During World War I , the Royal Australian Navy ’s first submarine , AE1 , was assigned to seize Germany ’s Pacific colonies . While the mission was a success , it turn tragical when AE1 and its crewdisappeared — without a distraint call — off the coast of Papua New Guinea on September 14 , 1914 . Now , following decades of enigma and multiple searches , AE1 ’s wreckage has lastly been found , the Associated Press reports .
Furgro Equator , a Dutch survey vessel , situate AE1 in mid - December as part of a search expeditiousness fund partly by the Australian government . submerge at nearly 1000 feet off the coast of Papua New Guinea ’s Duke of York Islands , the sub is being do by as the grave site of its 35 crew members from Australia , England , and New Zealand .
allot toa regime mechanical press release , officials held a small memorial service for the deceased and are trying to adjoin their descendant . The Australian government will work on together with the Papua New Guinean government to bear on the watercraft ’s wreckage and commemorate the calamity .
As the first Allied submarine lost during World War I and the first ever lost by the Royal Australian Navy , AE1 holds a unique place in maritime chronicle . It vanished just a day after the giving up of German New Guinea , but research worker rule out enemy scrap as an explanation for its disappearance ; the only German ship nearby was a small survey boat .
Experts still do n’t cognise what have the vessel to sink . But because searchers at the meter of its disappearing never found an oil glossy , debris field , or bodies , experts assumed that the sub had struck a Witwatersrand and sunk while remaining entire . While this theory has n’t been verified , the wreckage should provide more clew .
[ h / tAssociated Press ]
