TOKYO BAY,
JAPAN, 2 SEPTEMBER 1945
All Allied Fleets assembled, but sadly only a small
contingent of British and Commonwealth ships were present.
Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser as C-in-C and HMS Duke of
York, his flagship, were given the place of honour
next to the great USS Missouri where the
surrender of Japan was to take place. The surrender and
succeeding jubilation was rightly American but, if the
forenoon had been American then the evening would be
British.
The last sunset ceremony had been carried out on the evening
of 2 September 1939. Since then the White Ensign had flown
in every ship by day and night.
Admiral Fraser ordered the resumption of sunset routine and
invited all the senior officers of British ships and a token
number of sailors from each to witness the ceremony in his
flagship.
When Admiral Fraser arrived the quartermaster reported
“SUNSET SIR”…….The still sounded...…The Royal Marine guard
presented arms and the band played, The Day Thou Gavest Lord
Is Ended, interspersed with the sunset call as only Royal
Marine buglers know how.
For the first time in six bitter years the White Ensign came
down. Many, perhaps most, had never before savoured the
magic of this moment when busy life of a warship is hushed
and evening comes. Others of us standing at the salute were
in tears as we remembered those who would never again see
colours in the morning or hear bugles sound sunset at
dusk.
As the white ensign came into the hands of our chief yeoman
and carry-on sounded, we realised that on all the great US
ships around us every activity had stopped, their sailors
facing towards the British flagship and saluting us.
It was a proud moment for the Royal Navy and its
traditions.
From the book “The Man Around The Engine” by Vice Admiral
Sir L Le Bailly
SUBMARINE HMNS K 9
The following reports were made in late January 1943 and
they concern the disposal of the batteries from HMNS
K9. These copies are from the data held in the
Michael White Collection held on Spectacle Island, Sydney.
Ed.
“With reference to Navy Office letter 2026/26/12 of 12
January 1943, be pleased to inform the Naval Board as
follows.
“In June 1942, batteries ex K9 were landed at
Garden Island (NSW) and deposited for safe custody. In July
the Netherlands Naval Liaison Officer at Sydney was asked as
to his wishes in regard to their disposal and, in reply, the
Netherlands Supply Officer in Melbourne stated that the
Liaison Officer had been given instructions to dispose of
the batteries to the best advantage. (Netherlands Supply
letter NS/1/4A of the 15th July 1942). The Royal
Netherlands Naval authorities decided to sell them as scrap
metal and a contract, which was carried out, was made with
A.G. Sims Pty. Ltd., metal merchants of Newtown, Sydney. The
contract required, inter alia, that Sims collect the
batteries from Garden Island and forward the net proceeds to
the RNN Liaison Officer. The contract was Pounds Sterling
8/8/0d ($16.80) per ton.
“About this time, the Collector of Customs informed the
Liaison Officer that, as the batteries were ‘imported’ into
Australia and were being sold to a private firm, import duty
would have to be paid. The Liaison Officer contested the
decision and, not being able to obtain a satisfactory
response, he asked my Chief Staff Officer (the late Captain
A.H. Spurgeon OBE RAN) to assist him in making further
representations to the Customs Department. As a way out of
the impasse, it was suggested to the Collector of Customs
that perhaps the batteries could be sold direct to an
Australian Government Department, eg, the Ministry of
Munitions (it being understood that A.G. Sims intended
eventually to sell the lead precipitation to Munitions, but
the Customs Department replied that, in order to avoid
payment of duty, it was necessary that the batteries should
be the property of the Commonwealth Government before
‘importation’. In view of the attitude of the Customs
Department, the batteries were eventually sold to A.G. Sims
but it is understood that, in order to facilitate
transactions if the Customs Department should ultimately
agree to reversing their decision, a Customs Official
attended the weighing of the batteries when being taken over
by A.G. Sims. The net proceeds received by the Netherlands
Government was Pounds 464/10/5d ($929.5), after payment of
the duty of Pounds 39/8/6d ($78.85).
