HMS Upholder (P37): Britain's Most Successful Submarine of the War

Laid Down at Barrow

HMS Upholder was built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Barrow-in-Furness, laid down on 30 October 1939, launched on 8 July 1940 and commissioned on 31 October 1940, a U-class submarine armed with six torpedo tubes and a single 3-inch gun. She was commanded throughout her entire operational career by one man, Lieutenant Commander Malcolm David Wanklyn, whose name would become forever linked with hers.

An Extraordinary Record

Across 24 patrols with the 10th Submarine Flotilla out of Malta, Upholder became, by a considerable margin, Britain's most successful submarine of the entire Second World War.

Her official tally credited her with 93,031 tons of enemy shipping sunk, including two Italian submarines and a destroyer, and her confirmed victims included the Italian destroyer Libeccio, the Italian submarines Tricheco and Ammiraglio Saint-Bon, an auxiliary minesweeper, and ten merchant vessels, among them three troopships, most notably the 17,879-ton Conte Rosso, alongside six cargo ships and an auxiliary transport.

She also damaged the cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi on 28 July 1941 and multiple further freighters, an extraordinary sustained record of destruction achieved by one small boat and her crew in some of the most heavily defended waters of the war.

A Victoria Cross

Wanklyn's courage in pressing home attacks on well-defended convoys, most notably during a celebrated 1941 patrol against the Conte Rosso convoy, earned him the Victoria Cross, the highest recognition available to any officer in the British armed forces, a fitting tribute to a commander whose aggression and skill had made his boat the most feared British submarine in the Mediterranean.

Lost With All Hands

HMS Upholder was lost with her entire crew during her 25th patrol, northeast of Tripoli, on 14 April 1942, most likely after striking an Italian minefield, though depth charges from the torpedo boat Pegaso have also been suggested as a possible cause.

The loss of such a celebrated boat and her equally celebrated commander was felt keenly throughout the Royal Navy, and the Admiralty marked her passing with words that have echoed ever since: the ship and her company are gone, but the example and inspiration remain, a tribute as fitting today as it was when it was first written.