HMS B6: From Gallipoli to an Italian Patrol Boat

Constructed at Barrow

HMS B6 was built by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness, launched on 30 November 1905 and completed on 3 March 1906, one of eleven B-class submarines that represented an enlarged improvement over the preceding A-class, displacing 287 tons on the surface and armed with two 18-inch torpedo tubes, crewed by just fifteen officers and ratings.

Guarding the Gibraltar Straits

B6 was based at Gibraltar in July 1914 as war approached, patrolling the strategically vital Straits, before deploying to the Eastern Mediterranean during the Gallipoli campaign, one of the defining and most costly Allied operations of the war.

A Near Miss and a Change of Duties

On 17 April 1915, B6 made an unsuccessful attempt to torpedo the grounded submarine HMS E15, a striking episode reflecting the confusion and improvisation common to submarine operations in the crowded waters off Gallipoli; E15 was finally destroyed the following day by picket boats from HMS Majestic and HMS Triumph, denying her to the Turks.

That August, she was sent to Alexandria alongside her sister boat B11 to help deter Turkish supply smuggling, though both were soon withdrawn as unsuited to the task.

Supporting the Italian Navy in the Adriatic

In October 1915, B6 deployed to the Adriatic alongside five other B-class submarines to support Italian Navy operations from Venice, part of the wider Allied effort to contain Austro-Hungarian naval power in that theatre.

A New Life Under the Italian Flag

In 1917, the Italian Navy converted B6 into the surface patrol boat S6, and she was eventually sold in 1921 to Messrs Francotosti of Malta, bringing to a close the career of a small but well-travelled submarine that had served in the Mediterranean, the Aegean and the Adriatic in the space of just a few wartime years.