§ SIR JOHN KENNAWAY (Devonshire, Honiton)To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any invention for means of escape from submarine vesssls in case of accident has been discovered; and, if so, have the submarines been fitted with it since the lamentable accident of last year where several of the crew were drowned.
(Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) No reliable means of escape from submarine boats, under all conditions of submergence caused by accident, are known which it would be practicable to introduce into vessels designed for warlike purposes. Arrangements exist in submarines of A Class and later boats which would permit of the escape of the crew from a boat sunk in shallow water, provided the men were not incapacitated from other causes, and these arrangements existed in A 8 at the time of the accident last year.