HMS Unique was a British U class submarine

British U class submarine

The British U class submarines were a class of 49 small submarines built just before and during the Second World War...

, of the second group of that class, built by Vickers Armstrong

Vickers Armstrong

Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927...

, Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...

. She was laid down on 30 October 1939 and was commissioned on 27 September 1940.

Career

She spent most of her career operating in the Mediterranean from mid 1941 under the command of Captain Arthur Hezlet

Arthur Hezlet

Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Richard "Baldy" Hezlet, KBE, CB, DSO and Bar, DSC, Legion of Merit was a decorated Royal Navy submariner...

, where she sank the Italian passenger/cargo ship Fenicia and the Italian troop transport Esperia. She also damaged the Italian cargo ship Arsia, which was later declared a total loss. On 5 January 1942, she made an unsuccessful attack on the Italian battleship Littorio

Italian battleship Littorio

|-External links:...

.

Sinking

Unique left Holy Loch

Holy Loch

The Holy Loch is a sea loch in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.Robertson's Yard at Sandbank, a village on the loch, was a major wooden boat building company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries....

 after a refit, for a patrol in the Bay of Biscay

Bay of Biscay

The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...

 on 7 October 1942. She left her escort off the Scillies on the 9th. No more was seen or heard from her after that date. HMS Ursula

HMS Ursula (N59)

HMS Ursula was a British U class submarine, of the first group of that class, built by Vickers Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness. She was laid down on 19 February 1937 and was commissioned on 20 December 1938....

 was in the area on the 10th and reported hearing underwater explosions that led her to believe Unique was under attack although the Germans made no claims to her sinking. She was reported overdue on 24 October 1942 when she failed to arrive at Gibraltar

Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...

.