HMS Tiptoe (P332) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Pennant number

In the modern Royal Navy, and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth, ships are identified by pennant numbers...

P332) was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

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 third group of the 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...

. She was built by Vickers Armstrong

Vickers Armstrong

Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927...

, Barrow

Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...

, and launched on 25 February 1944. She was one of two submarines named by Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

, and so far has been the only ship 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...

to be named Tiptoe. In 1955 she was involved in a collision in with a coastal streamer whilst in Tromsø

Tromsø

Tromsø is a city and municipality in Troms county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø.Tromsø city is the ninth largest urban area in Norway by population, and the seventh largest city in Norway by population...

harbour. She was involved in escape trials off Malta in 1962, and the commanding officer was reprimanded in 1964 following an incident in the Firth of Clyde

Firth of Clyde

The Firth of Clyde forms a large area of coastal water, sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire, Scotland. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran.At...

where she was run aground, and again in 1965 when she collided with HMS Yarmouth

HMS Yarmouth (F101)

HMS Yarmouth was the first Modified Type 12 frigate of the Rothesay class to enter service with the Royal Navy. From her commissioning in 1960, she performed in numerous roles, including the Third Cod War and the Falklands War....

. Although originally named for the ability to sneak up on someone undetected, she maintained several links with ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

, including the Royal Ballet and ballet dancer Moira Shearer

Moira Shearer

Moira Shearer, Lady Kennedy , was an internationally famous Scottish ballet dancer and actress.-Early life:She was born Moira Shearer King in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, the daughter of actor Harold V. King...

. She was scrapped in Portsmouth in 1975, while her anchor is on display in Blyth, Northumberland

Blyth, Northumberland

Blyth is a town and civil parish in southeast Northumberland, England. It lies on the coast, to the south of the River Blyth and is approximately 21 kilometres northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne...

Design and description

HMS Trump was one of the group three of T-class submarines. She was named by Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

, with the intention to imply that it could approach the enemy silently as if on tiptoe, although the Royal Navy naming committee was against the name, stating that "it was derogatory to one of His Majesty's ships", but the Prime Minister

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

had his way. The only other Royal Navy vessel to be named by Churchill was HMS Varangian

HMS Varangian (P61)

HMS Varangian was a British built U class submarine, a member of the third group of that class to be built. Her commander was Lt. Geoffrey J Gellie RAN. The submarine carried out patrols in the Norwegian Sea, covering Arctic Convoys and seems also to have been used in a training role. She was...

.

She was part of the second batch of the third group to be ordered, in 1941. She was one of a number of boats which had an all-welded hull which increased diving depth to 350 feet (106.7 m), an increase of 50 feet (15.2 m). The torpedo armament was the same as the earlier group two, although by the time group three was coming into service it was realised that external torpedo tubes had major problems and affected the streamlining of the boats; the external tubes were abandoned in the following Amphion-class submarines

Amphion class submarine

|-See also:- External links :**...

. Because of expected use in tropical climates, boats of group three were equipped with freon blower

Gas compressor

A gas compressor is a mechanical device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume.Compressors are similar to pumps: both increase the pressure on a fluid and both can transport the fluid through a pipe. As gases are compressible, the compressor also reduces the volume of a gas...

s in order to deal with the increased temperatures.

She was built by Vickers Armstrong

Vickers Armstrong

Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927...

and was laid down at their shipyard at Barrow

Barrow-in-Furness

on 10 November 1942 whilst still known as P332. Following her launch on 25 February 1944, she departed the builders yard on 10 June 1944, arriving at Holy Loch

Holy Loch

The Holy Loch is a sea loch in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.Robertson's Yard at Sandbank, a village on the loch, was a major wooden boat building company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries....

on the following day, where she was commissioned on 12 June.

Second World War

After completing training on 10 September, she returned to Barrow in order to correct some defects. Between 5 October and 12 January 1945, she was equipped with new radar equipment and other equipment to prepare her for deployment in the Far East. She arrived in Trincomalee

Trincomalee

Trincomalee is a port city in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka and lies on the east coast of the island, about 113 miles south of Jaffna. It has a population of approximately 100,000 . The city is built on a peninsula, which divides the inner and outer harbours. Overlooking the Kottiyar Bay,...

, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

on 1 March 1945 prior to her first war patrol. En route from Britain, she had stopped at Gibraltar

Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...

, 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...

, Port Said

Port Said

Port Said is a city that lies in north east Egypt extending about 30 km along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Suez Canal, with an approximate population of 603,787...

and Ismailia

Ismaïlia

-Notable natives:*Osman Ahmed Osman, a famous and influential Egyptian engineer, contractor, entrepreneur, and politician, was born in this town on 6 April 1917....

in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

and Aden

Aden

Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...

