The Parnall Peto was a small seaplane designed to Air Ministry specification 16/24 in the early 1920s for use as a submarine-carried reconnaissance aircraft.
Half a dozen examples were designed and built by George Parnall and Company, one being lost with the submarine HMS M2 when her hangar flooded. It was one of the most challenging projects which the company undertook, because of the very small hangar in which the aircraft had to fit, mounted immediately in front of the submarine's conning tower.
Of mixed wood, fabric, aluminium and steel construction, it had unequal span, Warren-braced folding rectangular wings. The first aircraft, N181, was powered by a 128 hp Bristol Lucifer engine and had mahogany plywood "Consuta" type floats. Performance was generally satisfactory but improvements were made and the machine was rebuilt with new wings, metal floats and a 169 hp Armstrong Siddeley Mongoose engine. Tests both on the sea and in the air showed that designer, Harold Bolas, had met the requirements and it was officially judged to be exceptionally good.
The aircraft was launched using a compressed air catapult mounted on the forward casing of the submarine and recovered using a crane.
HMS M2 was a Royal Navy aircraft-carrying submarine shipwrecked in Lyme Bay, England, on 26 January 1932. She was one of three M class boats completed.
M2 was laid down at Vickers shipyard at Barrow in Furness in 1916, and launched in 1919. After the accidental sinking of HMS M1 in 1925, M2 and her sister M3 were taken out of service and reassigned for experimental use. She had her gun removed because of the limit in submarine gun calibre of 8 inches imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty, and it was replaced by a small aircraft hangar, the work being completed in 1928. This could carry a small Parnall Peto seaplane, specially designed for the M2 and which could be launched by hydraulic catapult within a few minutes of surfacing. The aircraft would land alongside the submarine on completion of its sortie and be winched aboard using a crane. The submarine was to operate ahead of the battle fleet in a reconnaissance role, flying off her seaplane as a scout.
The accident
M2 left her base at Portland on 29 January 1932, for an exercise in West Bay. Her last communication was a radio message at 10:11 to her Submarine depot ship, HMS Titania to announce that she would dive at 10:30 am. The captain of a passing merchant ship, the Newcastle coaster Tynsider, mentioned that he had seen a large submarine dive stern first at around 11:15. Unaware of the significance of this, he only reported it in passing once he reached port.
Her crew of 60 were all killed in the accident. The submarine was found on 3 February, eight days after her loss. Ernest Cox, the salvage expert that had raised the German battleships at Scapa Flow, was hired to salvage the M2. In an operation lasting nearly a year and 1,500 dives, on 8 December 1932, she was lifted to within six metres of the surface before a gale sprang up, sending her down to her final resting place.
The hangar door was found open and the aircraft still in it. The accident was believed to be due to water entering the submarine through the hangar door, which had been opened to launch the aircraft shortly after surfacing. This is a similar reason to the loss of the RO-RO cross channel ferry Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987, which capsized when the sea entered the ship through the large car-deck door which was close to the waterline.
Two explanations have been advanced. The first is that since the crew were always trying to beat their record time for launching the aircraft, they had simply opened the hangar door on surfacing whilst the deck was still awash. The other theory is that the flooding of the hangar was due to failure of the stern hydroplanes. High pressure air tanks were used to bring the boat to the surface in an awash condition but to conserve this limited resource, compressors were then started to completely clear the ballast tanks of water by blowing air into them. This could take as long as 15 minutes to complete. The normal procedure for launching the aircraft was therefore to hold the boat on the surface using the hydroplanes whilst the hangar door was opened and the aircraft launched. Failure of the rear hydroplanes would have sent the stern down as observed by the merchant officers and water would have eventually entered the hangar.
The aftermath.
The submarine currently lies upright on the sea bed at ( 50°34′34″N, 2°32′55″W) OSGB36. Her keel is about 32 metres below the surface at low tide, and her highest point at the top of the conning tower at around 20 metres. She is a popular dive for scuba divers.
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Off to weymouth this weekend , hopefully diving this wreck, weather permitting
jonajonesyboy 3 months ago
great footage! I have only really know about the Japanese and French designs, didn't know the Brits also exp with it.
quickscope2011 9 months ago
Amazing footage. My husband's Great Uncle, Tony O'Dwyer was also lost in this accident. Thanks so much for posting.
Bagpusspoon 10 months ago
Lovely to see the little Peto in action; and rather a pretty little aeroplane she was too.
Somewhat forgotten or perhaps just overlooked in relation to her mothership. This isn't surprising, I suppose; M2 was the most experimental submarine the RN ever operated, from her genesis as a submarine monitor (conceived to shell the German-held Belgian coast without receiving return fire from shore batteries, btw) to her reconstruction as the RN's only ever submarine aircraft carrier. Great vid!
KrillLiberator 11 months ago
Great footage, as always. Such great ingenuit. I hadnt heard of the M2 tragedy before.
Hanglands 1 year ago
wow... awesome footage... i believe it was almost acertain if they where not careless on closing the hatches... cause its flood on inside the sub... my respect to those who made the sub... and those those people inside
12ock 1 year ago
great footage/. Thanks - it makes diving it a very different thing where one can pay respects to the men that died in this tradgedy
Mikeydsmith 1 year ago
@UKkid19 Mounting naval artillery on submarines was never going to work. Subs are inherently unstable on the surface, and any kind of swell made accurate aiming impossible - not to mention the extremely limited traverse of the mounting, which meant the whole submarine had to be laboriously pointed at the target.
Meanwhile, of course, the enemy would presumably be letting fly with everything they had, and submarines are horribly prone to gunfire.
Devastating? Only for the the sub and its crew!
thisisnev 1 year ago
Great footage. Very interesting and moving. Thanks. I've just been reading articles in The Times on the losses of HM Submarines Poseidon (1931) and M 2 (1932). creweeagle's grandfather, Able Seaman Thomas Morris was fortunate to have survived the Poseidon sinking but sadly not so lucky the next year on the M 2.
Wallys3rdSon 2 years ago
My grandfather Leading Seaman Albert Jacobs was one of only 2 crew recovered, he was in the hanger waiting to time the launch of the plane. He's now buried at the Navel Cemetery at Portland, only 28 years of age!
nighttrain1550 2 years ago