Hms/m E49: Balta Sound, Unst, North Sea

HP60NE 8002 c. 655 068

N60 44.4 W0 47.9

NLO: Lanca Skerry [name: HP 647 059]

Balta [name: HP 660 080]

Huney [name: HP 650 064]

Balta Sound [name centred HP 652 083].

Formerly entered as HP70SW 1 at cited location HP 6556 0654 [N60 44.2333 W0 47.85].

E 49: [max. date] 1917

Blown up by German mines, presumably spotted entering Baltasound by German vessel. All crew lost, now war grave

Source: Shetland Archive Service [undated]

MS/3025, no. 945.

E49, British submarine. Blown up by German mines, at entrance to Balta Sound in 1917. Presumably spotted entering Balta Sound by German vessel. All crew lost, now war grave.

Archive Ref:

Source: Shetland Archive Service

E class submarine, first built 1913-14. Displacement 791 tons surfaced, 835 dived. Horsepower 1700 surfaced, 860 dived. Maximum speed 15kts surfaced, 10 1/4kts dived. 30 tons fuel. Four torpedo tubes.

F T Jane 1918.

E49 noted as war loss. Class built under emergency war programme. Dimensions of class cited as 181'oa x 22 1/2' x 12 1/2'. Torpedo tubes 3-5 x 18".

F T Jane 1919.

Dimensions cited are for main body of class. E49 is evidently a late construction; wartime censorship restrictions evidently precluded a full description in Jane's.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 26 March 1991.

Scrap metal removed from wreck 1990/91.

(Undated) information in NMRS.

(Classified as submarine: date of loss cited as 12 March 1917). HMS [HMS/M] E49: this vessel was mined 2.75 cables 213 degrees from Balta Light, behind Hunley Island.

Registration: London. Built 1916. 807 tons displacement. Length: 55m. Beam: 7m.

(Location of loss cited as N60 44.23 W 0 47.85).

I G Whittaker 1998.

Material reported under RoW amnesty (2001):

A1947 1 compass binnacle: from seabed.

NMRS, MS/829/35.

Length: 181ft (55.2m)

Beam: 22ft 6ins (6.9m)

Displacement: 660/800 tons

Propulsion: diesel engines: two screws: 1600/840hp; 15-16/10 kts

Torpedo tubes: 5 x 18 ins (457mm) - 2 bow, 2 beam, 1 stern

Gun: 1 x 12 pdr

Complement: 30

This submarine was a unit of the E21 variant of the E class, and was built by Swan Hunter (on the Tyne) in 1916. She was mined off Shetland in 1917.

Built under the Emergency war Programme between 1913 and 1916, this class of submarine were all of Admiralty wing-tank type, and were the first British submarines to have beam tubes and to be internally subdivided by watertight bulkheads. The heavy losses sustained by this class (28 out of 58 being lost) reflect their status as the standard British submarine class in the First World War.

No accurate location is currently cited but the recorded discovery of the vessel 'between Balta and Huney Islands' suggests a location at about HP 655 068, in a charted depth of about 29m. The chart names this area South Channel but does not indicate the seabed type.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 17 December 2002.

H M Le Fleming 1961; [Jane] 2002.

HO chart no. 3282 (1980, revised 1991).

Plans (but not photographs) of this vessel are held in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Information from Ms G Fabri (NMM), 7 November 2003.