HMS Simoom (P225): Found After Seventy-Three Years on the Seabed

Constructed at Birkenhead

HMS Simoom was built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead and commissioned on 30 December 1942, an S-class submarine that went on to complete eight war patrols, her early missions off northern Norway and in the Bay of Biscay passing largely without incident.

Sinking an Italian Destroyer

Simoom achieved her most notable success in the Mediterranean, sinking the Italian destroyer Vincenzo Gioberti, with the loss of 171 of her crew, on 9 August 1943, barely eight months into her career, a truly significant kill against a proper warship rather than the merchant vessels that made up the bulk of most submarines' targets.

Lost on Her Seventh Patrol

HMS Simoom departed Port Said on 2 November 1943 for her seventh war patrol, and when she failed to arrive at Beirut by the corrected date of 19 November, she was declared overdue on 23 November.

Post-war analysis concluded she had most likely struck a mine on 4 November 1943, part of a minefield laid by German and Italian forces near Donoussa Island back in September 1941, a delayed and cruel reminder that the danger of mines could linger for years after they were first sown.

The loss claimed the lives of 48 officers and men, a heavy toll that deserves to be remembered with the full seriousness it warrants.

Found More Than Seventy Years Later

In 2016, the Turkish wreck-hunter Selcuk Kolay located Simoom's wreck approximately six nautical miles northwest of Bozcaada Island, resting at 67 metres depth. Extensive damage near her starboard hydroplane indicated the mine had struck while she was operating on the surface, finally bringing a measure of closure to a loss that had remained unresolved for more than seventy years.