HMS Tudor (P326)

HMS Tudor was a British submarine of the third group of the T class. She was built as P326 at Devonport Dockyard, and launched on 23 September 1942. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Tudor, after the Tudor period or Tudor dynasty.

HMS Tudor
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Tudor
Builder	Devonport Dockyard
Laid down	20 September 1941
Launched	23 September 1942
Commissioned	16 January 1944
Identification	Pennant number P326
Fate	Scrapped September 1962
Badge
General characteristics
Class and type	T-class submarine
Displacement	1,290 tons surfaced 1,560 tons submerged
Length	276 ft 6 in (84.28 m)
Beam	25 ft 6 in (7.77 m)
Draught	12 ft 9 in (3.89 m) forward 14 ft 7 in (4.45 m) aft
Propulsion	Two shafts Twin diesel engines 2,500 hp (1,900 kW) each Twin electric motors 1,450 hp (1,080 kW) each
Speed	15.5 knots (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph) surfaced 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) submerged
Range	4,500 nmi (8,300 km; 5,200 mi) at 11 kn (20 km/h; 13 mph) surfaced
Test depth	300 ft (91 m) max
Complement	61
Armament	6 internal forward-facing 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 2 external forward-facing torpedo tubes 2 external amidships rear-facing torpedo tubes 1 external rear-facing torpedo tubes 6 reload torpedoes QF 4 inch (100 mm) deck gun 3 anti-aircraft machine guns

Service

Tudor served in the Far East for much of her career in World War II, where she sank five Japanese sailing vessels, four Japanese coasters, and another Japanese vessel, as well as an unidentified sailing vessel north of Sumatra.

During the war Tudor was adopted by the Borough of Bridgend as part of Warship Week. The plaque from this adoption is held by the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth.^[1]

She survived World War II. On 23 April 1949, Tudor arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia to begin a three-month tour in Canadian waters helping train Canadian surface vessels in anti-submarine warfare.^[2] Tudor returned to the UK in July 1949, relieved by HMS Tally-Ho.^[3] The submarine was sold for scrap on 1 July 1963 and broken up at Faslane.^[4]

Notes

1. Warship Weeks: Adopting Naval Vessels in World War Two | Royal Naval Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard Archived 7 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine
2. "Submarine on Loan". The Crowsnest. Vol. 1, no. 7. King's Printer. May 1949. p. 2.
3. "The Year in Review". The Crowsnest. Vol. 2, no. 2. King's Printer. December 1949. pp. 2–4.
4. "HMS Tudor (P 326)". uboat.net. Retrieved 20 July 2016.

References

• Akermann, Paul (2002). Encyclopaedia of British Submarines 1901–1955 (reprint of the 1989 ed.). Penzance, Cornwall: Periscope Publishing. ISBN 1-904381-05-7.
• Bagnasco, Erminio (1977). Submarines of World War Two. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-962-6.
• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.
• Chesneau, Roger, ed. (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-146-7.
• Kemp, Paul J. (1990). The T-class Submarine: The Classic British Design. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-826-7.
• McCartney, Innes (2006). British Submarines 1939–1945. New Vanguard. Vol. 129. Oxford, UK: Osprey. ISBN 1-84603-007-2.