Dates: 1943 -
HMS Tiptoe was a British submarine of the third group of the T class. She was built as P332 by Vickers Armstrong, Barrow, and John Brown & Company, Clydebank, and launched on 25 February 1944.
She had the honour of being named by Winston Churchill, and so far has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to be named Tiptoe.
Service
Tiptoe served in the Far East for much of her wartime career. She sank two Japanese coasters, the Japanese merchant cargo ship Tobi Maru and the Japanese salvage vessel Tencho Maru, which had unsuccessfully been attacked by HMS Trump the previous day. She also damaged a Japanese coaster with gunfire. Together with Trump, Tiptoe also sank an unidentified Japanese oiler.
Post war
She survived the war and continued in service with the Navy. She took part in escape trials in 1962, which were a series of trials conducted off Malta into escape from a submarine at extreme depths. Seven men attempted to escape from Tiptoe at a depth of 260 feet.
On 10 January 1964, Tiptoe ran aground in the Clyde, coincidentally and rather embarrassingly, directly in front of the house of the area’s senior naval officer.
Tiptoe was also damaged in a collision with HMS Yarmouth on 13 July 1965. Tiptoe was at periscope depth 10 miles SE of Portland Bill. She was repaired at the yards of Cammell Laird.
She also starred in the film "We Dive at Dawn", co-starring John Mills. By the time of her decommissioning, Tiptoe was the last T-class submarine in service. She was scrapped at Portsmouth in 1979. Her anchor was saved, and is at Blyth, commemorating Blyth’s links with submarines.
