HMS Osiris (S13): Sold for Spare Parts to the Canadian Navy

Built by Vickers-Armstrongs

HMS Osiris was built by Vickers-Armstrongs, launched on 29 November 1962 and commissioned on 11 January 1964, an Oberon-class submarine measuring 295.2 feet overall and displacing 2,410 tons submerged, powered by diesel generators and electric motors producing 3,000 shaft horsepower each, and armed with eight 21-inch torpedo tubes carrying 24 torpedoes.

A Jubilee Appearance

Osiris took her place in the 1977 Silver Jubilee Fleet Review at Spithead as part of the Submarine Flotilla, one of the great ceremonial gatherings of the Royal Navy's Cold War fleet.

An Unusual Final Role

Rather than being decommissioned and simply scrapped, Osiris was sold to Canadian Forces in 1989 for an unusual purpose: not to sail again under a new flag like several of her sister boats, but purely to be stripped for spare parts to keep Canada's own Oberon-class submarines running.

She was towed to Birkenhead for stripping by Cammell Laird, the very yard that had built several of her sisters, before being moved to Garston for final demolition and scrapped in 1992, a quietly practical end for a submarine that spent her final years keeping her Commonwealth cousins at sea.