HMS Una was a British U-class submarine, of the second group of that class, built at Chatham Dockyard. She was laid down on 7 May 1940 and was commissioned on 27 September 1941.
Career
She spent most of her career operating in the Mediterranean from early 1942, where she sank the Italian tanker Luciana, the Italian fishing vessel Maria Immacolata, and the Italian merchants Ninetto G. and Petrarca. Controversially, the Lucania was a tanker which had been granted immunity by the Admiralty, as she was to serve as a replenishment ship for an Italian ship repatriating civilians from East Africa; the submarine's commander, Lieutenant D.S.R. Martin, was ill and had not read the Admiralty signal before departure.[1] She also damaged two sailing vessels and the Italian merchant Cosala (the former Yugoslavian Serafin Topic). The damaged Italian ship was grounded, but declared a total loss and eventually sank during a storm.
She was unlucky on numerous occasions, unsuccessfully attacking the Italian merchant Brioni, the Italian tanker Panuco and the German merchant Menes. Una also fired torpedoes against a merchant in Lampedusa harbour. The torpedoes however hit the rocks.[2]
In the night of 11/12 August 1942 disembarked a commando group on the shores of Catania, Sicily. The idea was to attack an airfield in support of Operation Pedestal, but after blowing up the electrical power lines between Syracuse and Catania, the dispirited group was taken prisoner. The unsuccessful raid was described by one of its members, Eric Newby, as the first chapter of his memoir Love and War in the Apennines.[3]
From April to August 1943, she was used for Anti-Submarine training after undergoing a refit in the UK. After the end of the war, she was decommissioned and placed in reserve in November 1945. She was sold to be broken up for scrap on 11 April 1949 and scrapped at Llanelly.[4]
Citations
References
- 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.
- 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.
- Hastings, Max (2021). Operatie Pedestal (in Dutch). Hollands Diep. ISBN 978-90-488-5275-8.
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Recent Comments