HMS E41 was a British E class submarine

British E class submarine

The British E class submarines started out as improved versions of the British D class submarine. All of the first group and some of the second group were completed before the outbreak of World War I....

 built by Cammell Laird

Cammell Laird

Cammell Laird, one of the most famous names in British shipbuilding during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, came about following the merger of Laird, Son & Co. of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co. of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century.- Founding of the business :The Company...

, Birkenhead

Birkenhead

Birkenhead is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite the city of Liverpool...

. She was laid down on 26 July 1915 and was commissioned in February 1916.

Service history

HMS E41 collided with on the surface during exercises off Harwich

Harwich

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

 on 15 August 1916. Sixteen crewmembers were lost, but fifteen escaped including seven from the bottom. HMS E41 was raised in September 1917 and was recommissioned.

HMS E41 was sold in Newcastle

Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

on 6 September 1922.

Petty Officer Christopher Charles Ashby is listed on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.

Chief Petty Officer William Brown was escaped from the submerged submarine 90 minutes after the sinking. He was the first man in the World to ever successfully escape from a submarine alive.

When E41 plunged to the bottom in sixty-five feet of water, Stoker P.O. William Brown found himself trapped and alone in the submarine.

He made his way back from the control room to the engine room as he realised that this only hope of escape was by building up the air pressure in the engine room so that he would be able to open up the engine room hatch and shoot to the surface in an air bubble, when the pressure had built up sufficiently.

Aided by his intimate knowledge of the E.41, Stoker PO Brown began to slowly free the clips and gearing of the hatch so that it could open when the compressed air was ready to do its job.

It was a nightmare task. Everything was pitch black, the air was strongly tainted with chlorine gas. Oily seawater was up to his waist and great blue sparks kept flying from the fuses and connections as the water short-circuited the current.

Finally the hatch was freed and he faced the most critical moment of all. In order to build up the air pressure it would be necessary to admit more water into the flooded submarine;
the slightest error would drown him. He first tried to open the rear cap and door of the stern torpedo tube - neither would budge. Crawling past the main switchboard he received several shocks form the exposed terminals but he persevered and attempted to unfasten the weed trap of the circulation inlet. The butterfly nuts would not loosen and so he moved to the muffler valve. He at last had success as the water surged into the submarine, he crawled back to the hatch, climbed on top of the engines and waited whilst the air pressure built up.

But the compressions was insufficient and although although he managed to lift the hatch three times, it would not raise sufficiently for him to get out. He had earlier dropped the hatch clips onto the floor and they now lay under several feet of water but he knew they must be recovered so that the hatch could be secured or his precious compressed air would seep through and escape. Diving down into the cold oily water he searched for the clips, located them and climbed back on top of the engines and fastened the hatch down tight. When this had been done he opened the scuttle of the engine room to admit more water and again waited.

At what he judged to be the right moment he struck the clips free and raised the heavy steel door. It lifted a few inches then slammed down trapping his hand. Using all his strength he forced it open a few inches to release his hand and, once more, waited. Finally after an hour and half inside the submarine Stoker PO Brown succeeded in raising the hatch and was swept to the surface in a pocket of air. He was picked up by HMS Firedrake, and before being taken away for medical treatment, he insisted on giving a detailed account of the damage inside the submarine to the salvage officer, including which valves were open and which doors were closed.

Stoker PO Brown is the first man in the world to have been documented as escaping alive from a sunken submarine. One month later he was specially advanced to Stoker Chief Petty Officer for the gallantry he had shown.

When he left the Navy in 1920 he lived in Worcester and taught many hundreds of children to swim there - he saved the lives of a number of young swimmers in the river there as well.