“I would mention that at one stage, (on the 24th
July) the Netherlands Naval Liaison Officer in Sydney
informed Rear-Admiral Coster RNN that he had “had a talk
with the Acting Consul General of the Netherlands ---- whose
opinion was that not much could be done about it because
this was one of the rare cases in which the Netherlands East
Indies Government imports goods for Commercial purposes.
“I am convinced that any further approach to the Collector
of Customs in Sydney would be fruitless, as the Customs Law
on the subject, which he considers leaves him no discretion
in this particular instance. I would suggest that the Chief
Collector in Canberra, or Ministerial channels, would now be
the only worth-while medium of obtaining a rebate of the
duty, but in my view of a decision apparently given
yesterday that 12 cinema projectors for the Australian
Comforts Fund could not be admitted from America duty free,
I cannot be hopeful of any success for the Netherlands
Government. I have just heard, however, that the Customs
Department telephoned the present Netherlands Liaison
Officer a day or two ago and asked if there was any
correspondence on the subject in the Liaison Office. The
Customs Department was informed in the negative”.
Rear-Admiral Muirhead-Gould
On 2 February 1943, Senator the Hon R.V. Kearne the Minister
for Trade and Customs in Canberra received the following
letter from the Minister for the Navy, Norman Makin. Ed.
“My dear Minister,
“I desire to enlist your aid in settling what appears to
be a simple, but which is rather a delicate situation.
“After considerable negotiations with the Netherlands East
Indies Authorities in Australia, Rear-Admiral Coster, RNN,
has agreed to their submarine, K9, being loaned to the RAN
for training purposes. One question arising from this
transaction was the disposal of some batteries from the
submarine. These batteries were sold, the nett proceeds to
the Netherlands Government for the sale being Pounds
464/10/5d ($929.5) after duty of Pounds 39/8/6d
($78.85).
“The Admiral is somewhat upset because his Government has
been debited with the amount of 39/8/6 and has asked my
department to pay him not only this amount, but double the
amount, which he has stated he will forward as a donation
from the Royal Netherlands Navy to the Australian Red Cross.
Failing this, he expressed his intention of dismantling the
submarine. It is thought, however, that he would not do
this, but his attitude makes it clear that he cannot
understand why his Government should be debited with the
amount of duty in view of his action in handing the
submarine over to us, and the relations between the two
Governments.
“In the special circumstances, and having regard to the
unfortunate position in which the Dutch people now find
themselves – due to enemy occupation of their country – I
would suggest that you give favourable consideration to this
matter and arrange for the amount of Pounds 39/8/6d
($78.85) to be refunded to the Dutch Authorities as early as
possible. It is thought that if this is done Admiral Coster
will not press his claim further for payment of double the
amount.
“I should be glad therefore if you would give this matter
early attention, and advise me as soon as possible of you
decision.
“I am attaching a copy of report obtained in this matter
from the Naval Officer in Charge, Sydney. This gives details
of the transactions.
“Yours sincerely
Norman J.O. Makin”
From Michael White’s book “Australian Submarines – A
History”. “The matter was finally resolved by 15 March 1943.
It is difficult not to agree with the comment made in one of
the Navy Office files concerning this incident: “It would
appear that once again Australia has shown a surprising lack
of tact in dealing with a gallant and homeless ally”
TRADGEDY OF HMS TRUCULENT
Lieutenant Charles Bowers, captain of the submarine
HMS Truculent, was just as horrified as the others
standing in the boat’s conning tower, when on the night of
January 12, 1950, the bow of an oncoming ship loomed out of
the darkness.
Yet there was no hint of panic in his voice as, in a reflex
action ingrained by years of training, he snapped out: “Stop
engines! Full astern! Close watertight doors!
Bowers might just as well have remained silent for there was
nothing he or anyone else could do to change that which was
inevitable. The course had been set, catastrophe was only
seconds away.
