HMS Tigris (N63)

HMS Tigris (N63) was a T-class submarine of the Royal Navy. She was laid down at Chatham Dockyard and launched in October 1939.

Career
Tigris had a relatively active career, serving in the North Sea and the Mediterranean.

Home waters
Tigris was active in the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay in mid 1940. She sank the French fishing vessels Sancte Michael, Cimcour, Charles Edmond and Rene Camaleyre, the French merchants Jacobsen and Guilvinec, and the German tanker Thorn. She unsuccessfully attacked a number of submarines, including U-58 and the Italian submarine Veniero and may have also attacked the Italian submarine Otario.

Tigris also succeeded in sinking the Italian submarine Michele Bianchi.

She was assigned to operate in the North Sea off the Scandinavian coast in mid 1941. Off the coast of Finnmark she sank the Norwegian passenger/cargo ships Haakon Jarl and Richard With, In the case of Richard With, the ship sank in less than a minute, killing two of the three German soldiers on board and claiming the lives of 101 civilian Norwegians.

Post-war the Norwegian public was told the attacks had been carried out by Soviet submarines. She also attacked and heavily damaged the German auxiliary submarine chaser UJ 1201 off the Rolvsøy Fjord. The bow of the ship sank but the stern was towed to port and the ship was rebuilt, entering service again in April 1944. Tigris also unsuccessfully attacked the German merchant Bessheim and a merchant of 3,000 tons, and also attacked a convoy, but missed her targets of the Norwegian merchants Mimona, Tugela and Havbris.

She was also one of the ships assigned to track the German battleship Bismarck.

Mediterranean
Tigris was reassigned to the Mediterranean, and was active there from late 1942. On the 6 December, she torpedoed and sank the Italian submarine Porfido, for which her commander, George Colvin, was later awarded the Distinguished Service Order. On 21 Jan 1943, she sank the Italian merchant Citta di Genova in the Strait of Otranto,. This ship was carrying Greek officers, who were being taken as hostages to Italy, many of whom perished.

Sinking
Tigris left Malta on 18 February 1943 to patrol off Naples. She was last sighted at 0730 on 24 February, 39 mi from Capri. On the morning of the 27th, the German submarine chaser UJ2210, escorting a convoy six miles south east of Capri, made contact with a submarine and carried out three depth charge attacks, the third attack brought oil to the surface and the contact was noted to be stationary. A fourth attack of fifteen depth charges brought a huge bubble of air to the surface. On 6 March, Tigris was ordered to Algiers but there was no reply to this signal. She failed to return to Algiers on 10 March 1943 and was declared overdue on that date. Tigris was most likely the submarine sunk on 27 February by UJ-2210 commanded by Otto Pollmann.

Tributes
Each year there is an annual Remembrance Service for the submarine and the crew lost at St Nicolas Church, Newbury, Berkshire, on the Sunday nearest 27 February.

The submarine had been adopted by the town of Newbury during the Second World War as part of Warship Week. The plaque from this adoption is held by the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth.