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HMS Unruffled

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HMS Unruffled returning to harbour in Malta after a patrol in the Mediterranean
History
United Kingdom
NameHMS Unruffled
BuilderVickers Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness
Laid down25 February 1941
Launched19 December 1941
Commissioned9 April 1942
IdentificationPennant number P46
FateScrapped January 1946
Badge
General characteristics
Class and typeU-class submarine
Displacement
  • Surfaced – 540 tons standard, 630 tons full load
  • Submerged – 730 tons
Length191 feet (58 m)
Beam16 feet 1 inch (4.90 m)
Draught15 feet 2 inches (4.62 m)
Propulsion
  • 2 shaft diesel-electric
  • 2 Paxman Ricardo diesel generators + electric motors
  • 615 hp (459 kW) / 825 hp (615 kW)
Speed
  • 11.25 knots (20.8 km/h) max surfaced
  • 10 knots (19 km/h) max submerged
Complement27–31
Armament

HMS Unruffled was a Royal Navy U-class submarine built by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness, and operated from April 1942 until being scrapped in January 1946. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Unruffled.

Unruffled served in the Battle of the Mediterranean from August 1942 to October 1943, operating primarily against Axis shipping; in all, she sunk or severely damaged roughly 40,000 tons of shipping.

Construction

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Unruffled was ordered on 23 August 1940,[1] for construction by Vickers Armstrong in Barrow-in-Furness.[2] The funds for her construction had been raised through the War Savings Campaign by the town of Colchester - a total of £435,233 being raised, against a target of £250,000.[3] The town also provided the boat's Paxman engines,[4] while locals sent the crew clothes and letters.[5]

The keel was laid down on 25 February 1941, and construction was undertaken at a time when the shipyard was subject to regular bombing raids, with particularly heavy bombing in April and May 1941. The boat was launched on 19 December 1941,[2] and commissioned on 9 April 1942.[1]

Initially the submarine was known as P46, as Royal Navy submarines at the time did not have names; however, this policy changed in late 1942, and the submarine was given the name HMS Unruffled.[1]

Career

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Early service

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P46 slipped her moorings for the first time on 6 April 1942, under the command of Lieutenant John Samuel Stevens, and sailed for Holy Loch for sea trials.[6]

P46's first wartime patrol began on 13 May 1942, sailing from Holy Loch to the coast of Norway. This proved an uneventful patrol, and P46 returned to Lerwick on 1 June having encountered no hostile ships.[7] P46 then travelled to Gibraltar, arriving on the morning of 25 June under escort by HMT Haarlem.[7]

While in Gibraltar in July 1942, one of the crew was given a cat by a Wren as they were passing through the dockyard.[8] The crew of P46 adopted the cat to be the ship's cat, and named him Timoshenko after the Russian general Semyon Timoshenko. 'Timmo' undertook twenty patrols on board the submarine, and was considered a good luck charm by the crew - so much so that, on one occasion, sailing was delayed for twenty-four hours until he could be found.[3]

Battle of the Mediterranean

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P46 left Gibraltar on 1 August to take part in Operation Pedestal, an escort operation to convoy supplies to the besieged island of Malta. On 10 August P46 sighted the Italian merchant ship Siculo off of Marettimo and fired three torpedoes, all of which missed the target.[9] P46 arrived at Malta on 15 August, navigating through a minefield and entering Marsamxett Harbour.[10]

P46's first successful action came in the early hours of the morning on 21 September, when she engaged the Italian auxiliary minesweeper N10 / Aquila with her three-inch gun. Firing twelve rounds, P46 landed eight hits; Aquila's crew abandoned ship after the first hit. A second victory was to come half an hour later, when P46 sighted the Vichy French merchant ship Liberia and struck her with a torpedo, sinking her. The following day, P46 engaged the Italian merchant ship SS Leonardo Palomba. P46's first torpedoes missed, at which point she surfaced to engage with the three-inch gun, but was forced to submerge by machine-gun fire. P46 shadowed Leonardo Palomba for just over an hour before engaging with torpedoes again, striking amidships and igniting the ship's petrol stores. Following this engagement, P46 returned to Malta.[11]