The crash as the small Swedish freighter Dvina
ploughed into Truculent’s hull sent the
submarine ploughing beamwise through the Thames estuary.
Moment’s later water by the hundreds of tons was pouring
through Truculent’s torn skin causing her bow
to slide beneath the surface.
By the time it was over only 15 of the 79 men who made up
Truculent’s complement remained alive. The
collision was thus one of the worst peacetime tragedies in
the Royal Navy’s history.
Truculent,
a patrol submarine of little more than 1,000 tonnes had been
commissioned during World War II.
Normally she carried a crew of 60 but when she set out from
Chatham dockyard for engine trials in January 12, 1950, she
had 79, including civilian engineers, aboard.
At about 6.30 pm that day, after being submerged for several
hours, Truculent surfaced in the Thames
estuary between Whitstable and Foulness.
Immediately the conning tower hatch was opened Bowers with
Lieutenants Humphry-Baker and Stevenson Sub-Lieutenant Frew
and Leading Seaman Hedley emerged to navigate the boat home
through the maze of shoal warning lights.
Below in the hull the civilians were having dinner in the
torpedo-room while the rest of the crew were at operation
stations.
Truculent
was moving cautiously into the estuary when Bowers sighted
the lights of a ship dead ahead. He reckoned she was about
four kilometres away but was not sure whether or not she was
moving.
Bowers first reaction was to alter course to starboard but
quickly changed his mind when he appreciated how close he
was to shoal water on that side.
Nor could he stop engines for the tide was strong and would
have gripped the submarine and swept it heavens knows where.
As far as Lieutenant Bowers was concerned he had no
alternative but to order port helm.
And that’s where the trouble started for the ship Bowers had
sighted was much closer than he had first calculated and it
was certainly moving - straight towards the new course on
which Truculent was set.
Not that Lieutenant Bowers was the only seaman having
navigation problems for no one on the bridge of the
Dvina was certain what the lights they could see
moving ahead of them represented.
At this time the out-going ships master Captain Hommerberg
was below leaving navigation to his second officer Franz
Lepelt and the Thames pilot.
Both these men agreed that the lights ahead were those of a
small fishing boat and to keep clear of it the wheel was
swang over a few degrees to starboard, Truculent
and Dvina were now on a collision course.
A few minutes later the small group huddled in the
submarine’s conning tower heard the beat of propellers. Next
instant the freighter’s bow speared out of the darkness.
Bowers snapped out a series of orders but nothing could be
done.
Immediately the first lieutenant realised the inevitability
of a collision, he lunged at the steel ladder and slid down
it to the control room. His feet had hit the deck when the
Dvina made contact.
As the Truculent rolled hard under the impact
of 700 tonnes of steel ramming her thin shell, a great
geyser of water jetted into her hull forcing her bow beneath
the water.
Lieutenant Bowers and those still in the conning tower with
him were now fighting for their lives in the boiling water
that surrounded the stricken boat. But down in the hull the
fight for survival was different.
Following the shock of the initial impact, the crew fell
calmly into the crash drill sequence like automatons. And
this despite the fact that all must have known the
Truculent could not survive.
Dvina
had ploughed into the submarine’s torpedo room- in the bow
section – causing a rent so large that the forward
compartments flooded with mind-boggling rapidity.
It was fortunate, nevertheless, that the water tight door
separating the engine room and the rest of the submarine
from the bow section was closed before more than a foot or
two of water could get through.
As it turned out most of the trapped men were either in the
engine room or the seaman’s mess and were hopeful of a quick
rescue when Truculent finally came to rest in
the mud eight fathoms below the surface.
Later one of the civilians who had been eating in the mess
when Truculent was rammed described what had
happened. He said one moment he was lifting a fork to his
mouth, the next he was lying on the deck amid a tangle of
his comrades’ arms and legs. It took a little time to
recover from the paralysing shock of what had happened.
He said: “The first lieutenant came through with some of the
lads from the engine room because they were crowed in
there.”
