HMS Unruly (P49)
Encyclopedia

HMS Unruly (P49) was a 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...

 U-class
British U class submarine
The British U class submarines were a class of 49 small submarines built just before and during the Second World War...

 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...

 built by Vickers-Armstrong
Vickers
Vickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 1999.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...

 at Barrow-in-Furness
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...

. So far she 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 bear the name Unruly.

Career

Unruly spent most of her eventful wartime career in the Mediterranean, apart from a period on convoy escort duty off the North Cape
North Cape, Norway
North Cape is a cape on the island of Magerøya in Northern Norway, in the municipality of Nordkapp. Its 307 m high, steep cliff is often referred to as the northernmost point of Europe, located at , 2102.3 km from the North Pole. However, the neighbouring point Knivskjellodden is actually...

. Whilst serving in the Mediterranean, she sank the French merchant St Lucien, the Italian merchant Valentino Coda, twelve sailing vessels, including the Greek Aghios Giorgios (Saint George), and the . The Bulgaria was loaded with supplies for the island of Kos
Kos
Kos or Cos is a Greek island in the south Sporades group of the Dodecanese, next to the Gulf of Gökova/Cos. It measures by , and is from the coast of Bodrum, Turkey and the ancient region of Caria. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Kos peripheral unit, which is...

. Unruly missed the minelayer Drache
JRM Zmaj
JRM Zmaj was built in Germany as a seaplane tender for the Royal Yugoslav Navy in 1928–30. She does not appear to have been much used in that role and was converted to a minelayer in 1937. Captured by the Germans in 1941, she was renamed Drache and redesignated as an aircraft tender and later as...

 the same day. She spotted the Drache several days later, but again failed to sink her.

Unruly also damaged the Italian tanker Cesco, and the Italian merchant Nicolo Tommaseo. The damaged Nicolo Tommaseo was later sunk by Allied aircraft. Unruly also launched failed attacks on the German merchants Erpel and Pelikan, and an unidentified Spanish merchant.

One of her most significant actions however, was the sinking of the Italian submarine Acciaio during the Allied invasion of Sicily
Allied invasion of Sicily
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis . It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign.Husky began on the night of...

. She was attacked with four torpedoes, at least one of which hit the Italian submarine, which sank her with the loss of all 46 of her crew. The crew of Unruly did not actually see the results of the attack, and initially believed they had missed and their target had escaped.

Unruly survived the war and was scrapped at Troon in February 1946.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK