The engine room of a WWI submarine. [The Royal Naval Submarine Museum, Gosport, Hampshire, England]
Today in submarines sailors work in confined spaces. These spaces were very much smaller on early submarines like the Royal Australian Navy’s AE2 of World War I. This photograph shows the inside of World War I submarine engine room. The working environment of the engine room was described by Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Edwards:
Further aft lies the engine room. Here again men are stationed on valves connected with the diving efficiency of the boat. The long compartment is dimly lit by comparison with the control room, and in the gloom a few stokers and artificers continue to fuss about the twelve-cylinder diesel engines, one on each side of the narrow central gangway … Everywhere there is a smell of hot oil, and here and there a wisp of oil fumes curls from a hot valve or joint.
[Kenneth Edwards, We Dive At Dawn, London, 1939, pp.18-19]