HMS Starfish (19S)

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HMS Starfish (19S)
Royal Navy
HMS Starfish around 1938
General data
Ship type : Submarine
Ship class : Swordfish class ( S class )
Navy : Royal Navy
Builder : Chatham Dockyard ( Chatham )
Keel laying : September 29, 1931
Launch : March 14, 1933
Commissioning: October 27, 1933
Whereabouts: Applied by German units on January 9, 1940, and then sunk.
Technical data
(see Swordfish class )

HMS Starfish (19S) was a Royal Navy submarine during World War II .

history

see: History of the Swordfish- Class and Detailed History of the S-Class

The Starfish ( English : Starfish ) belonged to the first group of the successful S-Class . This lot is also known as the Swordfish class. She was laid down at the Chatham Naval Shipyard on September 29, 1931, launched on March 14, 1933, and entered service by the Royal Navy on October 27, 1933.

After the start of the attack on Poland , the submarine was used in the North Sea .

On January 5, 1940, the starfish left their base in Blyth to patrol the German Bight . On January 9, the submarine tried at 55 ° 0 '  N , 7 ° 10'  O a torpedo attack on a German minesweeper . The attack failed due to an operator error. The torpedoes got stuck in the torpedo tubes . The boat tried a second attack, in which the elevator blocked. The commander decided to lay the starfish at a depth of 27 m for the rest of the day in order to carry out necessary repairs. A little later, the German minesweeper M-7 discovered the submarine and attacked it with depth charges . After hours of bombardment, the boat was badly damaged and had to surface. The entire crew was able to save itself and went into German captivity . The starfish did not get into enemy hands because it could only hold on to the surface for a short time and then sank.

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 day. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-613-02585-X .
  • Anthony Preston: The History of the Submarines. Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen 1998, ISBN 3-86070-697-7 .

Web links

Commons : British S-Class Submarines  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b The uboat.net states October 27, 1933 for the Starfish to be put into service. Hutchinson (see literature ) gives July 3, 1933.
  2. ↑ HMS is the abbreviation for His / Her Majesty's Ship and the name prefix of British ships. HMS means His / Her Majesty's Ship .