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This website is brought to you in association with the Barrow-in-Furness Branch of the Submariners Association and is the premier UK internet resource for Submariners and anyone interested in Royal Navy Submarines.

Vickers and Barrow are names synonymous with the development of the submarine. Hundreds of submarines covering virtually every class have been built for the Royal Navy and foreign Navies. This site is dedicated to not only to those who have served on Her Majesty's Submarines but also to those employees past and present whose skills and efforts have given pride to the phrase 'Barrow built' and made the name Vickers known and respected throughout the world.

On This Day - October 16

1905	A 4	Whilst carrying out sound signal experiments at Spithead, HMS A4 was trimming down when water came through a ventilator being used to signal, with a flag on a boathook, the results of the sound tests. The submarine went down to 90 feet with an inclination of 40 degrees by the bow. Due to the contact with seawater, chlorine gas started escaping from the batteries. The Captain ordered all ballast tanks blown and as soon as the submarine surfaced, the crew were ordered on deck. An explosion occurred as the boat was being towed to the dock and she slowly sank. She was later salvaged and put back into service.
1917	L 56	Laid Down
1940	Tigris (N 63)	HMS Tigris sinks the French fishing vessel Cimcour with gunfire in the Bay of Biscay.
1940	P 552	Recommissioned
1943	Torbay (N 79)	HMS Torbay torpedoes and sinks the German troopship Kari and torpedoes and damages the Italian merchant (in German service) Trapani east of Naxos, Greece.
1944	Vengeful (P 86)	Completed
1971	Courageous (S 50)	Completed

Lastest Comments

11/10/2026 on page Sahib (P 212)
Barry wrote:
	My father, Kenneth Hutchinson, served on the Sahib as a Stoker 1st Class. He was captured and then imprisoned in an Italian POW camp; he escaped along with a friend who was later wounded. They got back safely; Dad was mentioned in Dispatches and awarded the Oakleaf.

29/09/2026 on page Chariots
Rhys Nolan wrote:
	In relation to the Operation Title, the fishing boat Arthur was not "newly built" in fact built 1898, lengthened at some point and converted for the operation. I have not seen any records of the mentioned breakdowns in the writings by Leif Larsen, doesn't mean that there weren't, just surprising he ...

22/09/2026 on page P 222
Colin Megill wrote:
	The night of December 12th, 1942, my grandfather, conscripted into the Italian infantry, departed by troop ship from Trapani, Sicily, some 200 miles southwest of where the P222 disappeared, and made the crossing to Bizerte, Tunisia. He made it safely home after years as a prisoner of war after their ...

19/09/2026 on page Israeli sub wreck found 31 years on
Janet Burns wrote:
	My Dad was the chief stocker on the Totem 45/47 I have his Talisman, unfortunately he passed away at 39 in 1962. I am so proud of him.

19/09/2026 on page Renown (S 26)
Alan Hewitt wrote:
	Commanding Officer (Port crew) 1972 - 1976 Commander H N M Thompson RN

RN Subs

Featured Badge

XE 9 (Unexpected)

Class:	1944 - 1952: XE Class
Built By:	Broadbent (Huddersfield)
Build Group:	XE
Fate:
Sunk and used a bottom target 1954 off Portland.

In the near future a French submarine finds itself in a global crisis when a group of terrorists steal a submarine and simulate a nuclear attack.

Commandant Grandchamp and his expert acoustic analysts must defy their own governments' orders amid high-stakes international tensions and battle to save the world from apocalypse.

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