HMS Simoom (P225)

HMS Simoom was an S class submarine of the Royal Navy, and part of the Third Group built of that class. She was built by Cammell Laird and launched on October 12, 1942.

Career

She served in the Mediterranean, where she unsuccessfully attacked an unidentified merchant ship and later fired upon the Italian light cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi. The torpedoes missed the cruiser but hit and sank the destroyer Vincenzo Gioberti instead.

Details after this are sketchy. She possibly sank the Italian merchant (in German service) Trapani and the Greek sailing vessel Trias.^[1]

Sinking

Simoom went on patrol from Port Said to the Aegean on November 2, 1943. On the 5th she was diverted to the entrance of the Dardanelles. Ten days later she was sent ordered to return to port, but never arrived. On 15 November German radio broadcasts stated that a submarine had been destroyed in the Aegean and that several of the crew had been rescued. It is unlikely that this was Simoom, as she would have been miles out of position, nor did any of the claimed survivors state that they were from Simoom. It is more likely that the submarine struck a mine or was lost through an accident.^[2]

References

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

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.