HMS/M Truant

HMS/M Truant on launching, 5th May 1939

Karlsruhe

Truant. immediately post-war, with snort - the first British Submarine to receive one.

On 9th April 1940, during the German invasion of Norway, while Truant was on patrol in the northern Skagerrak, the German cruiser Karlsruhe, escorted by three destroyers, was sighted off Kristiansand, Norway.

It was a very awkward attack, for the Karlsruhe altered course just before the Truant's sights came on. The Truant, not to be denied, fired a snap shot at 4500 yards and three of her torpedoes found their mark, sending the cruiser to the bottom stern first. For four and a half hours the Truant was hunted and depth charged by the escorting destroyers. She was badly battered but succeeded at last in throwing off the pursuit.

That night, on surfacing, her C.O., Lt.Cdr. CH Hutchinson, found that the currents had swept the Truant into an almost land-locked Norwegian fjord. His compass was out of action and the night was too dark and overcast for any stars to be visible. All around him were cliffs and it was almost impossible to find the way out. But he remembered that, when he dived, the wind was blowing from the north-east. He steered down wind, hoping that it had not changed and that it would bring him out into the open sea to the southwest. The wind, in fact, had remained a true friend and in due course he reached the North Sea and safety.

Sank Preussen, 8,230-tons on 23-May-40. Sank Sebastiano Bianchi, 1.546-tons off Calabrian coast 13-Dec-40. Refitted in the USA May 41.

On return passage (to Gibraltar) Truant (Lt.Cdr. H.A.V. Haggard) came across and stopped the Norwegian motor vessel Tropic Sea, heading for Bordeaux. It was discovered that the ship was under the command of a German prize crew and that it was carrying the captured survivors of the crew of the British SS Haxby which had been captured by the German auxiliary cruiser Orion in position 31' 30"N 51' 30"W on 24 Apr 40.

The Orion (HSK 1 Schiff 36)(ex- KURMARK) was in disguise as the Greek Merchantman Rocos and this was her first wartime victory. Later during the 64-days aboard Orion, the German Supply Tanker SS Winnetou (under command of Lieutenant Fritz Steinkrauss) provided food and fuel to the merchant raider. There were 17 crew killed and 24 taken captive in the attack upon the Haxby.

Those 24-survivors were later rescued from the SS Tropic Sea which had been taken as a War Prize also by the Orion on 14 Jun 40, while en route from Sydney, Australia to New York with 8,000 tons of wheat and was boarded and crewed by members of the raider Orion . (Steinkrauss transferred and took command of the Tropic Sea).

The Haxby belonged to Ropner Shipping Co Ltd, launched in 1929, 5207 grt. The Tropic Sea was scuttled on 3rd September 1940 and the British crew, including the Haxby's Captain, Cornelius Arundell (b.1891), Captain Henry Nicolaysen (Norwegian) of the Tropic Sea and his wife, (undoubtedly the first (Norwegian) woman to sail in a British submarine on a war patrol) along with 10 of the Norwegian crew were taken to Gibraltar aboard a Sunderland Flyingboat.

The German prize crew, including Steinkrauss and many of the Norwegian crew eventually reached La Coruna, Spain on 7 September and were quickly repatriated. Eight of the surviving Norwegians made passage out of Spain, the remainder continued in service with the Notraship Line.

(The above information was very kindly supplied to me by Mark Dodge, of Portland, Oregon, USA, with associated research carried out by Siri Holm Lawson of www.warsailors.com)

On arrival in the Mediterranean in August 1940, Truant destroyed a supply ship in the Bay of Naples, and in December 1940 a freighter and the big tanker Bonzo off Calabria.

11 December 1941, Truant sank the Italian torpedo boat Alcione north of Crete.

Alcione, of the Spica Class

Later went to the Eastern Fleet from 3-Jan-42, heading for Singapore, which fell before it reached there. Truant returned to the UK after two and a half years in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Java Sea. She flew a 'Jolly Roger' showing over twenty Axis ships sunk or damaged. Her C.O. during the long voyage was Lt. Cdr. Hugh A.V. Haggard, DSO DSC, RN, the son of Admiral Sir Vernon Haggard and a nephew of the novelist H. Rider Haggard.

Operated for a time, with Trusty, from Surabaya with Dutch and American submarines, but was forced back to Ceylon in March 1942. Sank 77,000 tons of shipping, in all theatres of war. First British s/m fitted with snort, 1945. Sank at Cherbourg on way to scrap in 1946.