, Yemen

Yemen

The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

.

Her first patrol centred around the west coast of Burma and the Andaman Islands

Andaman Islands

The Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...

before heading onto Fremantle

Fremantle

Freemantle is a suburb of Southampton in England.Fremantle or Freemantle may also refer to:- Places :* Fremantle, the port city to the capital Perth, Western Australia...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, and was uneventful. She departed Australia for her second patrol on 6 May with orders to patrol the Flores Sea

Flores Sea

The Flores Sea covers 93,000 square miles of water in Indonesia.- Geography :The seas that border the Flores Sea are the Bali Sea , Java Sea , and the Banda Sea ....

. On 15 May, she sank a Japanese coaster of around 100 tons with gunfire near Dompo Bay, Sumbawa

Sumbawa

Sumbawa is an Indonesian island, located in the middle of the Lesser Sunda Islands chain, with Lombok to the west, Flores to the east, and Sumba further to the southeast. It is in the province of West Nusa Tenggara....

. The following day she sank another Japanese coaster with gunfire, this time around 200 tons, in Sepeh harbour.On 1 June, she approached and sank the Japanese merchant cargo ship Tobi Maru near Matasiri, one of the Laut Kecil Islands

Laut Kecil Islands

Laut Kecil Islands is an archipelago in the south of Borneo. Administratively, the islands are belong to South Kalimantan province of Indonesia. Main islands include Matasiri, Kalambau, and Kadapongan....

. Tiptoe was damaged during the attack as the cargo ship was about to rendezvous with an escort. The escort launched thirteen depth charge

Depth charge

A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare weapon intended to destroy or cripple a target submarine by the shock of exploding near it. Most use explosives and a fuze set to go off at a preselected depth in the ocean. Depth charges can be dropped by either surface ships, patrol aircraft, or from...

s, putting all of Tiptoes torpedo tubes out of action and flooded her sonar equipment. She returned to Fremantle on 17 June, and remained there undergoing repairs until 16 July when she left on her third patrol in the Sunda Strait

Sunda Strait

The Sunda Strait is the strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. It connects the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean...

along with her sister HMS Trump

HMS Trump (P333)

HMS Trump was a British submarine of the third group of the T class. She was built by Vickers Armstrong, Barrow, and launched on 25 March 1944. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Trump. She spent the majority of her life attached to the 4th Submarine division...

.

On 31 July she attacked two small Japanese vessels, but broke off the attack when an aircraft was sighted. On 2 August, Tiptoe and Trump together destroyed two small vessels totalling 600 tons with gunfire. On 3 August, she carried out a torpedo attack against the Japanese army cargo vessel Tencho Maru whilst it was in a convoy defended by a patrol boat. The final action of Tiptoes last war patrol was on 9 August, when together with Trump, they destroyed an 800 ton coastal tanker in the northern part of the Sunda Strait. She returned to Fremantle on 21 August 1945.

Post war

During the royal inspection of the home fleet in 1947 by George VI

George VI of the United Kingdom

George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...

, Tiptoe demonstrated diving and surfacing, along with the firing of her deck gun. In November of the same year, she was part of a group of seven submarines with destroyer HMS Opportune

HMS Opportune (G80)

HMS Opportune was an O-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She was ordered from John I. Thornycroft & Company, Woolston on 3 September 1939 for the 1st Emergency Flotilla. She was commissioned on 14 August 1942...

to take part in anti–submarine training over the course of two weeks.

Tiptoe was one of several all-welded T-class submarines rebuilt for greater underwater performance. Extra batteries were installed below the control room and additional electric motors were accommodated by cutting through the pressure hull and adding in a new 20 ft (6.1 m) hull section inserted aft of the control room. The diesel engines were modified and supercharged with output increased by 300 BHP. The gun armaments and external torpedo tubes were removed, and the bow reshaped.

The submarine was used in filming the 1950 film, Morning Departure

Morning Departure

Morning Departure is a 1950 British naval film directed by Roy Ward Baker, produced by Jay Lewis, and starring John Mills, Nigel Patrick, Peter Hammond, George Cole, Bernard Lee and Richard Attenborough...

, a naval film directed by Roy Ward Baker

Roy Ward Baker

Roy Ward Baker , born Roy Horace Baker, was an English film director, credited as Roy Baker for much of his career. His best known film is A Night to Remember which won a Golden Globe for Best English-Language Foreign Film in 1959...

