John Philip Holland - Man and Electro-Bot
Many people tried to build a submarine. Efim Nikonov proposed a project for a "secret vessel" to Peter the Great, about which little is known (Russia has always had a very good secrecy regime). In 1775, David Bushnell built the submarine "Turtle" in Essex, Connecticut, and even tried to sink the British frigate "Eagle" with it (there is not much more information about the "Turtle" than about the "secret vessel"). Fulton offered Napoleon his "Nautilus". But the first person who managed to create a real submarine was named John Philip Holland...
John Philip Holland
More precisely, that was his passport name. The boy's parents baptized him as Sean Peelib Ouallachain. The strangeness of the name should not surprise: the Hollands were Irish, and real ones at that: Sean learned English only at school. And it's good that he learned it, because the school he later entered belonged to the Irish Christian Brothers, and everything English was loved there... rather weakly.
At first, Holland taught mathematics in Ireland, but then moved to the United States, where he began teaching at St. John's Catholic School. One day, John Philip slipped and broke his leg. In the hospital, with nothing better to do, he began designing a submarine. The project was revolutionary. Well, how revolutionary... The world had already had experience installing electric motors on submarines. But electric submarines had a significant drawback - the small capacity of their batteries. Holland solved this by installing a gasoline engine on the boat for surface running; underwater, the inventor used compressed air to power the same engine.
Holland 1 in the museum
Holland built his first boat in 1878 in New York, and launched it on May 22. The boat was 14 feet long, had a displacement of 2,25 tons, and was powered by a 4-horsepower Brayton gasoline engine. Holland personally tested the boat, diving it to a depth of 12 feet and making 3,5 knots while submerged. The American military did not appreciate the idea. But the Irish Fenians did! The "Fenian Brotherhood" was a militant organization fighting for Irish independence. Fighting weapons in their hands - of course, that's why the Fenians were based in the US and organized raids on Canada. Anyway, they gave Sean Pelib money to build a new boat, this time - armed!
Holland designed the boat on the principle of the "Whitehead mine" - the vertical and horizontal rudders were located crosswise in the stern. The peculiarity of the boat was that by taking on ballast, it reached zero buoyancy, after which it maneuvered in depth using horizontal rudders. The boat was driven by the same double-acting engine of the Brayton design, but this time it ran on kerosene and had a capacity of 15 horsepower.
What the Fenian Ram looked like is unknown. But there is a photo of Holland-3, which was a smaller copy of it.
The submarine, which American journalists dubbed the "Fenian Ram", was armed with a pneumatic "dynamite gun" - a fashionable weapon in the late 9th century (it was impossible to shoot dynamite shells using gunpowder - the dynamite detonated in the barrel). The "Fenian Ram" gun had a caliber of 3,4 inches and a length of 1,8 meters. The bow cover of the gun was sealed tightly, after which the gun was loaded from the inside with a steel shell XNUMX meters long.
Holland made several dives on the Fenian Ram, and successfully tested the pneumatic gun. But the Fenians had problems with money, and they simply... stole the submarine! This happened in November 1883. The Fenians soon realized that there was no one among them who knew how to operate a submarine. Holland, offended, refused to help, so the Irish abandoned the boat in a barn on the Mill River in Connecticut.
But the idea of submarine warfare was in the air, and Holland quickly found a new investor. He was US Army Lieutenant Edmund Zalinski. Zalinski himself was no stranger to invention: he had invented a pneumatic "dynamite gun" of his own design, for the use of which a mere trifle was missing - a submarine. John Philip Holland took on the task of building one.
Holland 4, aka "Zalinski's boat"
The Holland IV had a wooden hull with iron framing, 50 feet long and 8 feet in diameter, and was powered by the same 4-horsepower Brayton engine. The pilot, standing in the center and looking out the conning tower windows, steered the boat using vertical and horizontal rudders in the stern, as on the previous model.
The Holland IV could be used for its intended purpose in three ways: by firing a "dynamite gun"; by placing a floating mine with a remote electric detonator under the bottom of the target ship; or by firing a harpoon with an explosive charge attached to it with a remote electric detonator into the bottom of the ship.
To build the submarine, Holland and Zalinski founded the Nautilus Submarine Company (Holland loved Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea!). The company did not last long, but the experience was not in vain. In 1893, the inventor founded the Holland Torpedo Boat Company. Despite past failures, the wide coverage of submarine tests in the press attracted investors, and John Philip had money to build the Holland VI submarine (Holland V was a prototype built to demonstrate the potential of submarines)...
Holland 6, aka USS Holland (SS-1)
Launched in 1897, Holland VI was the first submarine to feature all the elements necessary to create a modern non-nuclear submarine. It had ballast tanks, vertical and horizontal rudders that allowed it to dive to a depth of 23 meters, a four-stroke Otto gasoline engine with a capacity of 45 horsepower for surface running and recharging the battery, and an electric motor with a capacity of 50 (according to other sources - 75) horsepower for underwater running, giving a speed of 8 knots on the surface and 5 knots underwater, a reloadable torpedo tube with three torpedoes, and a crew of 6 people. However, the inventor could not refuse the "dynamite guns" in the bow and stern, and the stern one was dismantled later.
Dismantled by American naval officers. Yes, Holland was lucky! His boat was bought in 1900 fleet The US Navy bought the submarine for $150 (half the cost of its production) and commissioned it as the USS Holland (SS-1). This submarine was the first in the Navy, and Lieutenant Harry Caldwell was appointed to command the submarine, thus becoming the world's first submarine commander (Caldwell's service did not work out due to his difficult relationship with alcohol, but he later became a prominent Hollywood screenwriter: the script for the film "Ben-Hur" is his work).
The boats have become the size of a cruiser, but they are still built by the same company...
Shortly before that, in 1899, Holland and his financier Isaac Rice founded a new company: the Electric Boat Company, which later became General Dynamics (it's more complicated than that, but I don't want to delve into the financial details). Rice, as a man with more financial experience, quickly seized control of the company, leaving Holland as a simple employee in the company he founded. However, it is possible that this was for the best (for the company): under Rice's leadership, the company began supplying Holland-designed submarines to the entire world. The first to order a submarine were the British: HMS Holland I entered service in 1901, five submarines were ordered by Japan, six by the US Navy, and so on, and so on, and so on. Today, General Dynamics is the world's fifth-largest defense contractor, ranked 94th on Fortune magazine's list of the 100 largest U.S. companies, with worldwide sales of $39,4 billion and a staff of 106.
And Holland... And Holland - he died in poverty on August 12, 1914. He is buried in the Catholic Cemetery of the Holy Sepulchre in Totowa, New Jersey.
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