Scrapped Submarine

[Steve20]

In 1985, whilst living in London, my work took me to the South coast. Driving into Portsmouth I saw a scrapped submarine from the road, so I stopped, had a walk around and took a few pics. Now living in Gosport, I’ve found out that this was John Pounds’ scrapyard at Tipner and it is just up the water from Portsmouth dockyard and the old Gosport submarine base.  The area has been cleared now and maybe someday I’ll try and find out which submarine this was.

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Steve20

[Steve20]

Some more pics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Steve20

[Jim Lad]

Some really interesting old vessels rotting away there, Steve.

[Steve20]

18 hours ago, Jim Lad said:

Some really interesting old vessels rotting away there, Steve.

There are, Jim. When I was quite young there used to be a lot of interesting small ships laid-up on estuaries and river banks, but they've all been removed now. Also, there were all sorts of boats and these included ex-torpedo boats, patrol boats, landing craft, etc. which people had aquired for personal use. They've all disapeared now. I think the authorities wanted to clear them out and most boats now are in marinas with the interesting ones almost all gone.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Steve20

[Swordfish073]

Thank you for posting these fascinating images.  I’m pretty sure those are either modernised  S, or perhaps, T Class WW2 submarines.  In the 1950s some were stripped back for high speed tests. They seemed to have conning towers similar to the German Type xxi boats.  The conning tower.on the dock, for instance, perhaps from an earlier boat, has a roughly painted pennant number S14, which was HMS Supreme but was passed on to the Oberon class boat, HMS Onslaught, still in service when you took these.  However, I think Supreme was scrapped 35  years before your visit.  This is really interesting and I wish you good luck with your research.  Please let us know what you find out.  

Edited August 23, 2023 by Swordfish073
Additional data.

[Swordfish073]

This site might help you:

 

http://rnsubs.co.uk/articles/development/diesels.html#Section_3b

 

[BobG]

Thanks for posting these colorful and interesting photos. These abandoned ships and decaying boats make great a great setting for photography.

[Roger Pellett]

Great photos, thanks for posting.

[SteveAWenham]

The car ferry alongside was the old Sealink Yarmouth to Lymington boat Freshwater. Alongside is the former HMS Warmingham (ex inshore minesweeper) and outboard is the coast guard cutter Vigilent. 

 

The rotten Submarine in the various photos is an ex WW1 US Navy Submarine P556. Loaned to the RN during WW2 for training at HMS Dolphin. A battery fire in 1944 put an end to her career. This is the same sub that was often mistaken for a German U Boat off Portchester following the war. 

Other relics in the shot include the half demolished Submarine HMS Tiptoe and the cut down hulk of HMS Volafe a Type 15 frigate whose remains still lie in the mud on the Tipnor shore albeit much less than you see here. The Submarine fin you can see on the dockside with the red numerals is HMS Statesman. This is now on display up at Fort Southwick. 

Other vessels include MOD kitchen barges which served at DDay and a landing ship (similar to the one at the Southsea DD museum. This craft was convered to a Flak ship for D Day.