HMS P311

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HMS P311
( HMS Tutankhamen )
Royal Navy
General data
Ship type : Submarine
Ship class : Taciturn class ( T class )
Navy : Royal Navy
Builder : Vickers-Armstrong ( Barrow )
Keel laying : April 25, 1941
Launch : March 5, 1942
Commissioning: August 7, 1942
Whereabouts: Missed in the Mediterranean since January 8, 1943.
Technical data
(see Tempest class )

HMS P311 was a submarine of the British Royal Navy in World War II . The warship has been missing in the Mediterranean since January 1943.

Mission history

The HMS P311 was laid down at Vickers-Armstrong on April 25, 1941 . The launch took place on March 5, 1941. The commissioning followed on August 7, 1942. The submarine was one of the units of its class whose pressure hull was riveted.

In November 1942, the newly commissioned P311 was assigned to the 10th submarine flotilla and stationed on the besieged Mediterranean island of Malta .

In January 1943, HMS P311 was supposed to bring manned Chariot torpedoes to La Maddalena as part of Operation Principle , where two Italian cruisers were to be attacked. The two older submarines HMS Trooper and HMS Thunderbolt had the task of bringing Chariot torpedoes to Palermo in order to mine the newly built Italian light cruiser Ulpio Traiano there.

The HMS P311 was already lost during the approach under unexplained circumstances. Presumably she was the victim of a mine hit . She was declared missing on January 8, 1943. There were no survivors.

The other two submarines were more successful. The Ulpio Traiano was sunk on January 3, 1943. Another transport ship was badly damaged.

Commander of P311 was during the entire period of service of 8 June 1942 to 8 January 1943 Cdr. Richard Douglas Cayley.

The wreck

At the beginning of 2016, Italian divers found the remains of the boat near the island of Tavolara at a depth of 80 meters. The boat was lost in an Italian minefield off the island on December 31, 1942 or shortly thereafter.

Ship name

HMS P311 was the only T-class boat that did not have its own name. Winston Churchill requested the Admiralty several times in November and December 1942 to give all submarines individual names. The ship's name for the P311 was HMS Tutankhamen after the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun . Just like the S-Class boat HMS P222 , the P311 was lost before it could be officially renamed.

literature

  • Erminio Bagnasco: Submarines in World War II. (Technology - Classes - Types. A Comprehensive Encyclopedia). 5th edition. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-613-01252-9 .
  • Robert Hutchinson: Fight Under Water - Submarines from 1776 to the Present . 1st edition. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-613-02585-X

Web links

Commons : Taciturn class  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Hutchinson and Bagnasco give no information about the launching of the T-class submarines. The information on launch runs comes from uboat.net .
  2. ↑ The sources are contradicting the sinking of the Ulpio Traiano . Robert Hutchinson, wlb-stuttgart.de , regiamarina.net ( Memento of the original dated May 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and schiffswrackliste.de give the 2nd / 3rd January 1943. marinearchiv.de gives the 2nd / 3rd June 1943, which is unlikely since HMS Thunderbolt was lost in March 1943. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / regiamarina.net
  3. ↑ Richard Douglas Cayley on uboat.net (English)
  4. ↑ bbc.co.uk
  5. ↑ n-tv.de

Remarks

  1. ↑ HMS is the abbreviation for His / Her Majesty's Ship and the name prefix of British ships. HMS means His / Her Majesty's Ship .