Vickers and Barrow are names synonymous with the development of the submarine. Hundreds of submarines covering virtually every class have been built for the Royal Navy and foreign Navies. This site is dedicated to not only to those who have served on Her Majesty's Submarines but also to those employees past and present whose skills and efforts have given pride to the phrase 'Barrow built' and made the name Vickers known and respected throughout the world.
| 1917 | K 2 | One member of the crew accidentally fell overboard and was drowned. He was Sto 1 Reginald Tinniswood. |
| 1918 | L 55 | Launched |
| 1932 | Adamant 1911 - 1932 | Sold |
| 1942 | Unruffled (P 46) | At 0105 hours HMS Unruffled sinks the Italian auxiliary minesweeper N 10/Aquila with gunfire off the Tunisian coast 8 nautical miles bearing 040 from Mehedia. |
| 1943 | Unseen (P 51) | HMS Unseen torpedoed and sank the German mine-layer Brandenburg and the German night fighter direction vessel Kreta. By firing a full salvo when the two target ships were overlapping, HMS Unseen achieved the remarkable result of sinking both vessels simultaneously, about 7 nautical miles northeast of Isola di Capraia, Italy. |
| 1943 | P 52 / Dzik (Polish) | Fired torpedoes off Bastia harbour, Corsica, France and sank the German transport Nikolaus and the German tug Kraft. Dzik also claimed the sinking of a second transport and several German landing craft. |
Submariner who played underwater blind man's bluff with the Soviets
A landmark history of the U-boat war told through the experiences and recollections of the U-boat crews themselves.
Winston Churchill famously remarked that the threat of the German U-Boats was the only thing that had "really frightened" him during World War Two. The U-boats certainly claimed a bitter harvest among Allied shipping: nearly 3,000 ships were sunk, for a total tonnage of over 14 million tonnes, nearly 70% of Allied shipping losses in all theatres of the war. With justification, then, they are an integral part of the traditional narrative of the Battle of the Atlantic: a story of technological brilliance, dramatic sinkings, life and death, and, of course, the sinister, unseen threat of the U-boats themselves.
For Allied seamen during the war, the U-boat was a hidden menace, a faceless killer lurking beneath the waves, and the urgent needs of survival afforded them little time or energy to consider the challenges and privations of their enemy. History, however, affords us that time and energy, and any pretence of comprehensiveness demands that we consider what life was like for the crews of those most claustrophobic vessels, packed into a steel hull, at the mercy of the enemy, of the elements, and of basic physics.
Germany's U-boat crews posted the highest per-capita losses of any combat arm during World War Two. Some 30,000 German submariners were killed, over 75% of the total number deployed, the vast majority of whom have no grave except the seabed. Using archival sources, unpublished diaries and existing memoir literature, this book will give the U-Boatmen back their voice, allowing their side of the narrative to be aired in a comprehensive manner for the first time.
With that testimony, Wolfpack takes the reader from the heady early days of the war, when U-boat crews were buoyed with optimism about their cause, through to the challenges of meeting the Allied counterthreat, to the final horror of defeat, when their submarines were captured by the enemy or scuttled in ignominy. Using the U-boatmen's own voices to punctuate an engaging narrative, it tells their story of courage, certainly, but also of fear, privation and, ultimately, failure.
13 pages added or updated in the last 2 month
Please help to maintain this site by reporting any Errors, Broken Links, Information or Site Issues on this page using this button
If you find this site useful, please consider supporting my work with a small Donation.
Please Note: Donations made using this option go directly to the site owner and not to the Submariners Association.
Thankyou for your support.
Submariner who played underwater blind man's bluff with the Soviets
A landmark history of the U-boat war told through the experiences and recollections of the U-boat crews themselves.
Winston Churchill famously remarked that the threat of the German U-Boats was the only thing that had "really frightened" him during World War Two. The U-boats certainly claimed a bitter harvest among Allied shipping: nearly 3,000 ships were sunk, for a total tonnage of over 14 million tonnes, nearly 70% of Allied shipping losses in all theatres of the war. With justification, then, they are an integral part of the traditional narrative of the Battle of the Atlantic: a story of technological brilliance, dramatic sinkings, life and death, and, of course, the sinister, unseen threat of the U-boats themselves.
For Allied seamen during the war, the U-boat was a hidden menace, a faceless killer lurking beneath the waves, and the urgent needs of survival afforded them little time or energy to consider the challenges and privations of their enemy. History, however, affords us that time and energy, and any pretence of comprehensiveness demands that we consider what life was like for the crews of those most claustrophobic vessels, packed into a steel hull, at the mercy of the enemy, of the elements, and of basic physics.
Germany's U-boat crews posted the highest per-capita losses of any combat arm during World War Two. Some 30,000 German submariners were killed, over 75% of the total number deployed, the vast majority of whom have no grave except the seabed. Using archival sources, unpublished diaries and existing memoir literature, this book will give the U-Boatmen back their voice, allowing their side of the narrative to be aired in a comprehensive manner for the first time.
With that testimony, Wolfpack takes the reader from the heady early days of the war, when U-boat crews were buoyed with optimism about their cause, through to the challenges of meeting the Allied counterthreat, to the final horror of defeat, when their submarines were captured by the enemy or scuttled in ignominy. Using the U-boatmen's own voices to punctuate an engaging narrative, it tells their story of courage, certainly, but also of fear, privation and, ultimately, failure.
13 pages added or updated in the last 2 month
Please help to maintain this site by reporting any Errors, Broken Links, Information or Site Issues on this page using this button
If you find this site useful, please consider supporting my work with a small Donation.
Please Note: Donations made using this option go directly to the site owner and not to the Submariners Association.
Thankyou for your support.