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HMS/M Shark

I am grateful to Colin Carpenter, who came across this article from a 1945 Portsmouth newspaper. Source is not positively identified, though it is believed to be the Portsmouth News. Acknowledgements due. BRITISH CREW SANK OWN SUB After fighting for over six hours against overwhelming odds, a British submarine, still raked by enemy fighters, seaplanes and bombers, had all but reached their last gasp. The bridge a shambles of wounded men, blood and empty cartridge cases, powerless to dive or to steer, she was sunk by her own crew just as two enemy ships began to tow her away as a prize. That is the story revealed today after five years silence, of the last hours of HMS Shark. It was in June 1940, off the South-west coast of Norway, that this epic battle took place. The struggle lasted for more than six hours and towards the end the submarine¹s crew was fighting off enemy aircraft with only a rifle or two and a Lewis gun. "Just before the end, when Shark was listing heavily, water was rising in the engine room," said Lt. Cmdr P.N. Buckley, commander of the submarine, who is now back in England from a German prison camp. "Inside the submarine was full of smoke and fumes from the batteries. When it became necessary to remove all the ammunition from the magazine, Lieut D H B Barrett, RN, went down and did it personally, using a Davis escape apparatus as a gas mask but the end was now in sight," continued Cmdr Buckley, "although everyone stuck to his post until wounded or killed outright." Then, after another fifteen minutes of furious battle, the submarine ran out of ammunition and the commanding officer was compelled to break off the action. It was then that the enemy tried to tow Shark away. But the submarine¹s crew had already made plans to prevent this. No sooner had the trawlers begun their work than the submarine went down vertically, stern first, her last action being to damage the propeller of one of the trawlers, so in the end it was an enemy ship that was towed back to a German-held harbour and not the Shark. Lt-Cmdr Buckley comes from Fareham, Hants. and Lieut. Barrett from Swindon, Wilts. Another angle on the incident comes from the Kriegestagbuch (KTB) Hafenkapitan Stavange (War Diary of Harbour Master, Stavanger, Norway): "Early in July, five Arado 196 seaplanes from 1./196 Bordfliegerstaffel were transferred from Wilhelmshafen to Sola Airport near Stavanger. They arrived Sola in the evening of 4th July. The next day two of them left for their first patrol. After 1/2 hour they spotted the Shark. They attacked her and damaged her so much that she couldn't dive. (The German log says that the Shark dived, but submerged at a 45 degree angle after a short time). The two Arado`s returned for refuel and ammo, then went back to Shark, which was spotted west of a place called Karlsmedgrunnen. Shark defended itself very well, but after some intensive exchanges, she signalled a "surrender". One of the Arado aircraft landed on the sea, but the plane sunk (Shark had hit their pontoons). At 0700 next morning a Dornier landed near Shark. They picked up the two German pilots and some wounded men from Shark. In the mean time some armed trawlers arrived from Stavanger. They put Shark under tow but she sank after a few hours. The only capture they made, apart from the crew, was the battleflag of the Shark." (This information passed to me by Erik Ettrup, Norway.) I've also received the following Email from the son of a member of the Shark's ship's company: My father Andrew Holland was a Chief Engine Room Artificer on the Shark and was taken a prisoner of war. He was a prisoner for three and half years and, only last week, I was trawling through a number of family photographs and discovered some very small photographs of myself which had been sent to father while a prisoner and on the back of these is the Stalag stamp and POW number - all of which I found very moving. The web page on the Shark made me very proud of my father who made little reference to the details of the battle during his lifetime. He and other crew members were very brave. He used to make mention of a fellow crewman called 'Tubby' Allway who I recall father telling me fell overboard while the Shark was under attack and it was during this attack that father got wounded in the ankle and buttocks. The shrapnel was, for the rest of his life, working its way out of the scar tissue. Sadly he is now dead. On my mothers death, after my father's, I sent his medals and other documentation to HMS Dolphin in Portsmouth for the submarine museum, Brian A. Holland. From Mark Irwin, of Stavanger, Norway 14 Nov 2010 - "I have just been at a Remembrance Day Parade in Sola Cemetery near Stavanger Norway where I stood in front of the grave of Stoker First Class Eric Foster from HMS Shark. He died 1940, presumably when the submarine was attacked". The Commonwealth War Graves Commission record has the date of death as 10th August, so he may have died as a prisoner, possibly from wounds. Alan Tissington provided me with this picture, stamped on the reverse by the Ministry of Information, of Shark's launch at Chatham in 1934: