HMS Opossum (S19): The Last Conventional Submarine Refit at Chatham

Birkenhead-Built

HMS Opossum was built by Cammell Laird and Company at Birkenhead, launched on 23 May 1963 with Lady Hezlet as sponsor, and commissioned on 5 June 1964, an Oberon-class submarine measuring 295 feet 3 inches in length, displacing 2,030 tons surfaced and 2,410 tons submerged, and capable of 17 knots underwater.

The End of an Era at Chatham

Opossum arrived at Chatham Dockyard for refit on 27 November 1972 and departed on 9 August 1974, recommissioning that June following an extensive modernisation.

Her refit holds a genuine piece of dockyard history: it was the very last conventional submarine refit ever undertaken at Chatham before the yard moved over exclusively to nuclear vessels, a quiet but significant milestone in the story of one of Britain's oldest naval dockyards.

The Persian Gulf and the Last of Her Kind

Opossum deployed to the Persian Gulf during Operation Granby in 1991, the British contribution to the Gulf War, returning flying a Jolly Roger in the Royal Navy submarine tradition, before being decommissioned in June 1993 after roughly thirty years of service.

She holds the distinction of being the last of the British Oberon-class submarines remaining in Royal Navy service, a fitting final chapter for a class that had served the Navy so well for so long.

The End of the Line

HMS Opossum was scrapped in June 2001 at Pounds Shipbreakers in Tipner, Portsmouth, bringing to a close both her own career and, in a real sense, the story of the entire Oberon class in Royal Navy service.