HMS C18 was a Group 1 C Class submarine, built at Chatham in the early 20th Century. She was the 2nd submarine ordered from the dockyard at Chatham and was one of two boats of the class ordered under the 1906/1907 building programme. The C Class were the final evolution (at least as far as the Royal Navy was concerned) of the original Holland design, but featured innovations such as forward hydroplanes. Conditions aboard the boats were primitive to say the least; the crew of 16 men didn't even have a head (toilet).
C18 was laid down on No7 slip on 11th March 1907, was launched into the Medway by Miss Giffard, the daughter of the Admiral Superintendant at the time, on 10th October 1908. She was commissioned on 23rd July 1909. On completion, she displaced 287 tons on the surface and 316 tons dived. She was armed with 2 18" torpedo tubes.
The C Class Submarine:
C18 at sea, sometime before 1910:
HMS C18 was employed on coastal patrol duties both before and during the First World War. At the outbreak of the Great War, she was based at Dover and spent most of the war operating from there.C18 alongside her depot ship, HMS Arrogant at Dover in 1917.
In 1918, she was redeployed to the 6th Submarine Flotilla at Portsmouth. Obsolete by the end of the Great War, she was sold and broken up in Sunderland in 1921.
