The Long Silence: G.A.G Haggard of Submarine AE2
Australian History Naval History Biography & Memoir Military History Submarine Warfare World War I Gallipoli Campaign True Military Stories
The Long Silence: G.A.G. Haggard of Submarine AE2 is a scarce 2007 Australian first-edition hardcover that finally gives voice to one of the most dramatic—but least told—stories of World War I. In 1915 the British-Australian submarine AE2 slipped through the Dardanelles to disrupt Ottoman supply lines, a daring feat that changed the Gallipoli campaign. When the boat was scuttled, her officers spent the rest of the war in Ottoman captivity. For ninety years their ordeal remained virtually undocumented; this book reconstructs the ordeal through the private papers of Lieutenant-Commander G.A.G. Haggard, AE2’s navigating officer, woven together by his granddaughter, Jennifer Smyth. The result is an intimate, boots-on-the-deck memoir that reads like fiction yet is grounded in primary sources collectors prize.
What makes this copy especially desirable is that it carries a warm, personalised inscription and signature from the author on the title page—an assurance the book came directly from the family and not from remainder piles. The dust-jacketed hardcover is in excellent, clean condition, free of the foxing and shelf-rubbing that plague many privately printed Australian military titles. Only 134 pages, the book is a concise reference gem for Gallipoli buffs, submarine historians, and collectors of ANZAC material, yet its fast-paced narrative appeals to general readers as well.
Because the AE2’s logbooks were lost, Haggard’s letters and diaries—reproduced here for the first time—are now the definitive eyewitness record. Smyth supplements them with newly released Turkish archives, deck plans, and rare photographs, making The Long Silence both a gripping personal story and an indispensable source for scholars of Allied submarine operations. First-edition copies signed by the author seldom surface on the secondary market, so this clean, jacketed example is an ideal centrepiece for any Great War, naval, or Australian military collection.
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