Submarines: H Class

[Brian James]

H Class Submarines HMCS CH 14 and HMCS CH 15 pictured under refit at Halifax in 1920...Originally ordered for the RN as H14 and H15 during the First World War. Constructed in the US during their neutrality, the Submarines were withheld from the RN until after the US entry into the war. Ordered as part of the War Emergency Programme from Bethlehem Steel of the US, the H Class were constructed at two Shipyards, Canadian Vickers in Montreal and Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. Due to the neutrality of the US at the time, the Submarines were constructed in secret and the vessel's launch date was not recorded. The intention was to construct the Submarines and deliver them unarmed to Canada, where their armament would be installed. When the American government discovered the construction, they impounded H14 and her nine completed sister boats, only releasing them following their own declaration of war two years later. During their internment, six of the ten completed Submarines were ceded to Chile, leaving four at the Fore River Shipyard. Following the US entry into the war, the remaining four Submarines were to sail to the United Kingdom by March 1918. H14 and H15 were officially transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy on February 7th 1919. Taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia in May 1919, H14 lay in a state of disrepair until April 1920 when the Royal Canadian Navy decided to refit and commission the Submarine. The two Submarines were commissioned at Halifax on April 21st 1922. Both would be scrapped in 1927.