HMS Unswerving

History
Class and type:	U-class submarine
Name:	HMS Unswerving
Builder:	Vickers Armstrong, Newcastle upon Tyne
Laid down:	17 February 1942
Launched:	19 July 1943
Commissioned:	3 October 1943
Fate:	scrapped July 1949
Badge:
General characteristics
Displacement:	Surfaced - 540 tons standard, 630 tons full load Submerged - 730 tons
Length:	58.22 m (191 feet)
Beam:	4.90 m (16 ft 1 in)
Draught:	4.62 m (15 ft 2 in)
Propulsion:	2 shaft diesel-electric 2 Paxman Ricardo diesel generators + electric motors 615 / 825 hp
Speed:	11.25 knots max surfaced 10 knots max submerged
Complement:	27-31
Armament:	4 bow internal 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes - 8 - 10 torpedoes 1 - 3-inch (76 mm) gun

HMS Unswerving (P63) was a Royal Navy U-class submarine built by Vickers-Armstrong. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Unswerving.

Career

Unswerving carried out work-ups at end of 1943, then joined the 1st Flotilla in the Mediterranean, where she carried out patrols in the Aegean Sea. She would eventually spend most of her wartime career in the Mediterranean, where she sank the German guardboats GN 61 and GN 62, the German tanker Bertha (the former French Bacchus) and six sailing vessels, and claimed to have damaged a seventh. She was however unlucky on numerous occasions, unsuccessfully attacking the small German merchant Toni (the former Greek Thalia), the German auxiliary minelayer Zeus, the German transport Pelikan and her escort, the German torpedo boat TA 19, and the German merchant Gertrud on two separate occasions.

Under the command of Lieutenant M. D. "Mick" Tattershall, Unswerving was the first British submarine where all the officers were members of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve rather than any of them being officers of the regular navy.

Unswerving survived the war and arrived at John Cashmore Ltd, Newport on 10 July 1946 for scrapping.

References

• "HMS Unswerving (P 63)". uboat.net. 
• "Universal to Untamed". British submarines of World War II. 
• 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 Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475. 
• Hutchinson, Robert (2001). Jane's Submarines: War Beneath the Waves from 1776 to the Present Day. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-710558-8. OCLC 53783010. 
• Lennox Kerr, J; Granville, Wilfred (1957). The R.N.V.R. A Record of Achievement. George G Harrap.