HMS Snapper (39S)

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Career Royal Navy Ensign
Class and type: S-class submarine
Name: HMS Snapper
Builder: Chatham Dockyard
Launched: 25 October 1934
Fate: Sunk February 1941
General characteristics
Displacement: 670 tons surfaced
960 tons submerged
Length: 208 ft 9 in (63.6 m)
Beam: 24 ft (7.3 m)
Draught: 10 ft 6 in (3.2 m)
Propulsion: Twin diesel/electric
Speed: 13.75 knots surfaced
10 knots submerged
Complement: 39 officers and men
Armament: 6 x forward 21-inch torpedo tubes
12 torpedoes
one three-inch gun
one .303-calibre machine gun

HMS Snapper was a Royal Navy S-class submarine which was launched October 25, 1934 and fought in World War II. Snapper is one of 12 boats named in the song Twelve Little S-Boats.

[edit] Career

Snapper spent most of her career in home waters. She was mistakenly attacked by a British aircraft when returning to Harwich after a patrol in the North Sea. Although suffering a direct hit, Snapper escaped damage. She went on to sink the small German tanker Moonsund, the German merchant Florida, the German auxiliary minesweepers M 1701 / H. M. Behrens and M 1702 / Carsten Janssen, the German armed trawler V 1107 / Portland and the Norwegian merchant Cygnus. She also attacked the German armed merchant cruiser Schiff 21 / Widder, but the torpedoes missed their target.[1]

[edit] Sinking

The gun crews close up at their 3 inch gun on board HMS Snapper as she sits alongside a quayside.
The gun crews close up at their 3 inch gun on board HMS Snapper as she sits alongside a quayside.

She left the Clyde on January 29, 1941 to patrol in the Bay of Biscay. She should have arrived in her patrol area on February 1. She was ordered to remain on station until the 10th and then to return with her escort. Snapper failed to make the rendezvous with the escort and was not heard from again. It is believed that she met her fate through a mine or that she was mortally damaged by a minesweeper which attacked a submarine in Snapper’s area on the 11th although Snapper should have been out of the area by then. [2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ HMS Snapper, Uboat.net
  2. ^ Submarine losses 1904 to present day, RN Submarine Museum, Gosport

Coordinates: 58°53′N 10°43′E / 58.883, 10.717

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