RN Subs

Umpire (N 82)

Umpire (N 82)

Umpire (N 82)

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Commanders

Ex P31

1941 - 3rd Flotilla: Dunoon.

Sunk in an accident nine days after commissioning with the loss of 22 men. The submarine was sunk while en route from Chatham to join the 3rd Submarine Flotilla at Dunoon, under the command of Lieutenant Mervyn Wingfield. From Dunoon she was to carry out a single working-up patrol in the North Sea before heading to the Mediterranean. She stopped overnight at Sheerness and joined a convoy headed North.

The submarine suffered engine failure with one of the two diesel engines and as a result fell behind the convoy. The convoy passed a Southbound convoy around midnight while about 12 nautical miles off Blakeney, Norfolk, with the two convoys passing starboard to starboard. This was unusual since ships and convoys should pass port to port. No ships showed any lights because of the risk from German E-boats. However, an armed escort trawler, Peter Hendriks in the southbound convoy accidentally struck Umpire sinking her in 18 metres of water

Four crew members were on the bridge when the submarine sank, Wingfield, the navigator and two lookouts. However, only Wingfield survived in the cold water to be picked up by the trawler. Several other personnel also survived, escaping from the sunken wreck using the conning tower or the engine room escape hatch, the majority wearing DSEA. ERA Killen received a British Empire Medal for leaving the submarine wearing DSEA to check for obstructions around the engine room hatch and then returning to the engine room to assist the other crew members in escaping. He remained in the engine room until everyone else there had escaped. 16 of the crew successfully escaped, 22 crew were lost.

Lieutenant Edward Young, one of the survivors from Umpire, later went on to command HMS Storm.

2025 Memorial

Eighty-four years after their tragic deaths, the 16 Royal Navy submariners who lost their lives aboard HMS Umpire will finally get a memorial. Members of the Norfolk Branch of the Submariners Association have succeeded in their campaign to honour the men who died.

Up to now, the only memorial in place was the grave of 25-year-old sub-lieutenant Tony Gooden, who was buried at Mundesley Church after his body washed ashore but the Norfolk Submariners Association were determined to create a fitting memorial to those who died in the tragedy and successfully raised the money to install a tribute to the lost crew in the graveyard of Mundesley's All Saints Church.

The tribute faces the sea, is made of Portland stone and is engraved with the submarine badge and the names of those lost. It has been crafted by renowned memorial mason Nick Hindle.

Pete Cudby, chairman of the Norfolk Submariners' Association, which is made up of serving and veteran Royal Navy submariners, said:

This memorial is long overdue.

It is crucial that we recognize the bravery of these men and ensure their sacrifice is not forgotten and remembered for generations to come.

It was especially appropriate that the oversight which meant there has never been been a memorial to the men, should be rectified in the year of the 80th anniversary of VE Day.

A special dedication service was be held at noon on Saturday, July 19th 2025 on the anniversary of the sinking of the submarine.

Events

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Featured Book

The combined forces invasion of the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on 23 April 1918 remains one of Britain’s most glorious military undertakings; not quite as epic a failure as the charge of the Light Brigade, or as well publicised as the Dam Busters raid, but with many of the same basic ingredients.

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Zeebrugge gives a very real sense of the existence of the ordinary British men and women of 100 years ago, made extraordinary by their role in what Winston Churchill called the 'most intrepid and heroic single armed adventure of the Great War.'

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