HMS Trump - Military Genealogy

Dates: 1944 -

HMS Trump was a British submarine of the third group of the T class. She was built as P333 by Vickers Armstrong, Barrow, and launched on 25 March 1944. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Trump.

Service
Wartime
The all-welded submarine was commissioned in July 1944, during the Second World War and after an initial patrol in the North Sea in mid-October she was sent to the Far East. On arrival, she joined the Fourth Submarine Flotilla, ’Mothered’ by the depot ship HMS Adamant based at Perth in Western Australia. There, she carried out a further four patrols before the end of the war.

During her Far East service, she sank the Japanese guardboat Shosei Maru No.15, a Japanese sailing vessel and two coasters. Together with her sister HMS Tiptoe, she sank an unidentified Japanese oiler.

Also with Tiptoe, she carried out the final and possibly one of the most remarkable torpedo attacks of the war. The two submarines attacked an escorted convoy, northbound from Singapore, in water so shallow that both submarines were forced to bump along the bottom to avoid detection and Trump had to ’clock’ her bows up to give her torpedoes a chance of running.

Post war
She survived the war and continued in service with the Navy, being reconstructed in 1956. She was extensively modified with the hull being streamlined for faster and quieter underwater speed. This included the removal of the deck gun and the replacement of the conning tower with a "sail", the addition of an extra battery and the insertion of a new 14 feet long section of hull to accommodate extra motors. She served with the 4th Submarine Flotilla at Sydney, Australia from 1961 until 1969, including refits at Cockatoo Dockyard in 1962 and 1965. She was finally scrapped at Newport on 1 August 1971.