The hunt for AE1: Former salvage diver's 50-year mission to find Australia's first submarine
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More than 100 years after it disappeared off the coast of Papua New Guinea, the final resting place of Australia's first submarine, AE1, remains a mystery.
But for Cairns man Fritz Herscheid, who has spent much of his working life in the South Pacific, it is a mystery he will not allow to be forgotten.
For nearly 50 years he has been dedicated to finding the wreck, thought to be resting somewhere on the sea-floor near Rabaul harbour.
Initially, it was not the mystery behind AE1's disappearance that intrigued Mr Herscheid.
"Back in the late 1960s I was salvage diving for copper and brass, blowing propellers off shipwrecks in Rabaul harbour, and I learned that there was a submarine lost somewhere in Rabaul," Mr Herscheid said.
"In those days I was purely and simply interested in the non-ferrous (metal) that submarines have — submarines have a lot of non-ferrous and can be very valuable to any sort of scavenger or wreck diver."
Although no longer a salvage diver, Mr Herscheid remains an avid researcher of shipwrecks and maritime history.
"The AE1 is always at the top of my list because of the mystery surrounding it, and also to an extent the glory of finding it," Mr Herscheid said.
He said above all else, he wants to honour the 35 men who lost their lives when the submarine disappeared.
"I genuinely believe the sailors of AE1 need recognition, they need to be found and they need to be laid to rest."
Mysterious disappearance hampers search
Mr Herscheid is not alone in his search for AE1; the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has made a number of unsuccessful attempts at locating the wreck, most recently in 2014.
A RAN statement provided to the ABC said it continued to work with various groups to establish the location of AE1, but searches were frequently mired by false contacts in the area.
"These types of contacts are frequent in this region due to large rocky outcrops or ridging along the sea bed, as well as battle debris from the First World War," it said.
"The fate of AE1 and her crew remains one of the persistent mysteries of Australian naval history. While the final resting place of these submariners is currently unknown, the sacrifice and service of these men will never be forgotten."
The mystery surrounding AE1's disappearance compels Mr Herscheid; in his own words, he is fixated by it.
"When you find out that the Germans actually claim to have sunk it, that there was a (German) shipwreck found nearby with cannon shells on the deck and a four-barrelled Nordenfelt (machine-gun) missing from it, it just gets more and more interesting," he said.
"You just want to solve it, you want to find out 'Did these men actually die in action or did they die as the result of an accident?'."
The search continues
Next year Mr Herscheid plans to return to the shallow waters around Rabaul to resume his search for AE1.
With a new boat to carry him and a small team of divers, the only thing missing is the equipment capable of confirming his suspicions.
"AE1 had a safe diving depth of 135-feet; if the AE1 had have sunk in deep water — 1,000-feet or more — it would have imploded," Mr Herscheid said.
"The implosion would have brought flotsam to the surface, it would have brought diesel to the surface, so if she'd sunk in 1,000-feet of water they would have found something.
He said if the submarine sunk in 400-feet of water or less there is a possibility the diesel in its tanks would have prevented it imploding.
"That's where I concentrated my search, in the shallower areas. I'm almost positive I found the AE1 on my last trip, the trouble was we didn't have a camera capable of going down to film the wreck.
"It could have been a Japanese shipwreck, it could have been another shipwreck, but the magnetometer picked up a shipwreck, so that'll be the first thing I do when I go back.
"Given the time and given the equipment we'll find the AE1."
Topics: world-war-1, oceans-and-reefs, navy, history, maritime, human-interest, lifestyle-and-leisure, cairns-4870, papua-new-guinea
