Two deadly Chilean submarines: the story of a father and a son who died at the bottom of the sea

The table was served for eight days. A spoiled banquet that was to celebrate the birthday of the owner of the house and, above all, the success of his most daring enterprise.

Karl Flach, a German master founder, left on the morning of Thursday, May 3, 1866, his 53rd birthday, from his house on the Tubildad climb – today Almirante Montt – of Cerro Alegre in Valparaíso. Heinrich, her 16-year-old son, accompanies her aboard a submersible device that will bring them glory. The project made Chile the fifth country in the world and the second in Latin America to own a submarine. They never came back.

His wife and mother Henriette Müller cried inconsolably, until her German friends and daughters convinced her of the obvious: the submarine designed, financed, manufactured and commanded by her husband, had failed.

Karl Flach built the ship motivated by the war against Spain waged since the previous year, an essentially maritime conflict with a very modest Chilean naval division led by the Esmeralda, the very one that will sink in Iquique. Despite this, he seized the schooner Covadonga from declining power on November 25, 1865, during the fight at Papudo.

Despite the triumph and certainly desperate, the government encouraged private projects to manufacture weapons capable of confronting the powerful Spanish squadron. It was only a matter of time before he arrived in Valparaíso with a thirst for revenge.

Flach, owner of a foundry in the harbor, designed a submersible powered by four crew members turning cranks, crankshafts and pulleys to turn a pair of propellers. It could be submerged for up to eight hours and sail at a speed of three knots. According to the chronicles of the time, the artifact resembled a whale with a pair of cannons capable of firing underwater.

While the Germans were in full construction of the ship which lasted three months, on March 31, 1866 the Spanish warships attacked Valparaíso with complete impunity. 2,600 bombs landed preferentially on port warehouses and major city buildings. The losses were millionaires, affecting Chilean international trade for years.

Emboldened by the attack, Flach finished the artifact on the beach at Las Torpederas. . He carried out a first submerged test at eight meters for an hour. After further trouble-free attempts, he towed the submarine back to the bay. The popular legend assures that, excited, he invited President José Joaquín Pérez to the final immersion.

“And if he fucks?”, would have answered the president, declining.

Karl Flach chose his birthday as his last check, with no enemy in sight. The Spanish ships had set sail on April 14, burning a few breakwaters as a last act of retaliation, humiliated by the loss of Covadonga.

“He felt very safe,” Dr. Guillermo Stegen, Karl Flach’s great-grandson, said in 2007. “He even wanted to take his little girls, but the mother couldn’t stand it.”

Doctor Stegen also recounted that his ancestor’s real name was Gottfried Cornelius, an identity he changed to that of a dead man -Karl Von Flach-, before fleeing Germany to Chile, due to his political activity in the German liberal revolts of 1848. .

“In the official test, he dove in, came back up, waved to people on shore and announced he was going to do another dive,” Stegen said. “That’s where the speculation begins. I think in his enthusiasm he got immersed very quickly, the people on board and the counterweights slipped. The submarine sank and he couldn’t get him out of the mud.”

On May 22, 1866, Commander Michael de Courcy of the British frigate Leander wrote a letter in the Peruvian port of Arica detailing the experience he had witnessed. The officer was so interested in the submarine that he sent a subordinate to Flach’s foundry to copy the plans.

Michael de Courcy’s letter reveals the existence of a second submarine also built by a German, Gustavo Heyermann. He assembled it in Santiago and transported it with oxen to Valparaíso, when covering the capital and the port took at least two days at full gallop.

As soon as it hit Buenos Aires waters on April 21, the ship sank due to a fatal design flaw. While Flach welded the ship, Heyermann used rivets.

In the commander’s document addressed to his superiors, we read that after the departure of the Spanish squadron from the bay of Valparaíso, “two torpedoes or submersible boats, built by individuals, were thrown into the sea”.

“After a few days of preliminary trials, the longest, built by a German by the name of Flack (sic) was submerged on Thursday morning, the last 3, and I assumed that by a process which was to me unknown, the life of these people in there could be supported (…)”.

In view of the facts, the press in Buenos Aires published gloomy reports on the fate of the crew members. “At three o’clock in the afternoon, the underwater boat has not yet been seen to leave. Around nine o’clock is the time when it begins its navigation. Several times it floats and goes down again. The last dive was made near the anchorage of the ocean liners. One of the pilots who was in a boat got bored waiting for him and disembarked. Ten men are on board the underwater boat.

On Friday the 4th in the morning, help was requested from divers from the Leander, “which I provided immediately at the very place where the torpedo had landed”. writes Michel de Courcy. The frigate attempted to bail out the aircraft without success.

“All hope is lost,” El Mercurio de Valparaíso said that day. “These wretches perished, victims of their courage and their lack of foresight. The boat builder is the father of seven children, the eldest of whom was around fourteen and accompanied him on his risky venture. There is a widow in the most absolute helplessness. It’s heartbreaking.”

Between 2005 and 2007 there was a project by audiovisual producer Juan Enrique Benítez, the same after the documentary series of the 90s puppies from TVN, to locate Flach’s submarine. Benítez sought funding, hiring millionaires such as former President Sebastián Piñera and businessman Nicolás Ibáñez, as well as SEK University and the Chilean Navy competition.

He also contacted the famous Chimbarongo medium, Isabel Ávila. “Mr. Benítez came to my house with a sketch and very old photos, he says in 2007, but I asked him not to give me more information because it is not practical for me to contaminate with a lot of information. It just confuses me.”

The mentalist went to Valparaíso and sailed through the bay which contains at least half a thousand wrecks. “The divers were impressed because I told them they were at 40 meters.”

The woman also assured that there were no 11 crew members on the ship between Germans, French and Chileans as indicated in the registers, but 14 people.

“I don’t see anything in particular,” he explained. “These are feelings that come to me. It is important that these types of research be done without ambition. I’m not looking for treasures, I’m looking for people. If I know why it sank? It was something like a blade or a rudder that didn’t work for them. Will they find it? I think so”.

That same 2007, Juan Enrique Benítez assured that the submarine had been located.

In 2018, in statements to El Mercurio, diver Daniel Malfanti, member of the expedition, details the site where he rests. “If you stop at El Bote Salvavidas restaurant and look towards the tip of the shelter, the submarine is about 800 meters away.”

Curiously, for decades the location of the submersible was no mystery in Valparaíso. A buoy indicated the place of the sinking, but it was removed. One of the great-aunts of Guillermo Stegen, daughter of Karl Flach, remembered the site every time the family went rowing in the bay.

There, under the water, his father and brother were buried.