The Submarines of Geelong — A Naval Treasure Hunt
Updated: Sep 10
THE FELICITY STATION • GEELONG HISTORY • NAVAL TREASURE HUNT
The Submarines of Geelong — A Naval Treasure Hunt
There is a piece of Australian naval history sitting quietly in and around Geelong that many people drive past without ever knowing it is there. North Geelong once served as the home of Australia's J-class submarine flotilla. The story begins at Osborne House on Corio Bay, travels back through the First World War, follows six submarines halfway around the world, and ends with their steel hulls scattered through Bass Strait and Port Phillip Bay — some deep underwater, some still visible, and all now part of Victoria's protected maritime heritage.
Treasure Stop One: Osborne House, North Geelong
The trail starts at Osborne House, 51 Swinburne Street, North Geelong. Geelong's own heritage collection describes Osborne House as the home of Australia's first submarine fleet, with the six surviving J-class submarines based there in the early 1920s. The submarine depot ship HMAS Platypus supported them in Corio Bay. It is remarkable to stand in North Geelong today and realise that this quiet waterfront precinct once belonged to a very unusual chapter of the Royal Australian Navy.
The story remains visible in Geelong's collections. The Geelong Maritime Museum collection includes submarine material such as a British submarine periscope tip and historical photographs of the J-class flotilla. Osborne House itself is entering another chapter: the City of Greater Geelong announced in 2025 that the heritage site had been selected for redevelopment into a cultural and commercial destination while retaining and restoring its heritage fabric. Because work and access arrangements can change, anyone making a special trip should check current public access before going.
Why the J Class Existed
The J class was born from wartime intelligence and a naval idea that proved more complicated than expected. During the First World War, Britain received reports that Germany was developing submarines fast enough on the surface to operate with a battle fleet. The reports were wrong, but the concept produced an extraordinary class of large, fast submarines. The J boats were unusual three-shaft submarines, about 275 feet long, capable of roughly 19.5 knots on the surface, and normally carrying five officers and about forty sailors. Seven were completed; J6 was lost to friendly fire in 1918, leaving six survivors.
After the war, Britain presented the six surviving boats — J1, J2, J3, J4, J5 and J7 — to Australia. They commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy at Portsmouth on 25 March 1919 and sailed for Australia with HMAS Platypus. The voyage itself became an engineering ordeal: machinery failures and towing episodes demonstrated how worn the boats already were. After refitting at Garden Island, the submarines made their way to the new base at Geelong.
J1: From German Battleships to Barwon Heads
J1 gives the whole story a sense of scale. Before she ever saw Corio Bay, HMS J1 was a combat submarine of the Royal Navy. On 5 November 1916, while patrolling near the Horn Reefs in difficult seas, J1 found four German battleships. Commander NF Laurence manoeuvred into position and fired four torpedoes. Two struck: Grosser Kurfürst was hit aft and Kronprinz was hit in the bow. Both ships survived and returned to harbour, but both required substantial repairs. For a submarine operating in the North Sea in 1916, it was a remarkable attack.
J1 continued anti-submarine operations and later served from Gibraltar. In November 1918 she attempted an unusual attack on an enemy submarine using torpedoes, gunfire and depth charges. After the war she entered Australian service, crossed the world, was refitted in Sydney, and on 16 February 1920 sailed with J4 and HMAS Platypus for the submarine base at Geelong. Her Australian career was short. The J-class boats were expensive to maintain and increasingly unreliable; they were paid off into reserve in 1922.
J1 was sold to the Melbourne Salvage Syndicate in 1924. After useful equipment was removed, her hull was taken out and sunk about three miles off Barwon Heads on 26 May 1926. The warship that had once put torpedoes into German battleships became part of Victoria's underwater landscape. Even J1's bell had a personality: around its rim was the cheeky inscription, “Ha! Ha! Ha!, He! He! He!, I can see you! But you can’t see me!” The bell was later presented to Launceston Grammar School.
Treasure Stop Two: The Ships' Graveyard off the Heads
Four of Geelong's former submarines ended their days outside Port Phillip Heads in the area Heritage Victoria records as the Ships' Graveyard. J1 was sunk off Barwon Heads in May 1926; J2 followed on 1 June 1926; J5 on 4 June 1926; and J4, after first sinking beside the Williamstown wharf while being dismantled and later being raised, was finally taken outside the Heads and scuttled in 1927. These are not objects sitting in shallow water for casual sightseeing. They are historic wrecks in open Bass Strait, protected as underwater cultural heritage and visited by appropriately trained divers.
A century underwater has changed their purpose. The submarines were built as weapons, but the surviving steel structures now form part of the marine environment. Fish and encrusting marine life use the wreckage as habitat. The treasure here is the history itself — not something to remove. Victoria's historic shipwrecks and their artefacts are protected by law.
Treasure Stop Three: J3 at Swan Island
J3 had a different ending. After Australian service she was dismantled and her hull was sunk as a breakwater at Swan Island in 1926. The Royal Australian Navy records that the wreck can still be seen today. Her batteries were later put to work powering an electric trolley at the Swan Island Mine Depot, and propellers believed to have come from J3 now stand at the entrance to the Queenscliffe Maritime Museum.
Swan Island remains a defence precinct, so this is a history stop to approach with common sense: observe access restrictions and stay in lawful public areas. The easier public destination is the Queenscliffe Maritime Museum, where the maritime history of the Heads gives the submarine story a much wider context.
Treasure Stop Four: J7 at Sandringham
J7 survived longer than her sisters. After the flotilla was paid off she remained useful as a reserve source of electrical power at Flinders Naval Depot. She was sold in 1929, dismantled, and in 1930 her hull was sunk as a breakwater at Sandringham Yacht Club. Unlike the deep Bass Strait wrecks, the remains of J7 are still associated with the marina and can still be seen. It is a wonderfully strange final chapter for a submarine: built for stealth and war, ending its life protecting small craft from the sea.
Where Geelong's Six J-Class Boats Are Now
The trail can be remembered simply. J1, J2, J4 and J5 rest in the Ships' Graveyard outside Port Phillip Heads in Bass Strait. J3 rests at Swan Island inside Port Phillip Bay, where her remains can still be seen. J7 rests at Sandringham Yacht Club as the remains of a breakwater. Heritage Victoria lists all six J-class submarine wrecks in the state's maritime heritage register.
Why This Story Matters to Me
I find this history especially interesting because I served in the Navy myself as a Damage Control Officer. Damage control makes you think about a ship very differently: flooding, fire, machinery failure, watertight integrity, emergency power and the simple question of whether a crew can keep a vessel alive when something goes wrong. A submarine concentrates all of those problems into a steel hull beneath the surface. Reading about the J boats arriving in Australia worn out, suffering engine and battery problems, being refitted, kept operational and finally judged too expensive to maintain makes the history feel very human to me.
There is also something fitting about where the story ends. The J boats came to Geelong as machines of war. A century later, four lie beneath Bass Strait becoming part of the marine environment, while two became breakwaters. The weapons are gone. What remains is history, engineering, memory and habitat.
Geelong: A Small City with a Much Bigger Story
Geelong still has the character of a great country town by the bay, but it is a place that is moving quickly. Industry, defence, education, tourism, design and new development are all becoming part of its next chapter. Avalon Airport sits only about 15 kilometres from Geelong and links the region directly into a much larger transport and economic network. That combination — a city with deep local history and increasingly international connections — is part of what makes Geelong so interesting right now.
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Geelong's submarine history is the kind of local story many people probably pass by without realizing it is there. The treasure-hunt approach makes it genuinely interesting.