HMS Trident (N52)

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HMS Trident
Career (UK) Royal Navy Ensign
Builder: Cammell Laird & Co Limited, Birkenhead
Laid down: 12 January 1937
Launched: 7 December 1938
Commissioned: 1 October 1939
Fate: Sold to be broken up for scrap 17 February 1946
General characteristics
Class and type: British T class submarine
Displacement: 1,090 tons surfaced
1,575 tons submerged
Length: 275 ft (84 m)
Beam: 26 ft 6 in (8.1 m)
Draught:

12 ft 9 in (3.9 m) forward

14 ft 7 in (4.4 m) aft
Propulsion:

Two shafts
Twin diesel engines 2,500 hp (1.86 MW) each

Twin electric motors 1,450 hp (1.08 MW) each
Speed:

15.25 knots (28.7 km/h) surfaced

9 knots (20 km/h) submerged
Range: 4,500 nautical miles at 11 knots (8,330 km at 20 km/h) surfaced
Test depth: 300 ft (91 m) max
Complement: 59
Armament:

6 internal forward facing torpedo tubes
4 external forward facing torpedo tubes
6 reload torpedoes

4 inch (100 mm) deck gun

HMS Trident was a British T class submarine built by Cammell Laird, Birkenhead. She was laid down on 12 January 1937 and was commissioned on 1 October 1939. HMS Trident was part of the first group of T class submarines.

Contents

[edit] Career

Trident operated in most of the naval theatres of the Second World War, in home waters in the North Sea and off the Scandinavian coast, in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific far east.

[edit] Home waters

She spent the period from 1941 to mid 1943 in the North Sea, where she sank the German merchants Edmund Hugo Stinnes 4, Ostpreußen, Donau II, Hödur and Bahia Laura, the German tanker Stedingen and the German auxiliary submarine chaser UJ 1213 / Rau IV. She also attacked and damaged the German merchants Cläre Hugo Stinnes andLevante, and unsuccessfully attacked the German merchants Palime, Wandsbek, Pelikan and Altkirch, the German oiler Dithmarschen, the German hospital ship Birka, the German minesweeper depot ship MRS 3 / Bali and the German submarine U-31. Whilst returning to base at Polyarnoe, Russia, Trident was fired upon but missed by the German submarine U-566.

Perhaps her most important targets were the German heavy cruisers Prinz Eugen and Admiral Hipper, which she sighted off Norway on the 23 February 1942. Trident fired seven torpedoes against them, one of which hit Prinz Eugen in the stern and jammed her rudder and damaged her engines, but the Admiral Hipper escaped unscathed.

[edit] Mediterranean

In 1943, Trident was assigned to operate in the Mediterranean. She sank five sailing vessels and damaged the Italian merchant Vesta and the German patrol vessel GA 41 / Tassia Christa, and attacked the German auxiliary submarine chaser UJ 2202. She was unlucky on numerous occasions, however, her torpedoes missing two submarines, the Italian merchant Agnani and the French passenger/cargo ship Cap Corse.

She did not spend long in the Mediterranean before being reassigned to the Pacific far east, arriving there in mid 1943.

[edit] Far east

She spent the last part of her wartime career in operations against the Japanese, sinking a Japanese sailing vessel and landing craft and unsuccessfully attacking the Japanese training cruiser Kashii.[1]

[edit] Post war

HMS Trident survived the war, and was sold for scrap on 17 February 1946, and was broken up by Cashmore, of Newport.

[edit] References

  1. ^ HMS Trident, Uboot.net
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