HMS Taku (N38)

HMS "Taku" was a British T class submarine built by Cammell Laird, Birkenhead. She was laid down on 18 November 1937 and was commissioned on 3 October 1940.

Career

"Taku" served in home waters and the Mediterranean. In April 1940, she mistook HMS "Ashanti" for a German destroyer and fired several torpedoes at her. Fortunately, they all missed. In an attack on a German convoy in May, she damaged the German torpedo boat "Möwe", and in November, launched a failed attack on the German tanker "Gedania".

Assigned to the Mediterranean in 1941, she scored numerous kills, including the Italian merchants "Cagliari" and "Silvio Scaroni", the Italian passenger / cargo ship "Caldea", the German munitions transport "Tilly L. M. Russ", the Italian auxiliary minesweeper "Vincenso P.", the Italian tankers "Arca" and "Delfin", and the Greek sailing vessels "Niki", "Lora" and a small unidentified one. She also attacked, but failed to hit the German merchant "Menes" and the Italian tanker "Cerere".

Reassigned to operate off the Scandinavian coast in 1944, "Taku" sunk the German merchants "Rheinhausen" and "Hans Bornhofen", and heavily damaged the German merchant "Harm Fritzen". In March she attacked a convoy, but missed her target, the German merchant "Moshill".

"Taku" struck a mine in April 1944, and was damaged. After the end of the war, she was sold for scrap in November 1946 and broken up in South Wales. [ [http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/3489.html HMS Taku] , Uboot.net]

References

*"Submarines, War Beneath the Waves, from 1776 to the Present Day", by Robert Hutchinson ISBN 978-0060819002
*Colledge