HMS Trespasser (P312): The Great Whale Scare

Barrow-Built

HMS Trespasser was built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Barrow-in-Furness and launched on 29 May 1942, a third-group T-class submarine that served across home waters, the Mediterranean and the Far East, and remains, to this day, the only Royal Navy ship ever to carry the name.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Among the more memorable moments of her war, Trespasser once mistook a deceased whale for an enemy submarine in the Gulf of Lyon and fired three torpedoes at the unfortunate creature, an entertaining misfire that stands as a reminder of just how difficult and imprecise underwater detection could be, even for an experienced crew doing their level best.

Genuine Successes Amid the Comedy

Trespasser's record was not all whale-hunting. She engaged the German auxiliary patrol vessel Uj 6073, also known as Nimeth Allah, without success, but sank the Italian auxiliary patrol vessel V8, or Filippo, by gunfire, and damaged the Japanese auxiliary gunboat Eifuku Maru off Burma with a torpedo attack, solid results in two very different theatres of the war.

A Long, Quiet Retirement

HMS Trespasser survived the war and continued in service for well over a decade afterwards before finally being scrapped at Gateshead on 26 September 1961, closing out the career of a submarine whose most retold story will likely always be the day her crew declared war on a whale.