HMS Sirdar

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Sirdar.

HMS Sirdar
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Sirdar
Builder	Scotts, Greenock
Laid down	24 April 1941
Launched	26 March 1943
Commissioned	20 September 1943
Fate	broken up 1965
General characteristics
Displacement	814-872 tons surfaced 990 tons submerged
Length	217 ft (66 m)
Beam	23 ft 6 in (7.16 m)
Draught	11 ft (3.4 m)
Speed	14.75 knots surfaced 8 knots submerged
Complement	48 officers and men
Armament	6 × forward 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, one aft 13 torpedoes one three-inch (76 mm) gun gun (QF 4-inch on later boats) one 20 mm cannon three .303-calibre machine gun

HMS Sirdar was an S-class submarine of the Royal Navy, and part of the Third Group built of that class. She was built by Scotts, of Greenock and launched on 26 March 1943.

Wartime career

Sirdar spent most of the war in the Pacific Far East, where she sank two Japanese coasters, two sailing vessels, two unidentified vessels, and the Japanese guardboat Kaiyo Maru No.5. She also damaged another coaster with gunfire.

Postwar career

She survived the Second World War, and continued in service. Along with her sisters, HMS Scorcher and Scythian, Sirdar took part in the search for the missing HMS Affray in 1951. They all flew large white flags to distinguish them from the missing Affray. Sirdar later sat on the bottom for six hours while the ASDIC boats familiarised themselves with the identification of a submarine sitting on the bottom.

On the night of 31 January/1 February 1953, Sirdar was in dry dock at the naval dockyard at Sheerness, Kent when Sheerness was struck by the North Sea flood of 1953. Flood waters caused lock gates to fail, flooding the dry dock holding Sirdar and causing her to capsize. She was refloated and returned to service.

Sirdar was eventually sold, and arrived at the yards of McLellen on 31 May 1965 for breaking up.

References

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.