HMS Vandal: Lost Four Days Into Her Career

Barrow-Built

HMS Vandal was built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Barrow-in-Furness, laid down in March 1942 and launched in November that year, one of a batch of four sister U-class submarines ordered in the summer of 1941. She was commissioned on 20 February 1943 and left Barrow that same day bound for the Clyde, arriving at Holy Loch to join the 3rd Submarine Flotilla for working up.

The Shortest Career of Any Royal Navy Submarine

What followed was, by most accounts, the shortest career of any submarine in the Royal Navy. Vandal underwent acceptance trials in the Gareloch, reportedly passing them without difficulty, before moving to Kilbrannan Sound between Arran and the Kintyre peninsula for a short working up programme that was to include a deep dive to two hundred feet.

She was seen getting under way from her anchorage off Lochranza on the morning of 24 February 1943, four days after commissioning, and was due back at Holy Loch that evening. She never returned, and had not yet completed a single war patrol.

A Cause That Remains Particularly Unknown

Thirty seven men were lost, four officers and thirty three ratings, and it must be said plainly that the cause of Vandal's loss has never been established. This is not a case where one explanation has simply faded from popular memory in favour of another, every serious source on the subject, from specialist submarine historians to the divers who later examined the wreck, states that the cause remains undetermined.

Early theories pointed to human error, an open hatch during a dive, but underwater inspection later showed the boat was on the surface rather than diving when whatever happened, happened, which undercuts that explanation.

A further theory, put forward by one expedition leader who examined the wreck, suggests that maintenance work on an instrument called the Ottway log may have led to flooding, and that the forward escape hatch, found open on the wreck while others were shut, may point to a desperate escape attempt after the boat began to founder.

None of this amounts to a confirmed answer, and this article will not pretend otherwise.

Confusion Over Where She Lay

There was, for decades, real uncertainty about where Vandal actually came to rest. Wartime search efforts were hampered by conflicting evidence, an aircraft reported an oil slick near Lochranza but the search was directed instead further south around Inchmarnock, and it is this early, mistaken assumption that has sometimes attached itself to her story since.

The wreck was eventually located in Kilbrannan Sound, close to where that original oil slick had in fact been sighted, and roughly a mile and a half north west of Lochranza, not off Inchmarnock at all.

Found at Last, Half a Century On

The wreck was located around 1994, following renewed investigative work that cross referenced fishermen's reports of nets snagging on an obstruction with Vandal's likely track; HMS Hurworth located the wreck in June 1994. Royal Navy vessels surveyed and confirmed the find, and she was formally declared a war grave in 1995, now protected under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.

She lies largely intact, with no visible external damage that would explain her loss, a quiet, undisturbed resting place for the men still aboard her.

Remembered at Lochranza

A memorial to Vandal and her crew stands on the shore at Lochranza on Arran, a black granite monolith bearing all thirty seven names, unveiled in May 1997 by the Submarine Old Comrades Association.

A second memorial in Castle Gardens, Dunoon, jointly commemorates Vandal alongside HMS Untamed, another Clyde based submarine lost with all hands that same year, and an annual remembrance service is still held at Lochranza, attended by relatives, submariners' associations and sea cadets.

Eighty years on, this remains a loss that is actively and personally remembered, not simply a line in a wartime casualty list, and it deserves to be told with exactly that degree of care.