HMS Untamed

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HMS Untamed

Postby Kintyre Forum News » Thu May 07, 2009 11:00 pm

Anyone know anymore about this - how many people lost their lives? Sad indeed. Anyone know exactly where?

HMS Untamed (P58) was a Royal Navy U-class submarine built by Vickers-Armstrong. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Untamed. She sank during an exercise, was subsequently salvaged and renamed HMS Vitality, another unique name.

Sinking

On 30 May 1943, HMS Untamed was exercising with ships of the 8th Escort Group off Campbeltown. At 0950 that morning Untamed dived and commenced the first run of the day. After three hours the submarine surfaced and prepared for the next run. Just after 1345 the submarine once again dived and the second exercise of the day began. This exercise involved the anti-submarine training yacht Shemara firing practice mortars against the submarine. The first two runs were successful with Untamed indicating her position after each with a white smoke candle. At 1450 following the third run the submarine did not immediately indicate her position, the Shemara fired an "INDICATE POSITION" charge, came to a stop and began tapping on the hull. The efforts of the Shemara were greeted by a yellow smoke candle. Shemara moved to a position by the marker and once again began tapping the hull. At this point a swirl of water was seen near the marker. Shemara called a halt to the exercise and signalled the submarine to surface: there was no reply. A second surface signal was sent, again without result. At 1602 Shemara sent a signal for assistance to the Naval Officer in Command and continued to search for the submarine.

At 1716 the sound of the submarine blowing her tanks was heard. Using asdic, the Shemara located the submarine. For the next ten minutes the sound of the submarine blowing her tanks and stopping and starting her engines could be heard. At 1733 HMS Thrasher arrived to render assistance and tried to contact the Untamed. At 1745 all sound from the submarine ceased. Because of worsening weather conditions, divers were not able to inspect the stricken submarine until 1115 on 1 June - 45 hours after she had dived. There was no reply to the divers tapping on the hull of the submarine and an inspection of the vessel's hull showed no obvious damage. Only when the Untamed had been salvaged did the cause of her loss become clear; the forward part of the submarine had been flooded through a sluice valve. The entire crew was lost with the ship.

Untamed was salvaged on the 5 July 1943, refitted and named Vitality, returning to service in July 1944. As Vitality, she had an uneventful but short career and was sold to be broken up for scrap on 13 February 1946. She was broken up at Troon.
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Re: HMS Untamed

Postby gizmo » Fri May 08, 2009 9:31 pm

According to this link..http://www.hut-six.co.uk/cgi-bin/sxww2. ... &pageno=1.. 33 men died in this incident. 32 of the men were buried in Dunoon cemetery but 1, Engine Room Articifer Challonger was buried in Kilkerran cemetery. I think a few Campbeltown men served on HMS Shemara (sometimes known as Lady Dockers Yacht I believe). Does anyone know why 1 man was buried in Kilkerran or anything about the locals on Shemara.
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Re: HMS Untamed

Postby Ross » Tue May 12, 2009 8:16 pm

May 30, 1943 the HMS Untamed P-58 sank off Campbelltown during a training mission. The Vickers built boat
was conducting an underwater target exercise with surface ships and simply failed to surface when expected.
Rescue operations began immediately but to no avail, by morning the next day the rescue had been called off.

On July 5 the Untamed was raised and it was determined that the cause of the sinking was due to a valve which
had been incorrectly installed giving a false reading to the crew, and when they opened an inner hatch to gain
access to the patent log, the sea poured into the boat with such pressure the crew had to abandon that compartment. From the investigation that followed it appears that carbon dioxide built up rapidly preventing
clear thinking by the crew. It is speculated that they spent almost four hours attempting to pump the water out
of the boat instead of trying to escape. (Even though they were signaled by the surface ships to do so.)

When they realized that they would not be able to raise the boat they moved to the engine room and began an
attempt to escape by flooding the compartment and using the internal pressure to force open the outer hatch.
Sadly a second valve now malfunctioned, this valve, again having been installed incorrectly, showed to be
open when it was closed. Nobody knows how much time it took the crew to determine why the engine room would not flood but, during this period someone opened another valve which, after the engine room began
taking on water, allowed much of it to enter the bilge adding to the time it would take to flood the engine room.

Because of the added time it took to flood the engine room the men, now overcome by oxygen depravation,
could no longer help themselves and they all lapsed into unconsciousness and died. Not one of the 36 man crew
made it out alive.

After Untamed was raised and rebuilt she was recommissioned as HMS Vitality and served through the rest of the war. HMS Vitality was scrapped in 1946.

Found this on a site Maritime Quest. Explains what they believed to have happened onboard.
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