Location
On the North wall of the nave.
THE OFFICERS AND MEN
of His Majesty's Submarine
M1
LOST BY COLLISION WITH A SWEDISH
MERCHANT SHIP WHEN SUBMERGED
18 MILES 216 DEGREES FROM START POINT
on 12th November 1925
Further Information
[Extract from Royal Naval Submarine Museum Site]
On 12th November 1925 M1 sailed from Plymouth to take part in an exercise. Several vessels reported seeing the submarine on the surface during the course of the proceedings and M1 exchanged messages with the minesweeper Newark at 0730. At 1937 M1 dived and never resurfaced.
What happened to the submarine remained a mystery for several days until the Captain of the Swedish collier Vidar made a report of his journey from Cardiff to Stockholm. On entering the English Channel British warships were seen carrying out exercises. The Vidar was continuing on her way when at 0745 a heavy blow rocked her. The Captain put this down to bombs being used in the exercise as his ship was still perfectly watertight, and proceeded on his way without communicating with the warships. Only on reaching the Kiel Canal on 16th November did he read about the ongoing search for the submarine. Three days later it was possible for divers to inspect the hull of the Vidar where it was found the stem had been bent and several rivets were missing, indicating a collision with an underwater object. Traces of paint on the colliers stem were later found to be identical to that of M1. The search for M1 continued for a month until on 2nd December the Admiralty announced that the search was to be discontinued as nothing had been found.
In the year 2000 diver Richard Larn succeeded in locating the wreck of the M1 and was able to show that the great gun on her deck had been ripped off in the collision with the Vidar and this had rendered her incapable of manoevre. The full story was told in the BBC series "Wreck Detectives". Further information together with photographs of the wreck is available at Deep Blue Diving.
See individual memorial to Lieut. Commander AM Carrie
