HMS E9 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 Vickers

Vickers

Vickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 1999.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...

, Barrow

Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...

. She was laid down on 1 June 1912 and was commissioned on 18 June 1914.

Service history

At dawn on 13 September 1914, the submarine, commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Horton

Max Kennedy Horton

Admiral Sir Max Kennedy Horton, GCB, DSO and two bars was a British submariner in World War I and commander-in-chief of the Western Approaches in the latter half of World War II, responsible for British participation in the Second World War's Battle of the Atlantic.-First World War:Horton joined...

, torpedoed the German light cruiser six miles southwest of Heligoland

Heligoland

Heligoland is a small German archipelago in the North Sea.Formerly Danish and British possessions, the islands are located in the Heligoland Bight in the south-eastern corner of the North Sea...

. Hela was hit amidships with the two torpedoes, fired from a range of 600 yards. All but two of her crew were rescued by the German submarine U-18 and another German ship. Although pursued most of the day by German naval forces, E9 managed to reach 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...

 safely. Three weeks later, Horton sank the German destroyer S 116 off the mouth of the River Ems. For sinking the cruiser and the destroyer, Horton was awarded the Distinguished Service Order

Distinguished Service Order

The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...

 (DSO).

E9 was scuttled outside Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

 (Helsingfors) 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 km) off Grohara Light in the Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Finland

The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn...

 on 3 April 1918 to avoid seizure by advancing German forces.

HMS E9 was salvaged for breaking in Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

in August 1953.