“Everything was smooth and orderly and some of them were
cracking jokes. We just lined up underneath the escape hatch
like waiting in a bus queue.”
Working with amazing speed the first lieutenant and Chief
Petty Officer Fry mustered 30 men in the seamen’s mess and
the same number in the engine room. Then the last water
tight door leading to the bow section was secured.
It was not a callous act for it was obvious to everyone
aboard that there could be no hope for the crewmen trapped
in those compartments that were flooded immediately the hull
was ripped open.
After the men had donned their Davis escape gear, cocks were
opened to allow the survival compartments to slowly fill
with water until it was safe to open the escape hatches.
When this process, which took an hour, was completed, the
hatches were opened and in an orderly manner without panic
the men took it in turns to enter the hatchways and rise to
the surface.
Evidence given at a later inquiry suggested everyone in the
submarine managed to get free through the escape hatches.
Yet of the 79 men aboard the Truculent when
she was rammed only 15 survived.
Had the accident occurred in summer the death toll would
barely have reached double figures. But the collision took
place in the depth of winter and the chief killer became the
icy temperatures of the Thames currents.
What happened was that as each man reached the surface he
was gripped by the tide and carried with it through the
shoals of the estuary out into the North Sea.
Among Truculent’s complement were a few with
sufficient swimming strength not only to hold their own with
the current but actually to make headway against it.
But others lacked this strength in varying degrees and this,
coupled with the effects of the numbing cold, soon caused
the survivors to be scattered over a great area of the night
blanketed waters.
While all this was going on the Dvina, her
bows above the waterline crumpled like tissue paper, was
only a hundred or so metres off running aground before she
could be turned around and manoeuvred back to the crash
site.
Captain Hommerberg, meanwhile, had rushed to the bridge to
be told by the pilot that his command had run down and
apparently sunk a small vessel.
As it turned out men of the Truculent had been
dying for more than an hour before Admiral Sir Henry Moore
at Chatham navy headquarters learned what had happened and
set rescue operations in motion.
In the final analysis news of what had happened came not
from the Dvina but from a seaman on the Dutch
freighter Almdijk who, as the vessel
approached the collision scene, heard a cry for help.
The freighter at once hove to and, using her searchlights
picked up five figures in the water. It took a lifeboat 10
minutes to pluck the men from the water – Lieutenant Bowers
and four sailors.
By the time Almdijk landed the survivors at
Gravesend at 11pm a small armada of naval rescue craft was
racing towards the scene of the sinking.
These vessels, which, included a destroyer and a diving
boat, knew they were in the right place when they came on
the Dvina cruising up and down playing her
searchlight on the water.
Actually it was not until Captain Hommerberg had picked up
several survivors wearing naval uniforms that he knew he had
run down a submarine.
Five hours after the impact Dvina transferred
to the RN destroyer those men of Truculent’s
complement it had taken from the Thames – 10 living and two
dead sailors and civilians.
As the night wore on and right though the following day the
search for survivors and bodies intensified. But there were
no living men to be found, only corpses.
On the afternoon of January 13, after divers had reported no
sign of life in the sunken Truculent, six men
were found floating in the Barrow Deep, 16 km from the
sinking scene. Later another two were pulled into a launch
further out to sea.
The search was abandoned late that afternoon for by then it
was obvious none could have survived the water’s lethal
cold. It was all over for everyone except Lieutenant Bowers
who on February 9 stood before a court martial at Chatham.
Bowers faced the serious charge of losing a ship by
negligence or default. Finally the court agreed to acquit
him on this matter but did convict him of having hazarded
his ship. On this lesser charge Charles Bowers was sentenced
to a severe reprimand.
On 14 March 1950, the mud-encrusted hull of the tragic
HMS Truculent was raised from the estuary bed and
towed to Sheerness. And another 10 bodies were recovered
from the steel tomb.
The above story (without an author’s name) was printed on
page 34 in Sydney’s Daily Mirror, dated Tuesday, 29 June
1976.
