HMS Tigris (N63) was a T-class

British T class submarine

The Royal Navy's T class of diesel-electric submarines was designed in the 1930s to replace the O, P and R classes. Fifty-three members of the class were built just before and during the Second World War, where they played a major role in the Royal Navy's submarine operations...

 submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

 of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. She was laid down at Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard, located on the River Medway and of which two-thirds is in Gillingham and one third in Chatham, Kent, England, came into existence at the time when, following the Reformation, relations with the Catholic countries of Europe had worsened, leading to a requirement for additional...

 and launched in October 1939.

Career

Tigris had a relatively active career, serving in the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

 and the Mediterranean.

Home waters

Tigris was active in the English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

 and the Bay of Biscay

Bay of Biscay

The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...

 in mid 1940. She sank the French fishing vessels Sancte Michael, Cimcour, Charles Edmond and Rene Camaleyre, the French merchants Jacobsen and Guilvinec, and the German tanker Thorn. She unsuccessfully attacked a number of submarines, including U-58

German submarine U-58 (1939)

German submarine U-58 was a Type IIC U-boat of the German Kriegsmarine that served in the Second World War. She was produced by Deutsche Werke AG, Kiel. Ordered on 17 June 1937 she was laid down later that year on September 29th as werk 257. She was launched 12 October 1938 and was commissioned on...

 and the Italian submarine Veniero and may have also attacked the Italian submarine Otario.

Tigris also succeeded in sinking the Italian submarine Michele Bianchi.

She was assigned to operate in the North Sea off the Scandinavian coast in mid 1941. Off the coast of Finnmark

Finnmark

or Finnmárku is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. By land it borders Troms county to the west, Finland to the south and Russia to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea to the northwest, and the Barents Sea to the north and northeast.The county was formerly known as Finmarkens...

 she sank the Norwegian passenger/cargo ships Haakon Jarl and Richard With, In the case of Richard With, the ship sank in less than a minute, killing two of the three German soldiers on board and claiming the lives of 101 civilian Norwegians.

Post-war the Norwegian public was told the attacks had been carried out by Soviet submarines. She also attacked and heavily damaged the German auxiliary submarine chaser UJ 1201 off the Rolvsøy Fjord. The bow of the ship sank but the stern was towed to port and the ship was rebuilt, entering service again in April 1944. Tigris also unsuccessfully attacked the German merchant Bessheim and a merchant of 3,000 tons, and also attacked a convoy, but missed her targets of the Norwegian merchants Mimona, Tugela and Havbris.

She was also one of the ships assigned to track the German battleship Bismarck

German battleship Bismarck

Bismarck was the first of two s built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the primary force behind the German unification in 1871, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched nearly three years later...

.

Mediterranean

Tigris was reassigned to the Mediterranean, and was active there from late 1942. On the 6 December, she torpedoed and sank the Italian submarine Porfido,, for which her commander, George Colvin, was later awarded the Distinguished Service Order

Distinguished Service Order

The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...

. On 21 Jan 1943, she sank the Italian merchant Citta di Genova in the Strait of Otranto

Strait of Otranto

The Strait of Otranto connects the Adriatic Sea with the Ionian Sea and separates Italy from Albania. Its width at Punta Palascìa, east of Salento is less than . The strait is named after the Italian city of Otranto.- History :...

,. This ship was carrying Greek officers, who were being taken as hostages to Italy, many of whom perished.

Sinking

Tigris left Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

 on 18 February 1943 to patrol off Naples. She was last sighted at 0730 on 24 February, 39 miles (62.8 km) from Capri

Capri

Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...

. On the morning of the 27th, the German submarine chaser UJ2210, escorting a convoy six miles south east of Capri, made contact with a submarine and carried out three depth charge attacks, the third attack brought oil to the surface and the contact was noted to be stationary. A fourth attack of fifteen depth charges brought a huge bubble of air to the surface. On 6 March, Tigris was ordered to Algiers but there was no reply to this signal. She failed to return to Algiers on 10 March 1943 and was declared overdue on that date. Tigris was most likely the submarine sunk on 27 February by UJ-2210 commanded by Otto Pollmann

Otto Pollmann

Otto Franz Pollmann was a Kapitänleutnant of the Reserves with the Kriegsmarine during World War II and a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade Oak Leaves was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or...

.

Tributes

Each year there is an annual Remembrance Service for the submarine and the crew lost at St Nicolas Church, Newbury, Berkshire

Berkshire

Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

, on the Sunday nearest 27 February. The submarine had been adopted by Newbury during the Second World War

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

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