The H-class submarines were a class of light coastal submarines operated with a compliment of twenty two men. The first batch of ten of these submarines were built by Vickers of Montreal, Canada, with parts supplied by the Bethlehem Steel Company of the U.S.A. This arrangement was designed to circumvent neutrality restrictions in USA. A second batch, including H-11, were built in the USA but were immediately impounded by the Americans due to these neutrality restrictions. As a result, when H-11 was completed in 1915 she was unable to be handed over to the Royal Navy and was laid up. She measured 150.2′ x 15.75′ x 12.3′ and she displaced 364 tons on the surface and 434 tons submerged. She was powered by 2 x 8 cylinder 480 brake horse power diesel engines for surface use and 2 x 320 brake horse power electric motors for underwater use driving twin screws. She was armed with 4 x 18 inch bow torpedo tubes and carried 6 torpedoes.
H-4 sister ship.
She was finally released for fitting out when the Americans entered World War I on 6th April 1917. She departed from the Boston Navy Yard on 1st January 1918 accompanied by her sister ship H-12. Both submarines arrived in Kingstown Ireland by May. H-11 set out on her first patrol on 6th June 1918 as part of HMS Vulcan flotilla. After a short period of operation in the Irish Sea the flotilla was transferred to Blyth to join 14th Flotilla. By this time the war was drawing to a close and H-11 was to see no real action before, on 11th November 1918, a ceasefire was declared and the war was effectively over.
In January 1919 H-11 was withdrawn from service and, on 20th October, she was sold for scrap. While under tow off Eyemouth en route to the breaker’s yard of John Kelly of Arbroath, the tow line snapped and H-11 capsized and sank. H-11 lay undiscovered until in 2006 divers located the wreck of a submarine off Eyemouth. However, this wreck in fact turned out to be the German U-boat U-714 and it was not until 2007 that the wreck of the H-11, lying only a few miles from the wreck of U-714, was finally located and positively identified. She sits upright and in tact in 70 metres of water in position 55° 50.107’N, 001° 48.601’W (WGS84) and is dangerously entangled by fishing nets.
H-11 Switch room
H-11 Control room
H-11 Torpedo room
