Qualla: HMS K13

HMS K13: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geni, CC BY-SA 3.0. At about three o'clock on the afternoon of 29 January 1917, HMS K13 dived in the Gareloch, off Faslane. She was on her final pre-acceptance trials, with 80 people aboard: 53 crew, 14 shipbuilders' employees, five sub-contractors, five Admiralty officials, a Clyde pilot named Joseph Duncan, and two officers — Commander Francis Goodhart and Lieutenant Leslie Rideal — borrowed from her sister ship K14, which was still under construction. Within minutes of submerging, water was pouring into her engine room. Forty-eight people would escape. Thirty-two would not.

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Image: Geni | CC BY-SA 3.0

HMS K13: A Submarine With Two Funnels

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire), Public domain. The K class were like nothing else. In 1915 the Royal Navy needed submarines fast enough to operate with the Grand Fleet, capable of at least 21 knots on the surface in the rough North Sea — speeds well beyond the reach of diesel engines of the day. The Admiralty's answer was a s...

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Image: Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire) | Public domain

HMS K13: The Dive

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geni, CC BY-SA 3.0. K13 had already made a morning dive that day, during which a small leak was reported in the boiler rooms. For the afternoon dive, all the boiler room vents were opened to clear residual steam and aid the search for leaks. The afternoon dive began. The engine room was reported shu...

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Image: Geni | CC BY-SA 3.0

HMS K13: The Witnesses

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geni, CC BY-SA 3.0. The crew of another submarine on trials nearby had watched K13 dive and immediately thought the dive did not look right. They raised the alarm. A maid named Annie MacIntyre, working at a hotel about a mile away, saw two men in the water on the surface but her report was ignored. ...

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Image: Geni | CC BY-SA 3.0

HMS K13: Fifty-Seven Hours

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geni, CC BY-SA 3.0. Trapped inside the forward part of the submarine, the survivors waited. They sent up a message capsule. They blew air to lift the bow. They worked through the night and into the next day and the day after that, while above them divers and gunboats and tugs tried to reach them. Af...

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Image: Geni | CC BY-SA 3.0

HMS K13: The Memorials

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Saberwyn, CC BY-SA 3.0. The ship's company at the Fort Blockhouse submarine depot in Gosport erected the first memorial at the entrance to Faslane Cemetery, at the head of the Gare Loch where the disaster happened. A second memorial stands in Elder Park in Govan, opposite the Fairfield shipyard that bui...

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Image: Saberwyn | CC BY-SA 3.0