HMS Alliance E-Book

Bob Mealing

• Herausgeber: Pitkin
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 26

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

HMS Alliance

Das E-Book HMS Alliance wird angeboten von Pitkin und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:
museum ship,acheron class,amphion class,a class,Acheron-class,Amphion-class,A-class,submarine,portsmouth,national royal navy museum,royal navy,royal navy submarine museum,pitkin

Leseprobe

Introduction

HMS Alliance was laid down at the Vickers Shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness on 13 March 1945. Allied forces had entered Germany and the defeat of Hitler’s Third Reich was just weeks away. In the Far East, the war with Japan was at its height. HMS Alliance and the other A Class submarines under construction had been designed for the Pacific in World War Two. Following the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in August 1945, the Japanese surrendered and the war was finally at an end. When HMS Alliance entered service in 1947, Britain was still subject to economic austerity and wartime rationing. The first signs of tension between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union were apparent and the British Empire was beginning to break up.

Over the next three decades, Alliance performed many different roles in the post-war Cold War era. She operated all over the world and many hundreds of submariners served in her during the course of her 26 years in commission. In 1958, her familiar appearance as a World War Two-era submarine changed dramatically when she was comprehensively modernised to meet the demands of Cold War submarine operations. Alliance was streamlined and made quieter and faster underwater because her new role included countering the submarines of the Soviet Union.

In 1973 Alliance was finally paid off at HMS Dolphin in Gosport, then the home of the Royal Navy Submarine Service. For a few years Alliance served as a static training submarine, but in 1979 the Navy embarked on the ambitious task of preserving Alliance as the last surviving submarine from World War Two. In 1982, HMS Alliance went on display to the public for the first time as an historic ship, and also as a memorial to more than 5,300 submariners who had given their lives serving in Royal Navy submarines.

World War Two

In 1939, at the outbreak of World War Two, the Royal Navy did not possess any submarines specially suited for operation in the Far East. The climate and sheer size of the Pacific Ocean meant that submarines operating in that theatre needed greater endurance and improved crew habitability. In the Pacific, a submarine might take up to a week just to reach her patrol area, while the heat and humidity was a constant challenge to the efficiency and health of the crew. The A Class were specifically designed for Far East operations and there were a number of key features incorporated into the design. Alliance was bigger and faster than previous Royal Navy designs, and most of the crew accommodation was located forward of the noise and smell of the Engine Room and heads (toilets). In addition, Alliance could carry more fresh water, had greater cold storage for food, and an air-conditioning system. Fully fuelled, Alliance could travel up to 15,000 miles.

Above: HMS Alliance (as P417) underway on Sea Trials off Barrow-in-Furness, August 1946.

Above right: HMS Alliance coming alongside after a week ‘snorting’ in the Atlantic, 1947.

Below: HMS Alliance underway, 1947.