HMS Nadder (K392): The Only Bombay-Based Ship That Refused to Mutiny

Built on Teesside

HMS Nadder was built by Smiths Dock Co. Ltd at South Bank-on-Tees in 1943, a River-class frigate displacing 1,370 tons standard, armed with two 4-inch guns, eight 20mm anti-aircraft guns and a Hedgehog anti-submarine projector, one of a highly successful class of ocean-going escorts that did much of the unglamorous but essential work of keeping Allied convoys safe through the worst years of the Battle of the Atlantic.

Fighting Through the Strait of Gibraltar

HMS Nadder escorted Convoy UGS 37 through the Strait of Gibraltar in April 1944, a passage that came under heavy German air and submarine attack, during which she engaged three separate enemy submarines, a genuinely intense baptism of fire for a frigate not long into active service.

Capturing a Mutinous Corvette

HMS Nadder played an unusual role that same month in the Greek Naval Mutiny, an uprising among Greek naval personnel serving alongside Allied forces, capturing the corvette Apostolis during the episode, a task that called for rather different skills than the anti-submarine work she had been built for.

Sinking U-198

HMS Nadder contributed to the sinking of the German submarine U-198 near the Seychelles on 12 August 1944, a genuine and confirmed anti-submarine success, before going on, less than a month later on 10 September, to rescue 95 survivors from the merchant vessel SS Troilus, torpedoed by the submarine U-859, a rescue that undoubtedly meant a great deal more to those 95 men than any statistic could ever convey.

Commended for Bravery Off Sumatra

HMS Nadder took part in Special Operations Executive support operations off Sumatra between 7 and 11 August 1945, and her crew received commendations for bravery, skill and determination during enemy air attacks encountered during that mission, a fitting close to a wartime record that had already combined hard combat, rescue work and a fair share of the unexpected.

The Only Ship That Didn't Mutiny

HMS Nadder was transferred to the Royal Indian Navy in 1945 and renamed HMIS Shamsher, and in February 1946 achieved a genuinely remarkable distinction: she was the only Bombay-based ship of the Royal Indian Navy that did not join the widespread mutiny among Indian naval personnel that broke out that month, a major uprising driven by grievances over pay, conditions and colonial treatment that shook British authority across the subcontinent in the final months before independence.

Serving Pakistan

HMS Nadder passed to the newly formed Pakistani Navy in 1947 following the partition of British India, serving there as a training vessel under the name PNS Shamsher, a fitting final role for a ship whose wartime record of hard-won competence made her well suited to teaching the next generation of a brand new navy's sailors, before being sold for scrap on 2 March 1959.