HMS Spiteful (P227)

HMS Spiteful
Career
Class and type:	S-class submarine
Name:	HMS Spiteful
Builder:	Scotts - Greenock
Laid down:	September 19, 1941
Launched:	June 5, 1943
Commissioned:	October 6, 1943
Decommissioned:	July 15, 1963
Fate:	Scrapped
General characteristics
Displacement:	814-872 tons surfaced 990 tons submerged
Length:	217 ft (66 m)
Beam:	23 ft 6 in (7.16 m)
Draught:	11 ft (3.4 m)
Speed:	14.75 knots surfaced 8 knots submerged
Complement:	48 officers and men
Armament:	6 x forward 21-inch torpedo tubes, one aft 13 torpedoes one three-inch gun (four-inch on later boats) one 20 mm cannon three .303-calibre machine gun

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Spiteful.

HMS Spiteful (pennant number P227) was a S-class submarine of the British Royal Navy.

Commander

Her pennant number was originally P77. She was commanded by a Canadian, Lt Cdr "Freddy" Sherwood DSC RCNVR, the first Volunteer Reservist to be given a command in World War II, (slightly pre-dating Edward Young's command of HMS Storm) from the time she was built until she was lent to the French. Sherwood was also Ben Bryant's 1st Lieutenant in both HMS Sealion and HMS Safari, 3rd Flotilla. She travelled to HMS Forth, Holy Loch for her work-up.

Career

Her first war patrol was in the North Atlantic, from 29 December 1943 to 12 January 1944. She returned to Lerwick, in Shetland, where a battery was replaced and a "singing" screw was repaired.

She sailed for Ceylon, arriving in April 1944. She was assigned to 8th Flotilla, HMS Maidstone. She made two patrols, then transited to Fremantle. She sunk a number of Japanese vessels with gunfire, on June 30th, July 2nd and December 14th.

Another incident involved USS Gabilan, when the American ship almost fired upon her, before recognising her as a friendly ship.

Spiteful then bombarded installations on the Andaman Islands and Christmas Island. She made three further patrols, totalling 109 days at sea - the three longest patrols by any 'S' class submarine - 34, 38 and 37 days (Sirdar achieved one of 49 days) - with little luck. She returned to the UK in April 1945 for a refit.

She was loaned to France as Sirene from 1952 to 1958.

On 1 July 1963 she arrived at Faslane to be broken up 15 July 1963.

References

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.