Class and type S class submarine Laid down 14 July 1941 Construction started 14 July 1941 Length 66 m Builder Cammell Laird | Name HMS Simoom Commissioned 30 December 1942 Launched 12 October 1942 Draft 3.4 m | |
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Fate Sunk 4–19 November 1943 Displacement 814-872 tons surfaced
990 tons submerged | ||
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 12 October 1942.
Contents
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.
Sinking
Simoom went on patrol from Port Said to the Aegean on 2 November 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.