HMS Unshaken (P54) was a 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...

 U-class

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...

 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...

 built by Vickers-Armstrong

Vickers

Vickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 1999.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...

 at 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...

. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Unshaken.

Career

After a period operating of the coast of Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, Unshaken spent most ofher wartime career in the Mediterranean. Whilst in northern waters, on 5 July 1942, Unshaken radioed in a sighting and an exact description of a heavy German force - including the Tirpitz

German battleship Tirpitz

Tirpitz was the second of two s built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the architect of the Imperial Navy, the ship was laid down at the Kriegsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven in November 1936 and launched two and a half years later in April...

, Admiral Scheer

German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer

Admiral Scheer was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland. She was laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in June...

 and Admiral Hipper

German cruiser Admiral Hipper

Admiral Hipper, the first of five ships of her class, was the lead ship of the Admiral Hipper–class of heavy cruisers which served with the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. The ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1935 and launched February 1937; Admiral Hipper...

 - as at sea in pursuit of the ill-fated convoy PQ17

Convoy PQ-17

PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied World War II convoy in the Arctic Ocean. In July 1942, the Arctic convoys suffered a significant defeat when Convoy PQ 17 lost 24 of its 35 merchant ships during a series of heavy enemy daylight attacks which lasted a week. On 27 June, the ships sailed...

 off North Norway. Hearing of these allied sighting reports (also made by Russian submarine K-21 and a Catalina patrol aircraft

PBY Catalina

The Consolidated PBY Catalina was an American flying boat of the 1930s and 1940s produced by Consolidated Aircraft. It was one of the most widely used multi-role aircraft of World War II. PBYs served with every branch of the United States Armed Forces and in the air forces and navies of many other...

) through intelligence, Admiral Raeder

Erich Raeder

Erich Johann Albert Raeder was a naval leader in Germany before and during World War II. Raeder attained the highest possible naval rank—that of Großadmiral — in 1939, becoming the first person to hold that rank since Alfred von Tirpitz...

 cancelled the sortie, ordering the surface fleet to return to port and leaving the Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

 and U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

s to attack the convoy. The convoy lost 24 ships out of 40, but it could have been even worse for the convoy if the heavy force had remained at sea.

Unshaken also sank the German merchant Georg L.M. Russ off southern Norway, before being reassigned to the Mediterranean in late 1942.

Serving in the Mediterranean, she sank the Italian merchants Foggia and Pomo (the former Yugoslavian Nico Matkovic), the Italian torpedo boat Climene, the Italian sailing vessel Giovanni G., the Italian auxiliary patrol vessel No 265 / Cesena, and the Italian troop transport Asmara. She also damaged the Italian tanker Dora C.. She launched unsuccessful attacks against the French merchant Oasis, the Italian merchants Pomo, Nina and Campania, and the French passenger/cargo ship Cap Corse. Unshaken had a narrow escape, after she was attacked by four torpedoes launched by the Polish submarine ORP Dzik

ORP Dzik

ORP Dzik was a U-class submarine built by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness. She was laid down on 30 December 1941 as P-52 for the Royal Navy, but was transferred to the Polish Navy during construction. Launched on November 11, 1942, ORP Dzik was commissioned into the Polish Navy on December...

. The Poles thought they were attacking an enemy submarine, but luckily the torpedoes missed their target. Unshaken captured the Italian submarine Menolti on the night that Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 ceased hostilities and escorted it to Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

.

After a return to home waters in mid 1944, Unshaken sank the German merchant Asien off Lista, Norway.

Unshaken survived the war and was scrapped at Troon in March 1946.