The day a submarine ‘sank like a stone’ in the estuary

The Royal Navy submarine sank in the estuary after colliding with an oil tanker, resulting in the deaths of 64 men.

Like something out of a modern day disaster movie, things then took an even more devastating turn when an RAF aircraft scrambled to bring specialist divers to the rescue site then crashed itself – killing its five crew instantly.

The drama unfolded just after 7pm on January 12, 1950, when HMS Truculent collided with the Swedish ship, the Divina near to the Nore Forts in the estuary.

The 1,500 tonne T-class submarine had been built in 1942, costing £350,000 and was on its way to Sheerness when it was struck by the Divina, whose bows had been specifically toughened for travelling through ice in Arctic conditions.

This made the collision force far worse. As she was rammed by the Swedish tanker, the impact punched a “great, gaping hole” into the submarine’s fore end.

Most of Truculent’s crew managed to reach the surface via the escape hatch, but 57 of them died on the surface – most swept away by the currents of the estuary.

Damage - some of the submarine’s crew who managed to escape were plucked out of the water by the Divina crew

Others managed to reach mudflats but perished in the freezing condition.

Along with its normal compliment, the submarine had also been carrying 18 dockworkers from Chatham docks, where the ship had just undergone a refit.

When it came time to escape through the hatch, the crew put non-swimmers and the dockworkers first. A number of men were left trapped inside the submarine when it went down to the seabed, somewhere between Whitstable, in Kent, and Foulness Island.

Dozens of rescue ships and aircraft were quick to the scene and searched desperately for survivors, but many had frozen to death by the time they were discovered.

The Southend Pictorial newspaper carried the story on the front page. It described how the Truculent “sank like a stone” and told how divers and naval frogmen attempted to make contact with the men trapped in the submarine by tapping on the hull – but no response ever came.

Some of the submarine’s crew who managed to escape were plucked out of the water by the Divina crew as well as by sailors on a passing Dutch steamer ship, the Almdijk.

One of the Almdijk’s crew told the newspaper how they were alerted after hearing cries for help coming from the dark water below.

“A lifeboat was lowered and the search began”, he said. “We then saw five men in the water clinging to three lifebelts. They were suffering from exhaustion and we got them on board and gave them hot drinks and cigarettes.”

In a bid to rescue the stricken men on the submarine, an RAF Lancaster was scrambled from Scotland to go and fetch specialist naval divers from Rosyth and bring them to the estuary.

However, it crashed while taking off – killing the plane’s crew of five instantly.

Southend’s own lifeboat and its heroic crew were singled out for their efforts during the crisis. The lifeboat was the first rescue vessel to the scene of the disaster and remained there from 8.30pm on the night of the sinking until the afternoon of the following day.

An inquiry later attributed 75per cent of the blame of the accident to Truculent and 25per cent to the Divina. The Divina had been en route for Ipswich, from Purfleet, when the collision occurred.

The Divina tanker captain, Carl Hommerberg, was later quoted as saying: “We had no idea we had hit a submarine. We thought it must be a surface vessel and there would be survivors.

“Those we did collect were in no fit state to be able to talk after being in the freezing water.” Three months after the collision, the Truculent was salvaged and taken to Grays to be scrapped.

The disaster led to the introduction of an extra ‘Truculent light’ at the back of British submarine fins, to make them more visible on the surface.