HMS Porpoise (N14)
HMS Porpoise
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Porpoise |
| Ordered: | 11 June 1931 |
| Builder: | Vickers Armstrong, Barrow |
| Laid down: | 22 September 1931 |
| Launched: | 30 August 1932 |
| Commissioned: | 11 March 1933 |
| Fate: | sunk 19 January 1945 |
| Badge: |
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| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Grampus-class submarine |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 289 ft (88 m) |
| Beam: | 29 ft 10 in (9.09 m) |
| Draught: | 15 ft 10 in (4.83 m) |
| Propulsion: | 2 shaft, Diesel (3,300 hp (2,500 kW)) plus electric (1,630 hp (1,220 kW)) |
| Speed: |
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| Complement: | 59 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Porpoise (N14) was one of the six-ship class of Grampus-class mine-laying submarines of the Royal Navy. She was built at Vickers Armstrong, Barrow and launched 30 August 1932. She served in World War II in most of the naval theatres of the war, in home waters, the Mediterranean and the Far East. She was sunk by Japanese aircraft on 19 January 1945, and was the last Royal Navy submarine to be lost to enemy action.
In 1940 she was operating in the North Sea. She unsuccessfully attacked the German submarine U-3, and later sunk the German minesweeper M 5 when she hit a mine laid by Porpoise. She reported firing on an unknown submarine, which may have been U-1 which disappeared about this time. However U-1 may have hit a mine laid by Porpoise's sister, HMS Narwhal.
Throughout late 1941 and 1942 Porpoise operated in the Mediterranean. On 9 December a few miles south of the Peloponnese she torpedoed and badly damaged the German passenger and cargo ship Sebastiano Veniero, which was carrying about 2,000 UK and Dominion prisoners of war. At least 300 PoWs were killed, and the Germans beached the merchant ship at Methoni in Greece to prevent her sinking and further loss of life.Porpoise then returned to minelaying off Crete.
In 1942, under the command of Leslie Bennington, she sank the Italian merchant Citta di Livorno and later the Italian transport Ogaden, but missed the escorting Italian torpedo boat Montanari. Porpoise went on to torpedo and sink the Italian merchant Lerici, and unsuccessfully attacked the merchant Iseo, during which she was damaged by depth charges from the escorting ships. Towards the end of the year she sank the Italian tanker Giulio Giordani and the auxiliary patrol vessel F-39 / Fertilia, several days after an earlier attack on the ship had failed. The Italian torpedo boat Generale Antonio Cantore struck a mine laid by Porpoise and was also sunk.
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Wikipedia