HMS Tradewind was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

 of the third group of the T class

British T class submarine

The Royal Navy's T class of diesel-electric submarines was designed in the 1930s to replace the O, P and R classes. Fifty-three members of the class were built just before and during the Second World War, where they played a major role in the Royal Navy's submarine operations...

. She was built as P329 at Chatham

Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard, located on the River Medway and of which two-thirds is in Gillingham and one third in Chatham, Kent, England, came into existence at the time when, following the Reformation, relations with the Catholic countries of Europe had worsened, leading to a requirement for additional...

, and launched on 11 December 1942. So far she has been the only ship 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...

 to be named Tradewind, after the Trade wind

Trade wind

The trade winds are the prevailing pattern of easterly surface winds found in the tropics, within the lower portion of the Earth's atmosphere, in the lower section of the troposphere near the Earth's equator...

s.

Service

She spent most of her wartime career operating against the Japanese in the Far East, attacking enemy shipping and laying mines. She sank nine Japanese sailing vessels, and two small unidentified Japanese vessels, a Japanese tug and the Japanese merchant tanker Takasago Maru. The Japanese merchant cargo vessel Kyokko Maru was sunk after hitting a mine laid by Tradewind.

Her most infamous sinking was of the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese army cargo ship Junyō Maru

Junyo Maru

The was a Japanese cargo ship that was sunk in 1944 by the British submarine , resulting in the loss of over 5,000 lives.The ship was built in 1913 by Robert Duncan Co. Glasgow. It displaced 5,065 tons, was long, wide, and deep. The engines were rated at...

 which was headed for Sumatra

Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...

, on 18 September 1944. Unbeknown to the Commanding Officer of Tradewind, Lt.Cdr. Stephen Lynch Conway Maydonof, the Japanese ship was carrying 4,200 Javanese slave labourers and 2,300 Allied prisoners of war from Batavia to Padang. 5,620 lives were lost in the sinking.

She survived the war and was modified in July 1945-September 1946 to become an acoustic trials submarine and used for tests. The modifications included the removal of external torpedo tubes and guns, the bridge was faired, the hull streamlined and some internal torpedo tubes blanked over. Measurements made using Tradewind were used to overhaul several of the T class boats to increase their ability to act stealthily against Soviet submarines and surface ships.

Tradewind was eventually scrapped at Charlestown on 14 December 1955.

External links

• http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.2558