as torpedo tubes. The Mark IX gun was taken from spares held for the Formidable class of battleships. 1916 is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar) Events January-February January 1 -The first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled. ... The Vickers corporation, founded as the Vickers company in 1828, was a British manufacturer, primarily of military equipment. ... Barrow-in-Furness is a town in Cumbria, England. ... 1916 is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar) Events January-February January 1 -The first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled. ... HMS Implacable The Royal Navys Formidable class of battleships were an eight-ship class of pre-Dreadnoughts built in the late 1890s. ... This article is about a battleship as a type of warship. ...

After the accidental sinking of HMS M1 in 1925, she and her sister M3 were taken out of service and reassigned for experimental use. She had her gun removed because of the limit in submarine gun calibre of 8 inches imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty, and it was replaced by a small aircraft hangar, the work being completed in 1928. This could carry a small Parnall Peto seaplane, specially designed for the M2 and which could be launched by steam catapult within a few minutes of surfacing. The aircraft would land alongside the submarine on completion of its sortie and be winched aboard using a crane. The submarine was to operate ahead of the battle fleet in a reconnaissance role, and flying off her seaplane as a scout. HMS M1 was a submarine of the British Royal Navy, one of four vessels of the M class ordered towards the end of World War I. She sank with the loss of her entire crew in 1925. ... 1925 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Washington Naval Treaty limited the naval armaments of its five signatories. ... 1928 was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... A DeHavilland Single Otter floatplane in Harbour Air livery A seaplane is an aircraft designed to take off and alight upon water. ... F/A-18 a split second after the red hold-back bar (on far left) has released and the catapult is hurling the aircract down the deck An aircraft catapult is a device used to launch aircraft from ships — in particular aircraft carriers — as a form of assisted take off. ... Crane or Cranes may refer to any of the following: A crane is a piece of industrial machinery used for working on tall buildings or for lifting containers onto and off of ships in port. ...

The accident

M2 left her base at Portland on 26 January 1932, for an exercise in West Bay. Her last communication was a radio message at 10:11 to her depot ship to announce that she would dive at 10:30 am. The captain of a passing merchant ship, the Newcastle coaster Tynsider, mentioned that he had seen a large submarine dive stern first at around 11:15. Unaware of the significance of this, he only reported it in passing once he reached port. Chesil Beach from the hill above Fortuneswell, Portland Harbour is on the right. ... January 26 is the 26th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1932 is a leap year starting on a Friday. ... West Bay, formally known as Bridport Harbour is situated approximately two miles from Bridport on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, England. ... Places on Earth named Newcastle Australia Newcastle, New South Wales Canada Newcastle, New Brunswick Newcastle, Ontario West Indies Newcastle, Nevis, Saint Kitts and Nevis South Africa Newcastle, South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa United Kingdom Newcastle, Northern Ireland Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthenshire, Wales Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyneside, England Newcastle-under-Lyme... Coaster can refer to: Roller coaster Coastal trading vessel San Diego Coaster (commuter rail service) a small piece of material, usually wood, used to prevent a drink and its container from contacting a surface, such as a table, and leaving a mark. ...

Her crew of 60 were all killed in the accident. The submarine was found on 3 February, eight days after her loss. Strenuous attempts were made to raise her, and after nearly a year and 1500 dives on 8 December 1932, she was lifted to within six metres of the surface, but a gale blew up and the submarine had to be dropped back onto the sea bed. December 8 is the 342nd day (343rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1932 is a leap year starting on a Friday. ... A gale is a wind of at least 28 knots, 32 MPH, or 51km/h; and up to 55 knots, 63 MPH, or 102km/h. ...

The hangar door was found open and the aircraft still in it. The accident was believed to be due to water entering the submarine through the hangar door, which had been opened to launch the aircraft shortly after surfacing. This is a similar reason to the loss of the Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987; which capsized when the sea entered the ship through the large car-deck door which was close to the waterline. Hangars can be used to hold airplanes, airships and helicopters. ... M/S Herald of Free Enterprise was a roll-on roll-off (RORO) car and passenger ferry that sank on March 6, 1987, killing 193 passengers, due to negligence by the crew and company operating the ship. ... 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Two explanations have been advanced. The first is that since the crew were always trying to beat their record time for launching the aircraft, they had simply opened the hangar door on surfacing whilst the deck was still awash. The other theory is that the flooding of the hangar was due to failure of the stern hydroplanes. High pressure air tanks were used to bring the boat to the surface in an awash condition but to conserve this limited resource, compressors were then started to completely clear the ballast tanks of water by blowing air into them. This could take as long as 15 minutes to complete. The normal procedure for launching the aircraft was therefore to hold the boat on the surface using the hydroplanes whilst the hangar door was opened and the aircraft launched. Failure of the rear hydroplanes would have sent the stern down as observed by the merchant officers and water would have eventually entered the hangar. A hydroplane (or hydro, or thunderboat) is a very specific type of motorboat used exclusively for racing. ...

The aftermath

The submarine currently lies upright on the sea bed at (50° 34′ 34″ N 2° 32′ 55″ W (http://kvaleberg.com/extensions/mapsources/index.php?params=50_34_34_N_2_32_55_W_)) OSGB36. Her keel is about 32 metres below the surface at low tide, and her highest point at the top of the conning tower at around 20 metres. She is a popular dive for scuba divers. SCUBA is an acronym for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. ...

With the loss of M2, the Royal Navy abandoned submarine-launched aircraft, although most other navies also experimented with the concept in the interwar years. Possibly the last and the most impressive aircraft carrying submarines were the Japanese Sen Toku class which were three times the size of M2. The largest submarines of the Second World War, each carried three seaplanes and were intended to launch air attacks on the Panama Canal and American West Coast cities but the war ended before they saw action. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Panama Canal The Panama Canal is a large canal, 82 kilometres (51 miles) long, that cuts through the isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. ... A city is an urban area, differentiated from a town, village, or hamlet by size, population density, importance, or legal status. ...

References

• DK Brown, The Grand Fleet, Warship design and development 1906-1922, ISBN 1840675314