HMS Sceptre (P215)
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| Career |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | |
| Laid down: | July 1940 |
| Launched: | 9 January 1943 |
| Commissioned: | April 1943 |
| Decommissioned: | February 1947 |
| Fate: | sold for scrap |
| Stricken: | |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 814-872 tons surfaced, 990 submerged |
| Length: | 217 feet (66 m) |
| Beam: | 23.5 feet (7.1 m) |
| Draught: | 11 feet (3.3 m) |
| Propulsion: | |
| Speed: | 14.75 knots (27 km/h) surfaced, 8 knots (15 km/h) submerged |
| Range: | |
| Complement: | 48 officers and men |
| Armament: | one three-inch (76 mm) gun, one 20 mm antiaircraft gun; three .303 machine (~7.7 mm) guns, seven 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, six forward, one aft, 13 torpedoes |
| Motto: | |
HMS Sceptre (P215) was a 1940-programme S-class submarine of the Royal Navy. She was launched on January 9, 1943, in Greenock, although her keel had been laid down in July 1940.
In World War II, Sceptre joined the 3rd Submarine Flotilla in April 1943 and was based at Holy Loch. She then detached to Scapa Flow to be used for the Submarine Commanding Officer's Qualifying Course, the Perisher. Whilst exercising to the west of the Orkney Islands, she was depth charged in error by the Royal Air Force and her hull was slightly buckled, which required docking for repairs.
After an uneventful first patrol, she was fitted with special towing gear and proceeded to Loch Cairnbawn. Here she joined up with two T-class and three S-class submarines, together with the depot ships Titania and Bonadventure, the latter being the depot ship for the X-craft midget submarines. Sceptre left Loch Cairnbawn on September 12, 1943, with X-10 in tow. The aim was to attack the German battleship Tirpitz at Kaa Fjord. This attack was intended to remove the threat of the German battleship to convoys on their way to Russia. Six X-craft were used to attack shipping in the fjords, with the attack on Tirpitz putting her out of action for nearly a year.
In April 1944, Sceptre left for another "special operation" with X-24 in tow. X-24 penetrated Bergen harbour and sank the merchant ship Barenfels as well as damaging large sections of the floating dock in the harbour.
Sceptre earned the title of "Bring them back alive" as she was the only towing submarine which lost none of the X-craft in her care. Commanded by Lieutenant I. S. McIntosh, MBE, DSC, throughout her short but active service career, Sceptre sank six ships — four merchant vessels of 14,393 gross register tons and two escorts of 1,444 displacement tons. This total and tonnage was unequalled by any other submarine in home waters during the period.
At the end of the war, Sceptre was allocated to the Seventh Submarine Flotilla and used for training, based at Lochalsh. She continued to run as a training unit based in Portland until February 1947. She was finally sold to the British Iron and Steel Corporation for scrap in August 1949.
See HMS Sceptre for other ships of the same name.