HMS Phoenix (N96): Lost Off Sicily in the Opening Weeks of the Mediterranean War

Constructed at Birkenhead

HMS Phoenix was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, ordered in February 1928, laid down that July, launched on 3 October 1929 and commissioned on 3 February 1931, a P-class submarine that spent her opening war patrols far from the Mediterranean, operating from Hong Kong across the Pacific and Yellow Sea from September 1939.

A Rapid Transfer to the Mediterranean

Phoenix transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in the spring of 1940, arriving at Alexandria that May just as Italy's entry into the war transformed the theatre into one of the most intensely fought submarine campaigns anywhere in the world. She took part in Operation MA 5 that July, covering vital convoys between Malta and Alexandria.

Lost Off Augusta

HMS Phoenix, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Gilbert Hugh Nowell, was lost on 16 July 1940 off Augusta in Sicily, most likely sunk by the Italian torpedo boat Albatros.

The circumstances remain somewhat unclear, but it appears Phoenix may have been damaged after attacking the Italian tanker Dora C, with Albatros then delivering the fatal blow during the counter-attack, dropping a pattern of ten depth charges followed by a further eight.

Phoenix was lost with her entire crew of 56 men, one of the earliest British submarine losses of the Mediterranean campaign, a heavy and sobering reminder of just how costly that theatre would prove to be across the years of fighting still to come, and a loss that deserves to be remembered with the full gravity it warrants.