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RN Submarine Sunk by Hostile Soviet Destroyers 

The L Class (1917) submarines of WW1 were mostly commissioned too late to see service against Germany during WW1. 

However one, HMS L55, was lost to hostile enemy action.

During June 1919 she was based at Tallin, Estonia operating against Bolshevik units. 

On 09-Jun-1919 at Caporsky Bay, in the Gulf of Finland, she attacked two Bolshevik minelaying destroyers, the Gavril and Azard. She missed her targets and was forced into a minefield before being sunk by gunfire from the destroyers. So becoming the only British submarine to be sunk by hostile Soviet vessels.

She was salvaged in 1928 and re-commissioned into the Soviet Navy with her original pennant number on 07-Aug-1931.

They used her as a training boat until the start of WW2 and her final fate is unknown.

 

This page last edited - 09 December, 2012.

Copyright © Ian M King, except where otherwise indicated.