Johannes Russ

In 1915 the British submarine E-9, commanded by Max Horton, was stationed off the Swedish coast, in order to intercept the Swedish-German iron trade. Her sister ship E-19 had already been very successful. During 18 and 19 October it was time for E-9 to be lucky, intercepting four German steamers. Johannes Russ was one of the ships sunk by E-9. Read the complete story.

Discovery

Almost 70 years later, in 1984, the Johannes Russ was found at the depth of 58 m by Sture Hultquist, Mats Svensson, Hans Kovalek and others on the dive boat Mälarö. The rear mast was found still standing and most of the ship very well preserved.

Filming

In 1991 the Johannes Russ was investigated with an ROV, equipped with a Mesotech rotating side scan sonar for navigation, and a video camera for documentation. The original high quality video is 45 minutes long and was produced by Torleif Nilsson, Sture Hultquist and Bert Westenberg. A shorter, lower quality video has been edited for the web and is presented here.  

View the Johannes Russ video 

Per Åkesson, June 2000

Related texts

• Sinking of Johannes Russ
• The E-19 submarine massacre
• Development of the submarine

sonogram from the ROV (from the film)

on the bridge (from the film)

ship's bell (from the film)

Related link

• WW1 British Submarines (sometimes bad connection)

Sources

Per-Olof Ekman: Havsvargar (Schildts, 1983)

Underwater video made with ROV by Torleif Nilsson, Sture Hultquist and Bert Westenberg, 1991

Oral information by Sture Hultquist