Cachalot to GraphPage last Updated:
20-Dec-2007
| Name | Class | Pennant | Crew | Built | Builder
| Disposal Date | Method |
Cachalot | Porpoise | 83M,
N83 | 59 | 2-Dec-37 | Scotts, Greenock | 30-Jul-41 | War Loss | Minelayer.
Lt Cdr SWF Bennetts RN.
Was in Mediterranean at outbreak of war, based on Malta; returned to
Portsmouth in October 1939 and then on patrol in the North Sea during
November. After an escort duty to Halifax, Nova Scotia, she returned to the
UK for a refit in Sheerness. July 40, left refit and went to Rothesay for
work-up. (Lt Cdr JD Luce RN) Laid a minefield on NW Approaches and continued operating from
Rothesay and Holy Loch. Operated in Biscay from Summer 40.
20 Aug 40, sank German Type VIIb submarine U51 off Lorient, and west
of Nantes, France, 47.06N, 4.51W. ML.
After a return to Holy Loch, operated around the Azores during December
1940. Refitted and sent to Gibraltar, (Lt HRB Newton RN) arriving May 1941, carried stores to Malta and moved on to Alexandria. On 9-July-41 Cachalot left Alexandria loaded with stores bound for Malta and arrived on the 16th. She left Malta on the 26th
with personnel bound for Alexandria and instructions to look out for an escorted tanker heading for Benghazi. At 0200 on the morning
of 30-July a destroyer was spotted heading towards Cachalot, forcing the boat to dive. On re-surfacing, Cachalot
was spotted and attacked by the Italian destroyer which steamed in firing its guns. Cachalot’s upper hatch jammed,
thereby preventing a crash dive, and the Italian destroyer rammed into her, although not at great speed as the Italian Captain
had realized that the order to abandon the submarine had already been given. As the crew went into the water the main vents were
opened and Cachalot sank in very deep water. All the crew, apart from a Maltese steward, were picked up by the destroyer and
transported to Benghazi from where they were taken to a POW camp near Naples, until repatriation in 1943. Lost NW of Benghazi,
eastern Libya - rammed by Italian torpedo boat General Achille Papa.
 |
Clyde | River | 12F | 60 | 15_Mar_34 |
Vickers Armstrong Barrow | 30-Jul-46 | Scrap | Lt.Cdr. D.C. Ingram RN.
13 May 40, attacked the German armed merchant cruiser Widder with gunfire off Stadlandet, Norway in position
60º21'N, 04º24'E. This was obviously not a good idea as return fire from Widder forced Clyde to break of the attack and stay out of range.
20 Jun 40, Clyde was off the Norwegian coast near Trondheim. Ingram brought his boat in through heavy seas to fire at a vessel which he could hardly see through the
murk of rough and overcast weather. He obtained a hit on the battle-cruiser Gneisenau as she was steaming
south at high speed down the coast. It was a brilliant attack, made in conditions which
would have daunted all but the most determined, and the Gneisenau was put out of action for several weeks as a result.
The Clyde herself had a narrow escape. Because of the rough weather, she had been trimmed eight tons heavy to
prevent her breaking surface during the attack. As soon as she fired she went deep and her heavy trim took her
to 250 feet in her first dive. It was not the depth charges that worried her captain, but the great pressure
of water at that depth, for the Clyde's stern was 50 feet lower than the bow and that class of submarine had
a flattened section aft to give her increased speed on the surface. As it was, a four-inch steel pillar,
supporting this section, was already bending under the pressure before the Clyde could be brought up to a safe depth.
16 Jul 40, sank the Norwegian fishing vessel SF 52 (15 GRT) with gunfire east of Alesund, Norway in position
62º18'N, 04º19'E.
22 Jul 40, West of Bergen, Norway, fired 6 torpedoes at what was thought to be an
enemy submarine. Luckily the torpedoes missed their target as they were aimed against HMS Truant.
Clyde joined the 8th Flotilla at Gibraltar May 1941 to Dec 1942;
1 Jun 41, torpedoed and sank the Italian merchant San Marco (3076 GRT) about 5 nm east of Cape Carbonara, Sardinia, Italy.
8 Jun 41, sank the Italian merchant Sturla (1195 GRT) with gunfire in the Golfo di Policastro about 5 nm from Maratea.
14 Jun 41, sank the Italian sailing vessel / auxiliary patrol vessel V 125 / Giovanni Bottigliere (331 GRT) with gunfire
about 20 nm south of Spartivento Sardo, Sardinia, Italy.
Carried out patrols in Atlantic for later part of 1941 and early part of 1942.
28 Sep 41, unsuccessfully attacked the German Type IXc U-boat U-67 in Tarafal Bay, Cape Verde Islands.
1942 made five trips as a Malta Bus.
(Ingram was promoted and later, as Commander, established HMS Varbel, the base at Port Bannatyne, near Rothesay,
used for training Chariot teams).
(CO Lt Cdr R Brookes DSC DSO RN, CO from 1 May 42).
Moved on to Beirut in Sept 42, then back to Malta with more stores and on to
Gibraltar Nov 42. Refitted 1943 in USA.
Jan 1944 to Apr 1944 at Holy Loch with 3rd Flotilla. Apr 1944 (CO Lt. R.H. Bull, DSC, RN from Jun 44). Based Trincomalee and
mid-44 at Fremantle until Jun 1945.