On her following patrol, P46 surfaced off the coast of Calabria on the night of 8/9 October, and opened fire on a passing train; two hits were observed, but damage was light. Two days later on 11 October, P46 torpedoed and sunk an Italian cargo ship, Una, near Capri, before fleeing from an Italian warship and falling back to Cape Gallo.[11]

P46's next action came on 13 October, torpedoing and sinking the Italian cargo ship Loreto. Unbeknownst to the crew of P46, Loreto had been carrying 350 prisoners of war from the British Indian Army, 130 of whom died.[12] British intelligence had been aware that Loreto was carrying prisoners of war since 9 October and had transmitted the information but it appears that P46 did not receive the signal.[11]

On 3 November P46 put to sea as part of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa, with orders to attack enemy warships that may have interfered with the landings. On 6 November P46 sighted an Italian U-boat and gave chase; the two submarines exchanged torpedoes, without either landing a hit, before P46 called off the chase.[11]

On 8 November, P46 encountered an Italian flotilla led by the cruiser Attilio Regolo and attacked, scoring a hit with one torpedo that shattered the cruiser's bow. At this point P46 was out of torpedoes, and surfaced to call for allied ships to finish off the damaged cruiser. In the event HMS Safari attempted to do so but was driven off and Attilio Regolo was towed to dry dock, where she spent the rest of the war. P46 returned to Malta, arriving on 11 November.[11]

P46 was back at sea on 16 November and on 22 November unsuccessfully engaged an Italian tug with the three-inch gun, before returning on 29 November. Her next patrol began on 10 December. On 14 December, she encountered an Italian convoy, which was under attack by submarine HMS Sahib. P46 joined the attack, sinking the tanker Castelverde, while P212 sank Honestas. The following day P46 sighted and sank another Italian merchant vessel, Sant'Antioco. Following this she was attacked by an Italian aircraft dropping depth charges, which caused minor damage to P46, but ultimately she survived and returned to Malta on 18 December.[11]

In early January 1943 P46 accompanied Operation Principal, a frogman attack on Palermo, and recovered two crews after they deployed their Chariot manned torpedoes. Her next patrol saw her engage a schooner with her three-inch gun on 23 January, before being forced to submerge by shore guns. On 26 January she engaged and sunk the Italian Z 90 / Redentore and on 31 January, the German SS Lisbon. The patrol concluded on 2 February, and while in port, P46 was formally named HMS Unruffled.[11]

Unruffled's Second Lieutenant Oliver Lascelles pictured in front of the boat on 4 February 1943; Lascelles would go on to command Unruffled later in his career
Unruffled's Second Lieutenant Oliver Lascelles pictured in front of the boat on 4 February 1943; Lascelles would go on to command Unruffled later in his career

Unruffled's first engagement since being named came on 18 February, when she fired on two schooners, hitting neither but forcing both crews to abandon ship. The schooners were wrecked on the shore, but as Unruffled had not hit them, they were not added to her tally. On 21 February Unruffled sank the German merchant vessel Baalbek She returned to Malta on 24 February.[11]

Unruffled's next patrol saw two crew members board an abandoned lighter and sink it with a demolition charge on 16 March. Her next two patrols were reconnaissance patrols in advance of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily. Her next combat patrol began on 25 May, and saw her sink the French tanker Henri Desprez on 3 June before returning to Malta on 8 June.[11]

From 9 June to 10 July, Unruffled undertook another two reconnaissance patrols. Her next combat patrol began on 27 July, and saw the sinking of the Italian merchant vessel Città di Catania on 3 August.[11]

Upon arriving back in Malta on 10 August, a fault was found with Unruffled's propeller and she was laid up for repairs until 22 August, when she again took to sea. She had on board two Greek officers, who she delivered to Cephalonia on 25 August to undertake sabotage missions. Two days later she engaged and sank the Italian merchant vessel Città di Spezia. She returned to Malta on 5 September, in time for the crew to celebrate the Armistice of Cassibile the surrender of Italy on 8 September.[11]