POST-WAR U-BOATS by Nick Hall
Since its inauguration in the mid 1950s, the Deutsche Marine
has been at the forefront of advanced underwater warfare
technology, enabling Germany to emerge as a world leader in
non-nuclear submarine design and production. They popped up
all over the place.
German submarines surfaced wherever they were on patrol and
raised the black flags of surrender. World War II was over.
Yet despite their overwhelming defeat, U-boats came almost
top of the list of weapons which the Allies wanted to
examine. Britain, France, the USA and the USSR fell over
themselves in the rush to get their hands on Germany’s
underwater technology.
For despite their defeat, new types of U-boats had been
developed which could, had they entered service in
sufficient numbers, have changed the course of the war.
Little wonder that the U-boats allocated to each country
were so closely studied by naval experts and designers. Here
was the chance to gain a march on their competitors, one
that could potentially give them a world lead in submarine
technology. It is more than a little ironic, therefore,
that, 60 years later, worldwide conventional submarine
development is led by Germany.
In 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was formed,
incorporated the Allied occupation zones, but less than five
months later the former Soviet zone broke away to form the
German Democratic Republic (GDR). Despite, or maybe because
of, this, the FRG was quick to ask for a role in Western
defence policy. Proposals for the make up of a future German
navy were put forward as early as 1951 and included a force
of 24 coastal submarines, although this level has been
halved by 1954, Defence negotiations with the west took
several years, but in May 1955 an independent Federal
Republic of Germany became a part of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Steps were immediately implemented to regenerate the armed
forces, and the new German navy was formed at the beginning
of 1956. Its roles were purely defensive, and many ships
were purchased or leased from abroad to augment those taken
over from the Frontier Inspection Authority.
Submarines posed more of a problem, however, because
second-hand boats would already be outdated and unable to
cope with the advances made over the past decade. It was
decided, therefore, to go it alone and develop a new
generation of German-designed and built boats.
Much research was required if this solution was to bear
fruit, however. Records were scoured to see if there were
any suitable World War II boats left lying in shallow water
which could be raised, refitted and used as research
vehicles. The search turned up two Type XXIII boats,
U-2365 and U-2367, as well as
U-2540, a larger type XXI.
The boats were located and inspected by divers, and salvage
arrangements made. U-2365, which had been
scuttled in the Kattegat, north west of Anholt on 5 May
1945, was raised in June 1956. Two months later her sister,
U-2367 was lifted from the sea bed near
Schleimunde, a position she had occupied since being sunk in
a collision with an unidentified U-boat on 5 May 1945.
U-2540, which had been scuttled near Flensburg
lightship on 4 May 1945, was successfully salvaged in 1957.
All three boats were taken to Howaldtswerke (later
Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft (HDW) at Kiel for thorough
refits. Politicians decided that the submarines should be
named rather than numbered, a break with the past, so that
when the former U-2365 emerged from refit in
August 1957 it was as U-Hai. The former
U-2367 followed two months later as U-Hecht,
while the former U-2640 was commissioned in September 1960
as U-Wal although she was later renamed
Wilhelm Bauer to commemorate Germany’s first
submarine builder.
Ulrich Gabler and Christoph Aschmoneit, two engineers who
had worked on wartime research programmes, developed
Germany’s first post-war submarine. The Type 201 was, at
43.5m (142.71 feet) overall, 7.4m (24.28 feet) longer than
the Type XXIII, and was built using non-magnetic metals. It
had a submerged speed of 17 knots and carried eight torpedos
tubes, but such was the boat’s size that all tubes had to be
loaded externally. The traditional numbering system was
reintroduced, so that when the first boat of the new type
entered service in March 1962 she was as U-1.
Further boats were already under construction when, within
months of entering service, signs of corrosion and small
cracks began to appear in the non-magnetic hulls of
U-1 and U-2. Although no such problem
had yet occurred with U-3, on loan to the
Royal Norwegian Navy, all three boats were taken out of
service. As a stopgap measure the hulls of the next four
Type 201s, U-4 to U-8, were
covered with tin, and they were redesignated as Type 205s.
