15 Oct /14

Submarine

The word originates from the Latin – sub (below) and marine (sea). The first time it was used in English was in a book about natural history by Francis Bacon. Actually Francis Bacon is one of the most important introducers of new words in English – more about him in a later blog. Certainly his interests and life were varied. Besides being Attorney General and Lord Chancellor he wrote about politics, science and religion. In his book on natural history published in 1626 he wrote that near to Sicily “much coral is found. It is a submarine plant. It has no leaves.”

The definition of submarine was specified by Robert Boyle the great British chemist. In his 1670 pamphlet Temperature of the Submarine Regions where he stated that submarine is not “the places so called are below the bottom of the sea, but only below the surface of it”.

Even though there were several examples of vehicles moving under the water at this time, it was a long time before the primarily meaning of the word submarine was a vehicle which operated under water. Initial considerations were about breathing and submergence times in a submarine boat.

The first successful attack by a submarine was by the American ship Hunley. Called a “fish torpedo boat” the Hunley was powered by a hand-cranked propeller and managed to sink twice in training, killing its crew on each occasion. Most famously in 1864 it was the first time that a submarine attacked and sunk an enemy ship using a torpedo. Unfortunately, it got too close to its target and the only time it was used against a live target, it got too close and the torpedo killed the crew and sunk the vessel.

Finding the right propulsion for a submarine was essential . Batteries did not provide enough range. It was only with diesel fuel that the modern submarine was possible. By the First World War there were already some 100 submarines in service and in the Second World War the submarine was a key weapon with more than 300 being deployed by the United States alone.