Lost submarine’s Cannock connection
WHILE attending an exhibition at the Museum of Cannock Chase a couple of years ago, I happened upon an oval oak plaque commemorating the adoption of HMS Shark by Cannock Urban
Council in the Second World War.
I mistakenly thought it would be easy to find out a little more information about the ship. It turns out that there was more than one vessel of that name, and more than one plaque ...
The first HMS Shark was a sloop launched in the 1830s and little is known of it. In 1895 a torpedo destroyer HMS
Shark was launched, and another destroyer named HMS Shark took part in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 – see last week’s Bugle.
Sub
In 1920 a new destroyer was given the name Shark and in the Second World War, there was yet another – this time a submarine. She ran her sea trials in 1934, and was barely 200 feet in length. She could “taxi” over 2,000 miles on the surface and travel at nearly 16 miles per hour. The vessel took part in assisting the French and British land forces that went to assist Norway when the Germans invaded. The support of the poorly organised landings resulted in this HMS Shark also being sunk. She was the tenth Royal Navy submarine to be lost during the war. The Birmingham Mail in mid-july 1940 was the first newspaper to publish details:
An Admiralty communique issued to-day states that H.M. submarine Shark (Lieut.-cmdr. P. N. Buckley, R.N.) is considerably overdue and must be presumed lost. The next of kin have been informed. The Shark accompanied other British submarines on hazardous patrols in Norwegian waters when Hitler launched his invasion on Norway.
At the end of September 1940 further details were available:
H.M. Submarine Shark, reported missing last month, went down fighting, after an eight-hour battle. This is stated in a letter written to his mother by Stoker William Saunders, of Ball Terrace. Wadebridge, Cornwall, from a German prison camp. “I won’t say much about what happened to our ship,” Saunders writes, “except that we were fighting for eight hours. Although I was wounded, I am now out of the doctor’s hands. I can still smile and hope you will do the same.”
The letter adds that all except four of the crew escaped.
However, it would take nearly five years and the end of hostilities for the full details to become available. The People newspaper on 12 August 1945 announced:
BRITISH CREW SANK OWN SUB.
After fighting for over six hours against overwhelming odds, the British submarine, still raked by devastating fire of enemy fighters, seaplanes and bombers, had all but reached her last gasp. The bridge a shambles of wounded men, blood and empty cartridge cases, powerless to dive or to steer, she was sunk by her own crew just as two enemy ships began to tow her away as a prize. That is the story, revealed today after five years’ silence, of the last hours of H.M.S Shark.
Aircraft
The struggle lasted for more than six hours, and towards the end the submarine’s crew was fighting off enemy aircraft with only a rifle or two and a Lewis gun.
““But the end was now in sight,’’ said Commander Buckley, “although everyone stuck to his post until wounded or killed outright.”
Then, after another fifteen minutes of furious battle, the submarine ran out of ammunition and the commanding officer was compelled to break off the action. It was then that the enemy tried to tow the Shark away. But the submarine’s crew had already made their plans to prevent this.
No sooner had the trawlers begin their work than the submarine went down vertically, stern first, her last action being to damage the propeller of one of the trawlers, so that in the end it was an enemy ship that was towed back to a German-held harbour, and not the Shark.
Two years later the name of HMS Shark was resurrected and given to a destroyer. The following year, in recognition of the funds raised by Cannock during its Warships Week, in November 1943 Vice Admiral Sir Robert Hornell arrived in Cannock and handed over to Mr. F. Hurmson (chairman of Cannock Urban District Council and also chairman of the War Savings Committee) a replica of the ship’s badge with a brass plaque.
Mr Hurmson responded reciprocally with a “carved inscribed tablet” which he hoped would be hung in HMS Shark. It was this tablet that I noticed in one of the exhibition rooms at the Museum of Cannock Chase, and I assumed it had been returned to Cannock Council at some point, probably in 1944.
In May 1944 the destroyer Shark was handed over to the Royal Norwegian Navy and renamed NMS Svenner, to be manned entirely by Norwegian personnel. The Board of Admiralty announced on 15 July 1944 the N.M.S Svenner was one of three destroyers lost on D Day.
Storeroom
But what happened to the large plaque donated to Cannock Council? After further investigations, the Museum of Cannock Chase told me they had found a large cardboard box in the store room, and would I like to come and check out the contents? Grabbing my camera and dragging my friend Wayne Hartshorne I was ushered into a room.
What struck both Wayne and myself was not just that the shield had survived, but its size, and the craftmanship of the shield. We truly were holding a piece of Cannock’s history, one that has amazingly survived nearly eighty years.