American Holland Class Submarine - Operational Service

Operational Service

Five of the submarines were allocated to the Baltic Fleet, while the remaining six were allocated to the Black Sea Fleet.

During World War I, the Russian subs operated together with the British submarine flotilla in the Baltic against the German Navy. This all changed with the October Revolution and the Finnish Civil War.

In 1918, the German occupation of Tallinn and the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty forced the British flotilla to move to Helsinki, then under the protection of the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic. The German intervention in the Finnish Civil War and the landing of the 10,000-strong German Baltic Sea Division in Hanko forced the crew to scuttle the eight remaining submarines and the three support ships, Cicero, Emilie and Obsidian, outside Helsinki harbour.

The crews of the Russian ships were in a state of panic. Through negotiations with the Germans the many vessels of the Russian Navy moored in Helsinki were allowed to depart to Kronstadt. However, the difficult ice situation made it impossible for smaller vessels to follow, and they had to be abandoned. Among these were the four Russian AGs in Hanko. The arrival of German troops under Rüdiger von der Goltz on 3 April forced the Russians to hastily scuttle the submarines, including AG 12 and AG 16, in Hanko harbour.

The Finns located and raised the two boats. Extensive plans were made to refurbish them, but the strained economical situation of the 1920s and the new shipbuilding program of the 1930s finally led to their scrapping.

The Soviet Navy renamed their remaining five AGs A class, and all saw major modernization in the late 1930s. Two of the class were sunk during World War II.