. During the course of filming, the submarine depot ship HMS Maidstone

HMS Maidstone (1937)

HMS Maidstone was a submarine depot ship of the Royal Navy.-Facilities:She was built to support the increasing numbers of submarines, especially on distant stations, such as the Mediterranean and the Pacific Far East...

was used as a mother ship for Tiptoe. In 1952 a further cinematic link was made when ballet

Ballet

dancer Moira Shearer

Moira Shearer

presented a pair of size 3.5 satin

Satin

Satin is a weave that typically has a glossy surface and a dull back. It is a warp-dominated weaving technique that forms a minimum number of interlacings in a fabric. If a fabric is formed with a satin weave using filament fibres such as silk, nylon, or polyester, the corresponding fabric is...

ballet shoes to Tiptoe that she had worn in the 1948 film The Red Shoes. These are now at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum

Royal Navy Submarine Museum

The Royal Navy Submarine Museum at Gosport is a museum tracing the international history of submarine development from the age of Alexander the Great to the present day, and particularly the history of the Submarine Service from the tiny Holland 1 to the nuclear powered Vanguard class submarine...

. Whilst in Tromsø

Tromsø

harbour on 18 July 1955 Tiptoe was damaged when a coastal steamer collided with her. The steamer, a 2,162 tonne vessel called Nordlys, was entering the harbour when she collided with the British destroyer HMS Chevron. The steamer bounced off the destroyer and collided with Tiptoe, snapping her moorings as she was pushed halfway under a wooden quay.

She took part in escape trials in 1962, which were a series of trials conducted off Malta

Malta

into escape from a submarine at extreme depths. Tests were conducted with men escaping from Tiptoe at depth of up to 71 metres (232.9 ft) with ascent rates of up to 2 m/s. The trials included the use of buoyant ascent suits which involved a suit pulled over the sailor's head which fed them air as they ascended to the surface. For their work in the escape trials, Chief Petty Officer Christopher Crossman was awarded a commendation, and Lieutenant–Commander L. Hamlyn was awarded an OBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

.

Following a refit in Portsmouth, Tiptoe went to the Firth of Clyde

Firth of Clyde

for working up

Glossary of nautical terms

This is a glossary of nautical terms; some remain current, many date from the 17th-19th century. See also Wiktionary's nautical terms, :Category:Nautical terms, and Nautical metaphors in English.- A :...

, arriving on 10 January 1964, when she was ordered not to enter Gareloch due to dense fog. The boat was duly turned around and ran aground on a muddy bank. As the fog cleared it was realised the boat had run aground only 40 yards (36.6 m) opposite that of the house of the Royal Navy's Captain in Charge for the Clyde area, Captain G. D. Pound. Divers were sent out to assess damage, and after finding none, Tiptoe was refloated on the evening tide and pulled off the shore by two tugboat

Tugboat

A tugboat is a boat that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move vessels that either should not move themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor or a narrow canal,or those that cannot move by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships, or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for...

s. The commanding officer at the time was Lieutenant–Commander David Brazier, who was in his first command. He was later ordered to be severely reprimanded for negligence at a court-martial

Court-martial

A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...

where he pleaded guilty to the charge. His defence statement read, "The ship was not worked up and it was a very green company. Unfortunately he ran into fog. He took all the precautions he considered necessary. Although he had all the theoretical knowledge, he was short of that tangible instinct of which we are all aware."

Tiptoe was also damaged in a collision with HMS Yarmouth

HMS Yarmouth (F101)

on 13 July 1965. Tiptoe was at periscope depth 10 miles (16.1 km) SE of Portland Bill

Portland Bill

Portland Bill is a narrow promontory of Portland stone, which forms the most southerly part of Isle of Portland, and therefore also the county of Dorset, England....

. Following the collision, the commanding officer, Lieutenant–Commander Charles Henry Pope was ordered to be severely reprimanded after being found guilty of four out of five counts of negligence.

When she left for her final commission on 24 February 1967, six ballet dancers from the Royal Ballet attended the departure ceremony. At the time she was already the oldest submarine in service with the Royal Navy.

By the time she was decommissioned in 1969, Tiptoe was the last active T-class submarine in the Royal Navy. As she arrived at Spithead

Spithead

Spithead is an area of the Solent and a roadstead off Gilkicker Point in Hampshire, England. It is protected from all winds, except those from the southeast...

for decommissioning on 29 August 1969, a 13 year old ballet dancer named Judy Wright danced on her upper deck. She was sold in 1971 and scrapped at Portsmouth in 1975. Her anchor was saved, and was mounted on stone in 1979 in Blyth, Northumberland

Blyth, Northumberland

Blyth is a town and civil parish in southeast Northumberland, England. It lies on the coast, to the south of the River Blyth and is approximately 21 kilometres northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne...

. The town was used as a training base for submarines during both World Wars.

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