HMS Saracen was an S class submarine

British S class submarine (1931)

The S-class submarines of the Royal Navy were originally designed and built during the modernisation of the submarine force in the early 1930s to meet the need for smaller boats to patrol the restricted waters of the North Sea and the Mediterranean Sea replacing the British H class submarines...

 of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, and part of the Third Group built of that class. She was built by Cammell Laird and launched on 16 February 1942.

Career

Her first pennant was P213, to which her commissioning crew objected because of the unlucky connotations of 13

13 (number)

13 is the natural number after 12 and before 14. It is the smallest number with eight letters in its name spelled out in English. It is also the first of the teens – the numbers 13 through 19 – the ages of teenagers....

, so the Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 changed it to P247 (which still added up to 13). She started her wartime career in home waters, where she sank the German submarine U-335 in the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

. There was only one survivor out of a crew of 44, who died shortly afterwards.

She then served in the Mediterranean, where she sank the Italian submarine Granito, the Italian auxiliary submarine chaser V 3 / Maria Angelette, the French tugs Provincale II and Marseillaise V, the Italian merchants Tagliamento and Tripoli and the German merchant Tell. She also attacked and damaged two sailing vessels and the French (in German service) tanker Marguerite Finally. She also attacked a number of convoys, torpedoing and sinking the Italian merchant Francesco Crispi. Saracen had less luck attacking other convoys though, firing three torpedoes against a convoy made up of the small Italian tanker Labor, the German merchant Menes, escorted by the Italian torpedo boats Calliope and Climene. All torpedoes fired missed their targets. On another occasion, she fired four torpedoes against the German transport ship Ankara and one of her escorts, the Italian destroyer Camicia Nera. Again all torpedoes fired missed their targets.

Sinking

On 14 August 1943, whilst on patrol off Bastia

Bastia

Bastia is a commune in the Haute-Corse department of France located in the northeast of the island of Corsica at the base of Cap Corse. It is also the second-largest city in Corsica after Ajaccio and the capital of the department....

, Saracen was spotted by the Italian corvettes Minerva and Euterpe which attacked with depth charge

Depth charge

A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare weapon intended to destroy or cripple a target submarine by the shock of exploding near it. Most use explosives and a fuze set to go off at a preselected depth in the ocean. Depth charges can be dropped by either surface ships, patrol aircraft, or from...

s. Saracen was forced to surface and as the crew abandoned ship, they scuttled the submarine to avoid her capture.

Memorial

In September 2008 family of crew of HMS Saracen were invited to Corsica

Corsica

Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....

to witness the unveiling of a memorial to secret British agents who helped establish the Corsican Resistance, and to the submarine that landed them , HMS Saracen. A plaque commemorating HMS Saracen already existed in the fortress at Bastia, where the crew were taken after the sinking of Saracen.