HMS Solent (P262): Sister in Arms in the Java Sea

The Build: Birkenhead

HMS Solent was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead and launched on 8 June 1944, a third-batch S-class submarine displacing 814 tons on the surface and 990 tons submerged, measuring 217 feet overall, armed with six 21-inch torpedo tubes and six reload torpedoes, a 4-inch deck gun, and capable of carrying twelve mines in place of her torpedo load, with a crew of 48 and a diving depth of 350 feet.

Hunting Alongside Her Sister

Solent operated primarily in the Pacific theatre during the final year of the war, frequently working in company with her sister boat HMS Sleuth. Together the two submarines accounted for fifteen Japanese sailing vessels and, on 26 April 1945, the Japanese auxiliary minesweeper Wa 3, a notably productive partnership between two boats built at the same yard within weeks of each other.

Successes of Her Own

Beyond her joint operations with Sleuth, Solent independently sank a Japanese patrol vessel and a landing craft, and damaged a further vessel, adding to the substantial tally of Japanese shipping destroyed by British S-class boats operating at considerable range from their bases in that theatre.

The End of Her Service

HMS Solent survived the Second World War intact and remained in service for well over a decade afterwards before being sold off, arriving at Troon on 28 August 1961 to be broken up, bringing to a close the career of a submarine whose story is inseparable from that of the sister ship she so often hunted alongside.