HMS ''Una'' was a

British U-class submarine The British U-class submarines (officially "War Emergency 1940 and 1941 programmes, short hull") were a class of 49 small submarines built just before and during the Second World War. The class is sometimes known as the ''Undine'' class, after ...

, of the second group of that class, built at Chatham Dockyard. She was laid down on 7 May 1940 and was commissioned on 27 September 1941.

Career

She spent most of her career operating in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

from early 1942, where she sank the Italian tanker ''Luciana'', the Italian fishing vessel ''Maria Immacolata'', and the Italian merchants and ''Petrarca''. Controversially, the ''Lucania'' was a tanker which had been granted immunity by the Admiralty, as she was to serve as a replenishment ship for an Italian ship repatriating civilians from East Africa; the submarine's commander, Lieutenant D.S.R. Martin, was ill and had not read the Admiralty signal before departure. She also damaged two sailing vessels and the Italian merchant ''Cosala'' (the former Yugoslavian ''Serafin Topic''). The damaged Italian ship was grounded, but declared a total loss and eventually sank during a storm. She was unlucky on numerous occasions, unsuccessfully attacking the Italian merchant ''Brioni'', the Italian tanker ''Panuco'' and the German merchant ''Menes''. ''Una'' also fired torpedoes against a merchant in Lampedusa harbour. The torpedoes however hit the rocks. In the night of 11/12 August 1942 disembarked a commando group on the shores of Catania, Sicily. The idea was to attack an airfield in support of

Operation Pedestal Operation Pedestal (, Battle of mid-August), known in Malta as (), was a British operation to carry supplies to the island of Malta in August 1942, during the Second World War. British ships, submarines and aircraft from Malta attacked Axis p ...

, but after blowing up the electrical power lines between Syracuse and Catania, the dispirited group was taken prisoner. The unsuccessful raid was described by one of its members,

Eric Newby George Eric Newby (6 December 1919 – 20 October 2006) was an English travel writer. His works include '' A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush'', '' The Last Grain Race'' and '' A Small Place in Italy''. Early life Newby was born in Barnes, Lond ...

, as the first chapter of his memoir ''

Love and War in the Apennines ''Love and War in the Apennines'' is a 1971 Second World War memoir (with some changes of names and people and places, and some composite characters) by Eric Newby. In the United States the title was changed to ''When the Snow Comes, They Will Ta ...

''. From April to August 1943, she was used for Anti-Submarine training after undergoing a refit in the UK. After the end of the war, she was decommissioned and placed in reserve in November 1945. She was sold to be broken up for scrap on 11 April 1949 and scrapped at Llanelly.Hastings p.167

Citations

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Una (N87) British U-class submarines Ships built in Chatham 1941 ships World War II submarines of the United Kingdom