HMS Unison (P43): Struck by Friendly Fire From an American Tanker

Built at Barrow

HMS Unison was built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Barrow-in-Furness, her keel laid on 30 December 1940, launched on 5 November 1941 and commissioned on 19 February 1942, originally known informally as Ulysses before formally being renamed Unison in 1943, a third-group U-class submarine that went on to serve across a truly wide spread of theatres.

From the Arctic to Malta

Unison's early patrols took her on anti-U-boat operations northeast of the Shetland Islands in March 1942, before escorting the Arctic convoys PQ 15 and QP 11 to northern Russia that April and May, a demanding change of climate from the Mediterranean waters she would soon come to know well.

In June 1942 she took part in Operation Harpoon, the supply convoy to Malta, attacking the Italian cruisers Raimondo Montecuccoli and Emanuele Filiberto Duca d'Aosta near Sardinia with four torpedoes, though no hits were obtained.

She sank the Italian merchant vessels Enrichetta, Marco Foscarini and Terni during further Mediterranean and Ionian Sea patrols.

A Dangerous Case of Mistaken Identity

On 2 August 1943, Unison suffered a serious friendly-fire incident when she was fired on in error by the American tanker Yankee Arrow, sustaining pressure hull damage in the attack.

The officer of the watch was killed and three further crew members, including her commanding officer, Lieutenant Anthony Daniell, were severely injured, a heavy and painful cost inflicted not by the enemy but by an ally's mistake, the kind of tragedy that deserves to be acknowledged honestly rather than glossed over.

Service Under a Different Flag

HMS Unison was transferred on loan to the Soviet Union on 26 June 1944 and renamed V-3, serving in Soviet colours for five years before being returned to Britain in 1949 and scrapped at Stockton in May 1950, closing out the career of a submarine whose war had taken her from the Arctic to the Mediterranean and, briefly, into an entirely different navy altogether.