Poseidon: China’s Secret Salvage of Britain’s Lost Submarine

1. Hallowed Be Thy Name

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. The Irishman’s prayer ended after “evil”; Catholics did not say that last bit. He opened his eyes, raised his head, and unclasped his hands, looking around the compartment in the dim glimmer of the flashlight, hoping that his vision would adjust and allow him to see something of the other men. They stood gathered around the ladder, these men that were about to follow his orders to risk their lives, to possibly save them, and to possibly lose them. When he joined the Royal Navy on his eighteenth birthday— St. Patrick’s Day, 1915—in his native County Cork in Ireland, Petty Officer Patrick Henry Willis left a country where Christians did not pray together, where some were Catholic, as he was, and some were Protestant, as some of these submariners were. As for the two Chinese boys, well, they did not speak much English anyway. In a situation like this, everybody made his own peace with his own god and then got on with the job. None of them had expected that their routine torpedo exercises off the coast of China would go awry and leave them stranded on the sea floor, in absolute darkness. The cold water poured into the room and Chapter 1 Hallowed Be Thy Name 4 Poseidon crept first up their pant legs, then their drawers, and now clawed at their torsos and numbed their arms and hands. Willis was not entirely sure what had happened to their submarine, but the crashing sound and lurch that preceded their uncontrolled dive to the bottom led him to believe they had collided with another vessel. Whose vessel? The target ship? Another submarine? Some other ship? The pondering of each question offered momentary diversion from the cold and monotonous waiting. Six men and two boys stood trapped inside in the forward torpedo room. The klaxon sounded collision and the order to close watertight doors was given, just before they felt the blow of whatever had struck them. The captain must have seen the other ship and ordered the doors shut to try to save the boat. The men did not know if any of their mates had escaped before HMS Poseidon sank, if there were other men still alive on the other side of the watertight door to their compartment, or if they were the only survivors, preparing to risk their temporary safety for a chance at rescue. Willis happened to be with another native of County Cork, Able Seaman Vincent Nagle, Poseidon’s only other Irishman. Trapped along with them were Able Seaman Edmund Holt, Leading Seaman Reginald Clarke, Able Seaman Arthur Lovock, and Able Seaman George Hews. Also there were two Chinese mate’s assistants, one of whom they called Ah Hai, and the other, Ho Shung. The submariners in the forward torpedo room were waiting because Willis told them to wait. He told them they needed to flood the compartment and then try to make an escape to the surface via the hatch, and the others agreed. Without the rising water, despite its relative cold, they would not be able to equalize the pressure between the inside of their compartment and the weight of the water pushing down on the outside of the submarine’s hull. Once the pressure reached a similar level to that outside, they would open the hatch and make their way out, wearing a strange breathing contraption that their training and skipper had led them to believe would provide them with enough breathing gas to make it safely to the surface. A gauge told them how far they were from safety: 126 feet. Not so far, but definitely not a sure thing, Willis thought. Flooding the compartment was not so swift. After a half-hour, they tried to turn the steel wheel to open the hatch, but it refused to budge. Realizing it would take far longer, Willis told the men to Hallowed Be Thy Name 5 switch off their oxygen supply and to breathe available air while the...