A secret beginning and a secret end, that would be a good way to describe the strange life of HMS H-5. The submarine was built at Canadian Vickers under a cloak of deception, she and her sisters were of a U.S. design and were to be built in the U.S.A., but after a threat from the U.S. government to sue the shipyard for violating neutrality laws the project was moved to Canada, where the Canadian government was not informed of the planned construction. In all 20 boats were built in a relatively short period of time.

Her end came on Mar. 2, 1918 while on patrol off Anglesey, Wales when at 20:30 hrs. H-5 crossed the bows of the steamship Rutherglen. H-5 was moving at high speed and according to the master of the Rutherglen, made no attempt to identify herself. The master of the Rutherglen believed this was the action of an enemy submarine and he took the appropriate action, he rammed her.

Several of the crew of H-5 managed to get off the boat before she went down and these men were even heard by the crew of the Rutherglen, which made no attempt to pick up survivors as it was believed they were Germans. When the Rutherglen made port on Mar. 6 they reported the attack and the crew were congratulated, but when H-5 failed to return it did not take too long for officials to put the two events together.

The Admiralty decided not to tell the crew of the Rutherglen about the unfortunate fact and also did not tell the public, it was decades later that the true story of what happened that night finally came to light. It is possible that few if any of the crew of the Rutherglen ever knew the truth. The wreck of H-5 was located in 1990 and is now a protected wreck. Rutherglen joined the H-5 on the bottom of the sea on July 24, 1918 when SMS UB-50 sank her in the Mediterranean.