HMS Trafalgar (S107): First to Strike Afghanistan
The Fifth of Her Name
HMS Trafalgar was the lead boat of her class and the fifth Royal Navy vessel to bear the name, commemorating the 1805 battle, and was distinctive within her class for retaining a conventional seven-bladed propeller rather than the pump-jet propulsion fitted to her sister boats.
The First Strikes on Afghanistan
Following the September 11 attacks, Trafalgar took part in Operation Veritas against Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, becoming the first Royal Navy submarine to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles against targets in Afghanistan. She returned to Plymouth Sound on 1 March 2002 flying the Jolly Roger, the traditional mark of a successful submarine operation.
An Unlucky Streak of Groundings
Trafalgar ran aground near the Isle of Skye in July 1996, and suffered a far more serious grounding at Fladda-chuain in November 2002, causing some £5 million worth of damage to her hull and injuring three sailors. The cause, when it emerged, was almost farcical for something so costly: during a submarine command course exercise, the navigation chart had been covered with tracing paper, obscuring the very hazard that put her aground.
More to Explore
A Security Scare
In 2012, a Royal Navy submariner was sentenced to eight years in prison for attempting to pass classified information to Russia, including details of a secret operation Trafalgar had undertaken, a sobering reminder that even a submarine's greatest successes could become a security liability decades later.
The End of Her Service
HMS Trafalgar was decommissioned on 4 December 2009 at Devonport, closing out the career of the boat that had led her entire class into service and into its first combat operations against Afghanistan.
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