HMS Trident was a British T class submarine

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...

 built by Cammell Laird

Cammell Laird

Cammell Laird, one of the most famous names in British shipbuilding during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, came about following the merger of Laird, Son & Co. of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co. of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century.- Founding of the business :The Company...

, Birkenhead

Birkenhead

Birkenhead is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite the city of Liverpool...

. She was laid down on 12 January 1937 and was commissioned on 1 October 1939. HMS Trident was part of the first group of T class submarines.

Career

Trident operated in most of the naval theatres of the Second World War, in home waters 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 off the Scandinavian coast, in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific far east.

Home waters

She spent the period from 1941 to mid 1943 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...

, where she sank the German merchants Edmund Hugo Stinnes 4, Ostpreußen, Donau II, Hödur and Bahia Laura, the German tanker Stedingen and the German auxiliary submarine chaser UJ 1213 / Rau IV. She also attacked and damaged the German merchants Cläre Hugo Stinnes and Levante, and unsuccessfully attacked the German merchants Palime, Wandsbek, Pelikan and Altkirch, the German oiler Dithmarschen, the German hospital ship Birka, the German minesweeper depot ship MRS 3 / Bali and the . Whilst returning to base at Polyarnoe, Russia, Trident was fired upon but missed by the

Perhaps her most important targets were the and , which she sighted off Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 on the 23 February 1942. Trident fired seven torpedoes against them, one of which hit Prinz Eugen in the stern and jammed her rudder and damaged her engines, but the Admiral Hipper escaped unscathed.

During much of this time the submarine had a young reindeer doe on board. It had been presented as a gift by the Russians in August 1941 as part of the diplomatic ceremonies to honour the alliance between Russia and Britain. The Reindeer was named Polyarnoe after the base and apparently adapted well to life on board. When the submarine returned to the UK Polyarnoe had grown to the extent that the services of the local slaughterman had to be used to truss her securely so she could be safely removed from the boat. Polyarnoe then proceeded to live out the rest of her days in the local zoo.

Mediterranean

In 1943, Trident was assigned to operate in the Mediterranean. She sank five sailing vessels and damaged the Italian merchant Vesta and the German patrol vessel GA 41 / Tassia Christa, and attacked the German auxiliary submarine chaser UJ 2202. She was unlucky on numerous occasions, however, her torpedoes missing two submarines, the Italian merchant Agnani and the French passenger/cargo ship Cap Corse.

She did not spend long in the Mediterranean before being reassigned to the Pacific far east, arriving there in mid 1943.

Far east

She spent the last part of her wartime career in operations against the Japanese, sinking a Japanese sailing vessel and landing craft and unsuccessfully attacking the Japanese training cruiser .
The landing craft was attacked and sunk by her 4 inches (101.6 mm) deck gun on 19 June 1945 off the Batu islands, Indonesia.

Post war

HMS Trident survived the war, and was sold for scrap on 17 February 1946, and was broken up by Cashmore

John Cashmore Ltd

John Cashmore Ltd was a company based at Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales...

, of Newport.