HMS ''Trafalgar'' is a decommissioned of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

. Unlike the rest of the ''Trafalgar''-class boats that followed, she was not launched with a

pump-jet A pump-jet, hydrojet, or water jet is a marine system that produces a jet of water for propulsion. The mechanical arrangement may be a ducted propeller ( axial-flow pump), a centrifugal pump, or a mixed flow pump which is a combination of bot ...

propulsion system, but with a conventional 7-bladed propeller.Graham, Ian, ''Attack Submarine'', Gloucester Publishing, Oct 1989, page 12. ''Trafalgar'' was the fifth vessel of the Royal Navy to bear the name, after the 1805

Battle of Trafalgar The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (180 ...

Operational history

In 2012 a Royal Navy submariner was jailed for 8 years for trying "to pass secrets to the Russians that could have undermined Britain's national security"; one element of this was information on "a secret operation undertaken by HMS ''Trafalgar''.

Combat history

After

Operation Veritas Operation Veritas was the codename used for British military operations against the Taliban government of Afghanistan in 2001. British forces played a supporting role to the American Operation Enduring Freedom. In addition, the British contribut ...

, the attack on Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces following the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

in the United States, ''Trafalgar'' entered

Plymouth Sound Plymouth Sound, or locally just The Sound, is a deep inlet or sound in the English Channel near Plymouth in England. Description Its southwest and southeast corners are Penlee Point in Cornwall and Wembury Point in Devon, a distance of abou ...

flying the

Jolly Roger Jolly Roger is the traditional English name for the flags flown to identify a pirate ship preceding or during an attack, during the early 18th century (the later part of the Golden Age of Piracy). The flag most commonly identified as the Jolly ...

on 1 March 2002. She was welcomed back by Admiral Sir Alan West, Commander-in-Chief of the fleet and it emerged she was the first Royal Navy submarine to launch

Tomahawk cruise missile The Tomahawk () Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is a long-range, all-weather, jet-powered, subsonic cruise missile that is primarily used by the United States Navy and Royal Navy in ship and submarine-based land-attack operations. Under contract fr ...

s against Afghanistan.

Grounding incidents

In July 1996, ''Trafalgar'' grounded near the Isle of Skye in Scotland. In November 2002, ''Trafalgar'' again ran aground close to the Isle of Skye, causing £5 million worth of damage to her hull and injuring three sailors. She was travelling 50 metres below the surface at more than 14 knots when Lieutenant-Commander Tim Green, a student in the "Perisher" course for new submarine commanders, ordered a course change that took her onto the rocks at Fladda-chuain, a small but well-charted islet. Commander Robert Fancy, responsible for navigation, and Commander Ian McGhie, an instructor, both pleaded guilty at court-martial to contributing to the accident. On 9 March 2004 the court reprimanded both for negligence. Green was not prosecuted, but received an administrative censure. In May 2008 it was reported that the crash was caused by the chart being used in the exercise being covered with tracing paper, to prevent students marking it.

Decommissioning

''Trafalgar'' was decommissioned on 4 December 2009 at Devonport.

References

External links

Royal Navy HMS ''Trafalgar''
(royalnavy.mod.uk)

(maritimequest.com)
The BBC - Pictures of ''Trafalgar's'' final voyage
(news.bbc.co.uk) {{DEFAULTSORT:Trafalgar (S107) Trafalgar-class submarines Ships built in Barrow-in-Furness 1981 ships Cold War submarines of the United Kingdom