Hm submarine A3

A3 was built by Vickers, Sons and Maxim at Barrow-in-Furness, launched in March 1903 and entered Royal Navy service on 13 July 1904. She belonged to the first class of submarines designed in Britain for the Royal Navy rather than built from an American design. A petrol engine drove her on the surface and an electric motor drove her under water. The class was intended mainly to defend the coast and was still experimental: the shape, weight, stability, tower and torpedo tubes changed from one A-class group to another. On 2 February 1912 A3 left Portsmouth with other submarines and their support ship Hazard for a training exercise east of the Isle of Wight.

A3 dived at about 10.37 in the morning while practising an attack. Sixteen minutes later Hazard felt a heavy blow near her stern and a mass of air broke the surface. A3 had passed under or across the larger ship and Hazard's rudder tore a hole about eight feet long in the submarine. Bad weather and difficult channels delayed finding her for about thirty-two hours. The navy raised A3 on 12 March. No evidence proved why she crossed Hazard's path, and the inquest blamed no one. The damaged boat was not returned to work. Tug Seahorse later towed the empty hull east of Portland, where battleship St Vincent used it as a gun target on 17 May. A3 sank after the third four-inch shot.

All fourteen officers and men inside A3 drowned in the first sinking. The sudden escape of air and the large tear in the hull left no real chance of rescue. When the submarine was finally lifted into Portsmouth dock, water was pumped out and the bodies were taken to the mortuary at the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar. Lieutenant Donald Campbell was buried privately at Oban; the other thirteen were buried with naval honours at Haslar. Their names are remembered there with those killed in submarines A1, A5 and A8. No one died in the Dorset sinking now marked on the map: A3 had no crew when St Vincent fired at her. The protected wreck is therefore not their grave, although it remains the vessel in which they died.

A3 lies upright east of Portland in roughly thirty-eight metres of water. Reports describe a hull about thirty-four metres long and four metres wide, with the top of the tower at about thirty-two metres. The submarine is fairly complete apart from damage around the tower hatch and windows. Three hatches have been removed; the tower hatch was reported on display at a former Weymouth diving and shipwreck centre. Removal shows why protection was needed. The legal protected area extends fifty metres from the wreck, and entering or disturbing it requires permission. The published point is the known target wreck, not the Solent place where Hazard struck A3 or where the crew were recovered.

Only A1, A3 and A7 survive from the A class anywhere in the world. Together they show how quickly the Royal Navy changed submarine shape, power and balance while learning to use a new and dangerous kind of vessel. A3 is the sole survivor from its particular four-boat group. Its story also joins three different places: Barrow built it, the Solent collision killed its crew, and naval gunfire made the surviving Dorset wreck. Messages after the disaster came from rulers and navies around the world, showing how closely countries watched early submarine work before the First World War. The Haslar memorial carries the people; the protected hull carries the design, accident damage and later target history.