Post-Mediterranean service

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Unruffled departed Malta for her final patrol in the Mediterranean on 26 September, and docked in Algiers on 9 October. The crew spent a week aboard HMS Maidstone, before departing for Britain on 17 October. Unruffled stopped in Gibraltar from 21 October to 4 November, where they parted company with Timoshenko, before reaching Gosport on 18 November.[13][14]

This was to be the end of Unruffled's combat career, spending the rest of the war being refitted at Tilbury, and then partaking in exercises in Bermuda - first under the command of Lieutenant Oliver Lascelles, who had been Second Lieutenant on board under J S Stevens, and then under Lieutenant Francis Park, and finally under Lieutenant Allan Harold MacCoy.[15] Following the end of the war, she was scrapped at Troon in January 1946.[2]

Legacy

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The town of Colchester, which funded the construction of Unruffled, was presented a commemorative plaque by the Admiralty in December 1942, bearing the words 'Burdened but Unruffled'.[3] At some point in the post-war years, the plaque was lost, before being re-discovered and put back on display in Colchester Town Hall on 14 March 2012.[5][16]

Successes

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Ships sunk[Note 1]
Date Ship Flag GRT Notes
21 September 1942 Aquila  Fascist Italy 305 Minesweeper
21 September 1942 Liberia  Vichy France 3,890 Merchant ship
22 September 1942 Leonardo Palomba  Fascist Italy 1,110 Merchant ship
11 October 1942 Una  Fascist Italy 1395 Merchant ship
13 October 1942 Loreto  Fascist Italy 1395 129 Indian prisoners of war killed
14 December 1942 Castelverde  Fascist Italy 6,958 Transport
15 December 1942 Sant'Antioco  Fascist Italy 4,944 Merchant ship
23 January 1943 Amabile Carolina  Fascist Italy 39 Sailing vessel
25 January 1943 Teodolinda  Fascist Italy 361 Tanker
26 January 1943 Z 90 / Redentore  Fascist Italy 46 Naval auxiliary
31 January 1943 Lisboa  Nazi Germany 1,799 Merchant ship
21 February 1943 Baalbeck  Nazi Germany 2,115 Merchant ship
3 June 1943 Henry Desprez  Vichy France 9,895 Tanker; in German service
3 August 1943 Città di Catania  Fascist Italy 3,335 Merchant ship
27 August 1943 Città di Spezia  Fascist Italy 2,474 Merchant ship

Notes

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  1. ^ Military vessels are listed by tons displacement.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Gregan, James (28 October 2016). "Chapter One: Barrow-in-Furness". Burdened but Unruffled: The Story of a World War II Submarine and its Crew. Mereo Books. ISBN 9781861517029.
  2. ^ a b c Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. p. 339. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.
  3. ^ a b c Russell, Steve (26 November 2016). "Did a cat's sixth-sense help keep the crew of a submarine paid for by the people of Colchester alive?". East Anglian Daily Times.
  4. ^ Carr, Richard (March 2012). "HMS Unruffled (P46) - 'U' Class Submarine, Paxman History Pages".
  5. ^ a b Gregan, James (2016), Chapter Eight: Celebrations in Unruffled's Adopted Town
  6. ^ Gregan, James (2016), Chapter Three: Commissioning Day
  7. ^ a b Gregan, James (2016), Chapter Four: First War Patrol
  8. ^ Winton, John (1999). The submariners : life in British submarines 1901-1999 : an anthology of personal experience. Constable. pp. 135–136.
  9. ^ "HMS Unruffled (P 46)". uboat.net.
  10. ^ Gregan, James (2016), Chapter Five: Gibraltar
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Gregan, James (2016), Chapter Six: Malta
  12. ^ Greene, Jack; Massignani, Alessandro (1994). Rommel's North Africa Campaign: September 1940–November 1942. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books Group. p. 183. ISBN 1-58097-018-4.
  13. ^ Pelman, Lt. L. "Unruffled arrives home with honours, 18 November 1943, Portsmouth (Photograph)" – via Imperial War Museum.
  14. ^ Gregan, James (2016), Chapter Six: Malta, and Chapter Seven: Homeward Bound
  15. ^ Gregan, James (2016), Chapter Eight: Training in Bermuda
  16. ^ "The Council Meeting". Colchester Council. Retrieved 20 November 2024.

Further reading

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