HMS ''Tapir'' (P335) was a

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

British T-class submarine The Royal Navy's T class (or ''Triton'' class) of diesel-electric submarines was designed in the 1930s to replace the O, P, and R classes. Fifty-three members of the class were built just before and during the Second World War, where they pl ...

, built by

Vickers-Armstrong Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, w ...

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of B ...

. So far she has been the only ship 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 ...

to bear the name ''Tapir'', after the

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

Career

As HMS ''Tapir''

The submarine was laid down on 29 March 1943, and launched on 21 August 1944. Commissioned into the Royal Navy on 30 December of that year, she led a distinguished career for such a late entry into the war, torpedoing the German submarine U-486 in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

, to the north-west of Bergen, Norway at position on 12 April 1945.

HNLMS ''Zeehond''

On 18 June 1948, she was deemed surplus to requirements, and was loaned to the Netherlands for a period of five years, being commissioned into the Royal Netherlands Navy as HNLMS ''Zeehond'' (P335) on 12 July 1948. Together with ''O24'' and ''HNLMS Van Kinsbergen'', she visited Curaçao in 1949. Gravity measurements were taken during the trip (the first Dutch ones following the war) and the ''Zeehond'' conducted a long snorkel trip on the way back. She was transferred back to the Royal Navy on 15 July 1953, finally being re-commissioned and renamed ''Tapir'' on 16 December of that year.HNLMS Zeehond (2)
dutchsubmarines.com HMS ''Tapir'' was scrapped at Faslane in December 1966.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tapir (P335) British T-class submarines of the Royal Navy Ships built in Barrow-in-Furness 1944 ships World War II submarines of the United Kingdom Zwaardvisch-class submarines Cold War submarines of the United Kingdom