2 Mar 45, sank a Japanese sailing vessel with scuttling charges of the west coast of Sumatra, Netherlands East Indies.
4 Mar 45 sank the Japanese auxiliary submarine chaser Kiku Maru (233 GRT) with gunfire off the west coast of
Sumatra, Netherlands East Indies in position 04º08'N, 96º07'E.
15 May 45, sank a Japanese sailing vessel with gunfire of the west coast of Siam.
The first patrol from Western Australia
during 18-30 June was around the islands in the Andaman Sea where Clyde
was required to operate in air-sea rescue off Point Blair during the
bombardment of Ross Island. The second patrol on 18-30 Nov required Clyde
to insert and recover two reconnaissance parties off the West Coast of Siam
(Thailand). The third patrol, 18-25 Dec was back in the Andaman Sea in a
special operation, landing 28 men and stores successfully. The fourth patrol
in Jan 1945 and the fifth patrol in February and the sixth in March saw Clyde
operating in the Andaman Sea and off the coast of West Coast of Sumatra in
special operations of landing and retrieving reconnaissance parties.
The seventh and last patrol was again off the West Coast of Siam where the
boat was required to land reconnaissance parties, the first was carried out
successfully and the second had to be abandoned due to a major defect with
the hydroplanes. This was to be the last for Clyde as she was deemed too old
to be repaired and was sent to Kilindini to be broken up. Having been
completed in 1935 she was the oldest operational boat in service and had
completed 36 operational war patrols.
Put
into Reserve July 1945. Scrapped Durban 46.
|
Grampus | Porpoise | 56M | 55 |
10-Mar-37 | HMDY Chatham | 16-Jun-40 | War Loss | Minelayer;
Lt Cdr C A Rowe RN. Based at Hong Kong before moving to the Mediterranean in 1940. Sailed from Malta 10-Jun-40. 13 Jun 40, laid a minefield, but was then lost off Augusta,
eastern Sicily in Ionian Sea circa 37-00'N, 15-30'N - by Italian torpedo boats Circe,
Clio and Polluce. At 1900 on 16-Jun-40, Italian Torpedo Boat Circe spotted a periscope and launched a depth charge attack on the position, along with the Polluce. Lost with all hands.
 |
Graph | ex-U Boat, Type VIIC | ex U570,
P715, N46 | 46 | 1940 | Blohm and Voss, Hamburg | 20-3-44 | Scrap |
 U-570
left Trondheim, Norway under the command of Kptlt Hans Rahmlow on 23 Aug
1941 to operate in the North Atlantic on her first operational patrol before
going to her La Pallice (France) base. She was captured when Rahmlow raised
his periscope at 1100hrs on 27 Aug and saw nothing, in misty weather, and
surfaced his almost stationary boat. Directly above (in the periscope 'blind
spot') was SqnLdr JH Thompson RAF in his 269 Squadron Hudson 'S' on
anti-submarine patrol from Iceland. He spotted the U-boat in position
62.15N, 18.35W and placed several well placed depth charges all around the
boat, severely damaging her.
Shortly after his initial attack he saw a white flag being waved from the
conning tower. He contacted his superiors and was told to fly watch while
they considered how they could get vessels to the area. He was relieved by a
Catalina flying boat in the evening and finally after 12 hours the trawler Northern
Chief showed up but the weather was too bad to capture her at that time
so she waited for reinforcements that arrived during the night in the form
of the trawlers Kingston Agate, Windermere and Wastwater
and the destroyer HMS Burwell. The last ship to the scene was the
Canadian HMCS Niagara.
When she was finally captured by life rafts in the heavy seas there had
been ample time to destroy all secret documents and internal fittings.
They took
the crew off and towed the U-boat to Thorlakshafn, Iceland, where she was beached.
Although the crew had destroyed all the important documents, the submarine
itself gave the Navy important information about the boat's capabilities. Subsequently, it was found
that there was hardly anything wrong with the boat, except for the loss of some control systems, so
the surprise had led to panic and surrender.
Taken over by the RN, Lt. Cdr. G.R. Colvin (ex-Sunfish) led a survey,
(the U-boat had only been in commission for just over three months) then
took command, with Lt. P.B. Marriott as 1st Lt., and brought back to Barrow.
Used in RN mainly for anti-submarine training, based in the Clyde, but also
took part in convoy protection duties off North Cape, December 1942,
locating the German heavy cruiser Hipper, which was moving too fast
for an attack, and unsuccessfully attacking two destroyers. Apart from the technical knowledge gleaned from it,
Graph was something of a liability for its crew, and usually flew a very large White Ensign!
In the 'Battle of Barents Sea', 31 Dec 42, the escort of convoy JW51B from Loch Ewe, Scotland, to Archangel, Russia.
HMS Graph sighted Hipper as she approached Altenfjord on her
return, but Hipper was travelling too fast to be attacked. Three hours later
Graph sighted one German destroyer towing a second, attacked, but her
torpedoes missed.
The Graph
broke her tow and ran aground on Islay, West of Scotland on 20-Mar-44. Later salvaged and scrapped,
after depth-charge trials were made on her hull. At the end of
the war, many more modern surrendered U-boats were commissioned into the
Royal Navy, often only for the purpose of investigating their systems and
electronics.
Showing comparative sizes, the Graph is pictured here
(outboard), with Storm middle and Thrasher left, alongside HMS
Forth.
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