What Was the First Submarine Journey?

Early French submarine

Submarines have come a long way in the last century. During World War I, their effectiveness became truly apparent, with German U-boats sinking more than 5,000 Allied ships, forever changing the nature of war at sea. Since then, submarine technology has advanced greatly, and today they perform a wide variety of tasks in our seas and oceans.

Civilian submarines engage in exploration, marine science, salvage operations, and the construction and maintenance of underwater infrastructure. In the military arena, meanwhile, submarines prowl the oceans undetected, capable in some cases of staying submerged for months at a time. Military submarines offer a range of capabilities, whether it’s reconnaissance, the covert insertion of special forces, silently attacking enemy surface ships, or — in the case of the most advanced nuclear submarines — strategic nuclear deterrence.

The use of submarines, however, predates World War I by longer than we might imagine. For many centuries, inventors and visionaries have conceived of vessels capable of moving underwater. These early ideas, ranging from theoretical designs to actual working prototypes, represent crucial steps in maritime technology. Here, we look at three submarine journeys that represent firsts of their kind, from the ancient world to the first use of a submarine in combat.

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Alexander the Great’s Legendary Submarine

It’s hard to say with certainty when the first submarine journey occurred, partly because of how, exactly, we define a submarine. If simply defined as a submersible craft used for warfare, it could be argued that the earliest documented case dates all the way back to Alexander the Great. According to Aristotle’s work Problemata, Alexander, or at least his divers, descended into the depths during the siege of Tyre in 332 BCE, possibly to destroy the city’s underwater defenses. Written works and paintings over the years have told legendary stories of Alexander exploring the sea in what could be described as a diving bell, bathysphere, or rudimentary submarine. But like many tales involving Alexander the Great, the story has been embellished over the centuries.

The Underwater Exploits of Cornelis Drebbel

While it’s entirely possible that Alexander the Great used divers at Tyre, and possibly a rudimentary diving bell, it’s hard to give him credit for the first true submarine journey. That honor is more correctly bestowed on Cornelis Drebbel, a Dutch inventor who was invited to the court of King James I of England in 1604.

Drebbel had already made a name for himself as an engineer and inventor, having created various contraptions in Holland, including perpetual motion machines, clocks, and a self-regulating furnace. But it was during his time in England that Drebbel came up with arguably his most famous invention. In 1620, while working for the Royal Navy, Drebbel designed and built the first documented navigable submarine. None of his original records or engineering drawings survive, but there were enough eyewitness accounts to give us a good idea of how his submarine worked.

The basic design was like a rowing boat, but with raised and meeting sides, and the whole vessel covered in greased leather. It had a watertight hatch in the middle and was propelled by oars that came out the side through watertight leather seals. Large pigskin bladders were used to control diving and surfacing, while tubes floated at the surface of the water likely provided the crew with oxygen.

Drebbel built three submarines in total, each one bigger than the last — the final model had six oars and could carry 16 passengers. He tested them on the River Thames in London in front of thousands of spectators, one of whom was King James I. Contemporary accounts suggest that the king himself may have joined Drebbel on one of his test runs, making James I the first monarch to ride in a submarine. Accounts of the test runs, which continued until 1624, state that the submarine could travel underwater from Westminster to Greenwich and back — a three-hour trip with the boat traveling 15 feet below the surface.

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The Revolutionary War’s Turtle

Another hugely significant submarine journey took place a little more than a century and a half after Drebbel’s historic underwater excursions. In 1776, a one-man submersible called the Turtle became the world’s first combat submarine during the American Revolutionary War.

Designed by American inventor David Bushnell, this remarkable vessel was shaped somewhat like a large acorn, or, as Bushnell described it in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, as “two upper tortoise shells of equal size, joined together.” The submarine was propelled vertically and horizontally by hand-cranked and pedal-powered propellers operated by the single pilot.

On September 7, 1776, Sergeant Ezra Lee of the Continental Army piloted the Turtle in the first ever combat mission involving a submarine. He used the vessel in an attempted attack on the British flagship HMS Eagle in New York Harbor. The Turtle was equipped with a mine that was to be attached to the hull of the enemy ship, but Lee failed to attach the explosive charge to the hull. The perilous mission was a failure, as were subsequent missions involving the sub. It was, nevertheless, a pivotal moment in the history of warfare, with the Turtle demonstrating the potential of submarines in combat.