There operational abilities were severely restricted,
however. The remainder of the Type 201 building programme
was brought to a halt while options were considered.
Problems also affected a pair of half-size boats, designated
Type 202, which were developed as test vehicles and
surveillance craft. Named U-Techel and
U-Schurer, they could operate on the surface in calm
conditions, were cramped, and suffered corrosion problems.
Both boats were scrapped in 1966 after a year in service.
1966 marked a low point in Germany’s post-war submarine
development. Not only had the Type 201 programme been halted
and the Type 202s found inoperable, but U-Hai
was overwhelmed by the weather and sank in the North Sea on
14 September with a loss of her crew of 19.
Development of a new type of non-magnetic steel kick-started
things again, and construction of U-9 –
U-12, the suspended Type 201s, resumed using new
material and they were redesignated as Type 205s. The
original Type 201s, U-1 – U-3,
were also rebuilt to Type 205 standard using this new
non-magnetic steel. Despite the inauspicious start, valuable
lessons had been learned.
And then there was even a glimmer of good news, in the form
of export orders for two Type 205s from Denmark and four
Type 209s from Greece. Development of the new Type 206 was
handed over to HDW, who were made responsible not only for
designing and building the boats, but also for testing them
and accepting them on behalf of the Federal German Navy.
Now that the problems had been solved, overseas customers in
increasing numbers began to place orders. The Type 209, a
design based on the Type 205/206 series, proved to be a
winner, and 10 boats were ordered between 1969 and 1972, two
each for Argentina, Peru Columbia, Turkey and Venezuela. And
18 Type 206s were built for the Federal German Navy and
entered service between April 1973 and March 1975.
The Type 206 measures 48.6m (159.45feet) overall with a beam
of 4,6m (15.09 feet) and has a distinctive rounded bow
incorporating a sonar dome. The boats are much more
manoeuvrable than their predecessors, and the bow shape
improves their surface sea keeping qualities.
Diesel-electric propulsion, the same as the Type 201/205,
comprises two Mercedes Benz diesels linked to an electric
motor and developing 1,800shp. This gives the boats a
maximum submerged speed of 18 knots, with a maximum of 10
knots when surfaced. Eight torpedo tubes make up the main
armament, although additional weaponry in the form of up to
24 mines can be carried on an external belt.
Like their predecessors, the boats are divided internally
into two sections, one housing the engine room and the other
holding everything else. The division between the two
sections is sound resistant but is not watertight bulkhead.
Conditions in the forward section are necessarily cramped.
There is little privacy for the 22-man crew, with only the
commanding officer, engineer officer and cook having beds of
their own. Other crew members share beds on a hot-bunking
basis. The section also contains a small galley, combined
heads/shower, operations centre, torpedo tubes, and the
controls and instruments needed to operate the boat.
The submarines can stay submerged for up to a week at a
time, but it is more usual to snorkel for about three hours
every day to recharge batteries. Although designed to
operate in coastal waters as shallow as 20m (65.62feet),
several Type 206s have ventured across the North Atlantic
under their own power.
They proved to be extremely efficient and exceptionally
quiet, but it was still a surprise when Israel opted to
acquire three boats based on the Type 540 or Gal class,
were, for political reasons, constructed in great secrecy by
Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness.
Defence economies resulting from the collapse of the Soviet
Bloc in the early 1990s, the so-called “Peace Dividend”,
lead to the early retirement of six boats. The remaining 12,
however, were upgraded to Type 206Astandard and continue in
service today with the 1st and 3rd
Submarine Flotillas at
Eckernforde.
Despite continuing export success, HDW was already looking
to the future, and in order to do so the company also needed
to look to the past. It had long been the ambition of all
submarine builders to develop a power system which did not
rely on constant supply of air. Nuclear power was one option
and provided the answer for the boats operating in the
oceans deeps, but the search went on for an alternative to
power smaller submarines operating in shallow, coastal
waters.
