HMS Traveller (N48): Lost Scouting the Way for Human Torpedoes

Laid Down at Greenock

HMS Traveller was built by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company at Greenock, laid down on 17 January 1940, launched in August 1941 and commissioned on 10 April 1942, a second-group T-class submarine that went on to serve almost entirely in the Mediterranean.

A Frustrating Run of Near Misses

Traveller's combat record was marked more by effort than results. She attacked the Italian submarine Porfido and the merchant vessel Ezilda Croce in the Adriatic without success, and went on to make unsuccessful attacks on the Italian light cruiser Cattaro, the tanker Proserpina, and the torpedo boats Castore and Ciclone, along with unconfirmed attacks on two further submarines.

Her one clear success came against the Italian merchant Albachiara, torpedoed off the North African coast, and on that same patrol she also rescued Special Boat Section personnel from the shore, a valuable contribution even without a torpedo being fired.

A Final Reconnaissance

Traveller's fifth and final patrol, departing Malta on 28 November 1942, was a reconnaissance mission in support of planned Chariot manned-torpedo attacks on Taranto under Operation Principal, exactly the kind of quiet, dangerous groundwork that rarely made headlines but was essential to the success of more famous operations.

She failed to return and was declared overdue on 12 December 1942, most likely having struck an Italian mine around 4 December.

Remembered by Leyton

HMS Traveller had been adopted by the Borough of Leyton during a wartime Warship Week fundraising drive, and the adoption plaque marking that connection is preserved today at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth, a small but lasting link between a lost submarine and the community that had once helped fund her.