On January 25, 1878, he Russian torpedo boats, Tchesma and Sinope, conducted simultaneous Whitehead torpedo attacks against the armed Turkish steamer Intibah. Both weapons were direct hits. The flaming wreckage of the warship sank in less than two minutes.
After the sinking of the Intibah—and several other unlucky vessels that followed over the next few years — the words automotive, locomotive, and Whitehead were dropped from use. The weapon became known as the torpedo, with no qualifiers necessary.
It’s clear from Whitehead’s own writings that he considered his torpedo to be a surface warfare weapon: to be launched by surface vessels against other surface vessels. He had no way of knowing that his invention would rapidly transform submarines from mechanical curiosities into viable engines of destruction.
In 1875, three years before Whitehead’s torpedoes sank the Turkish warship Intibah, an Irish engineer named John Philip Holland, Jr. submitted plans to the U.S. Navy for a submarine to be powered by an internal combustion engine. The Navy rejected the design as “unworkable” and Holland was forced to look elsewhere for backing.
A recent immigrant to the United States, he had contacts within the Fenian Brotherhood, an organization dedicated to establishing a free Irish Republic. The brotherhood agreed to fund construction of the Holland I, in hopes of using the submarine against the British Navy in a battle for Ireland’s independence.
The vessel was launched on May 22, 1878, in Paterson, New Jersey. It was 14 feet long and was powered by a 4 horsepower Brayton engine connected to a single screw.
The operator was Holland himself. After several partial tests, he took the Holland I out for a full trial on June 6, 1878. The submarine ran on the surface at approximately 3.5 knots before submerging to a depth of twelve feet for an extended dive.
Overall, Holland was pleased with the submarine’s performance, but persistent engine problems ultimately caused him to abandon the design. He stripped the craft of all usable equipment and scuttled the hull in the Passaic River.
Holland’s next submarine, a three-man model called the Holland II, was also financed by the Fenian Brotherhood.
Unlike the boxy Holland I, the new submarine had a cigar shaped hull, tapered at both ends, with cruciform control fins at the stern — all features prominent in Whitehead’s torpedoes.
A 15 horsepower Brayton engine overcame many of the propulsion shortfalls of the earlier prototype and the Holland II had one additional feature of note: a nine-inch pneumatic gun mounted along the centerline.
Engine power and reliability were satisfactory and the pneumatic gun was test-fired successfully a number of times, but Holland wasn’t content with the sub’s handling characteristics. Steering and depth control were not responsive enough to meet his self-imposed standards, so he built a scaled-down model, the Holland III, to experiment with alternative control mechanisms.
Work on the Holland II and Holland III came to a halt in November of 1883, when both submarines were stolen from their mooring place by the Fenian Brotherhood, following a dispute with John Holland over financial matters.
While both submarines were being towed up the East River, the Holland III began taking on water, possibly through an open hatch. The tow lines gave way and the sub quickly sank.
The Holland II was towed to New Haven, Connecticut, where the Fenian Brotherhood discovered that no one but John Holland knew how to operate the craft. The brotherhood approached him for help, presumably offering him a chance to continue working with his invention. Holland refused. After trying unsuccessfully to sell the submarine, the Fenian Brotherhood had the Holland II hauled out of the water and stored in a shed on the Mill River.
Over the next few years, Holland continued honing his designs, developing two more experimental submarines in the process, predictably named the Holland IV and the Holland V.
His major breakthrough occurred on May 17, 1897, with the launch of the Holland VI, a privately funded submarine which incorporated all of his accumulated engineering knowledge. A 45 horsepower gasoline engine gave the submarine a top speed of 6 knots when running on the surface. For submerged operations, it was propelled at 5.5 knots by an electric motor connected to a battery.
The Holland VI had an operating range of 200 nautical miles when surfaced and 30 nautical miles submerged at depths of up to 75 feet. It was the first submarine capable of traveling extended distances under water, as well as the first to combine electric motors for submerged travel with internal combustion engines for use on the surface.
In addition to ballast and trim tanks for precision depth control, the sub was equipped with a conning tower, control planes, and many other features that would become regular components of submarine engineering for more than a century.
Armament consisted of a reloadable 18-inch torpedo tube and a pneumatic gun in mounted in the bow. A second pneumatic gun in the stern was removed to make room for an improved engine exhaust system.
After naval observers witnessed a series of successful dives, the U.S. Navy purchased the Holland VI on April 11, 1900. Following six months of rigorous testing, the submarine was formally commissioned as the USS Holland on October 12th of that year. Her hull designation was SS-1, a numbering convention that the Navy maintains to this day.
Impressed with their first functional attack submarine, the Navy ordered six more subs of the same type. John Holland’s newly-founded Electric Boat Company geared up to meet the demand.
Holland’s design was quickly adapted by the British Royal Navy and the Japanese Imperial Navy, and they were not the only nations entering the race for undersea warfare.
In 1903 the Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel, Germany launched the Forelle, which is widely regarded as that country’s first fully functional submarine. Powered by a kerosene engine and armed with a single torpedo tube, the Forelle was intended for the German Imperial Navy. When the German Navy failed to show interest, Krupp sold the submarine to Russia for use in the Russo-Japanese War.
Krupp’s next submarine, was designated as the SM U-1, where the ‘U’ stood for unterseeboot (undersea boat). As Germany surged forward in the manufacture and deployment of attack submarines, the term unterseeboot was quickly shortened and Anglicized to U-boat.
The German Imperial Navy purchased the SM U-1 and formally commissioned it as a warship on December 14, 1906. A larger follow-on model, the SM U-2, was armed with two torpedo tubes instead of one. This new more powerful U-boat was commissioned in 1908, and it triggered an avalanche of German attack submarine construction.
Four years later, the German Imperial Navy had 48 submarines of 13 different classes either in service or under construction.