Many systems had been tried, but those developed during
World War II by Professor Hellmuth Walter were the most
promising. Boats using his closed circuit hydrogen peroxide
system proved their potential, but were unreliable, and
suffered from frequent fires and explosions. When U-1 was
retired in 1965, she became a civilian trials boat used to
research and develop new propulsion systems based on
hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells. HWD by now part of the Thyssen
Krupp Group, received a major boost when Kockums was brought
on board. The Swedish company had already proved the concept
of the Sterling air independent propulsion system (AIP),
running
on Liquid oxygen and diesel in a helium environment, in
three Gotland class submarines it built in 1996-97.
Potential became reality when diesel propulsion with an
air-independent propulsion system using hydrogen fuel cells
was chosen to power a new generation of U-boats, the Type
212. They are the first submarines over 1,000 tons to be
built for the modern German navy, and represent a quantum
leap in submarine technology. This is not just because of
their propulsion, but of almost every aspect of their
design.
Gone is the traditional rudder, replaced by an ‘X’
arrangement of stern planes placed forward of the single
seven-bladed propeller. The hull cross-section is prismatic
and smoothly faired transitions from the hull to the sail
improve the boat’s stealth characteristics. Hydroplanes on
the sail and at the bows enable the boat to change depth
without altering trim, while the operating system is claimed
to be the quietest ever put to sea. Not just the hull but
internal fixtures too are constructed of non-magnetic
materials, giving the Type 212 the smallest possible
magnetic signature. Fuel and oxidizer are stored in tanks
outside the crew space, between the pressure hull and outer
hull, with the gases being piped through the pressure hull
to the fuel cells as needed to generate electricity.
Improvements during building led to the boats being
redesignated Type 212A and the first, U-31, was completed in
April 2003. She was formally commissioned 18 months later,
and was followed in service by U-32 – U-34. An order for two
further boats, presumably to be U-35 and U-36, was announced
on 21 August 2007, with deliveries scheduled for 2012 and
2013.
Export orders for the Type 209 boats have continued
unabated, with new customers including Ecuador, Indonesia,
Chile, India, Brazil and South Korea. And further orders for
the Type 212 boats and their derivatives can be expected to
add to those already placed by Italy and Greece.
German U-boats are frequent visitors to Devonport (UK) to
assist in the work ups of the Royal Navy ships under the
auspices of the Flag Officer Sea Training (FOST).
Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) personnel taking part often
comment that the U-boats are challenging to track. Few would
disagree that Germany once again leads the world in
conventional submarine technology.
From “Ships Monthly” Volume 42, No.12, December
2007
HMS PORPOISE
HMS Porpoise,
the Royal Navy’s oldest submarine (1979), can really take it
on the chin. Besides being capable of carrying out the role
of any conventional patrol submarine, she now has the added
task of target for the Admiralty’s new underwater weapons.
She was modified to strengthen her ballast tanks, shafts and
main vents – for some of the weapons fired at her were meant
to hit, without the explosive charge, of course.
The 21- year-old submarine is at present involved in trials
of homing torpedoes which she tracks with specially designed
sonar equipment.
But, while playing the part of a sitting duck,
Porpoise has a formable array of teeth and can still
pack a punch – as some of her more modern, nuclear-powered
sisters have learnt to their cost during exercises.
Porpoise,
commissioned in 1958, was the first of a new generation of
post-0war submarines which incorporated improvements gleaned
from the later built German U-boats.
Due to British government cutting back on defence spending,
Porpoise was taken out of commission on 20
October 1985.
WITH HONOUR IN WAR
Last of 11 earlier Porpoises in the Royal Navy
was another submarine – a minelayer in service throughout
World War II before she was lost in the Malacca Straits in
January 1945.
Completed by Vickers Armstrong in 1933, she found herself in
the Mediterranean at the outbreak of war.
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