HMS Springer (P264): From the Clyde to the Suez Canal as INS Tanin

Laid Down at Birkenhead, Too Late for War

HMS Springer was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, ordered on 29 April 1943, her keel laid on 8 May 1944 and launched on 14 May 1945, commissioning on 2 August 1945 under Lieutenant John Francis Michell, just days before Japan's surrender brought the Second World War to its close.

She was still working up when hostilities ended, departing her builders for Holy Loch on 31 July 1945 and taking part in radar exercises with HMS Talent and HMS Hastings in the Clyde that August, but never saw the wartime action her class had been built for.

A Quiet Peacetime Career

Springer's Royal Navy service settled into the more sedate rhythm of peacetime, including a role in the 1953 Fleet Review that celebrated the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, a considerably calmer occasion than the war patrols her older sisters had endured.

A Second Life as INS Tanin

On 9 October 1958, Springer was transferred to the Israeli Navy and renamed Tanin, and it was in this second identity that she found the dramatic service her original commissioning had been too late to provide.

At the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967, Tanin was the only Israeli submarine serviceable for operations, and she conducted commando operations against the port of Alexandria, attempting to torpedo an Egyptian vessel before sustaining severe damage in the retaliatory depth-charge attack that followed and returning to Alexandria to extract the commandos.

Her commander was awarded Israel's Medal of Courage for the operation.

The End of Her Story

Tanin received spare parts from her sister ship Rahav when that submarine was retired in 1968, keeping her running for a few more years before she was listed for disposal in 1972, bringing to a close a career that had begun too quietly in the Clyde and ended in genuine combat under a different flag entirely.