HMS Token (P328)

HMS Token in October 1946
History
United Kingdom
Builder: Portsmouth Dockyard
Laid down: 6 November 1941
Launched: 19 March 1943
Commissioned: 15 December 1945
Fate: Scrapped 1970
Badge:
General characteristics
Class and type: British T class submarine
Displacement:
  • 1,290 tons surfaced
  • 1,560 tons submerged
Length: 276 ft 6 in (84.28 m)
Beam: 25 ft 6 in (7.77 m)
Draught:
  • 12 ft 9 in (3.89 m) forward
  • 14 ft 7 in (4.45 m) aft
Propulsion:
  • Two shafts
  • Twin diesel engines 2,500 hp (1.86 MW) each
  • Twin electric motors 1,450 hp (1.08 MW) each
Speed:
  • 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h) surfaced
  • nine knots (20 km/h) submerged
Range: 4,500 nautical miles at 11 knots (8,330 km at 20 km/h) surfaced
Test depth: 300 ft (91 m) max
Complement: 61
Armament:
  • Six internal forward-facing 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes
  • two external forward-facing torpedo tubes
  • two external amidships rear-facing torpedo tubes
  • one external rear-facing torpedo tubes
  • six reload torpedoes
  • QF 4 inch (100 mm) deck gun
  • three anti-aircraft machine guns

HMS Token was a British submarine of the third group of the T class. She was built as P328 at Portsmouth Dockyard, and launched on 19 March 1943. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Token.

Operational Service

Commissioned into service after the end of the Second World War, on 3 September 1945, she had a relatively peaceful career with the Navy. In 1953 she took part in the Fleet Review to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.[1]

She was modernised at Devonport Dockyard in 1955. Her career was spent on the Home Station and in the Mediterranean, re-fitting at Malta. In 1965 she was part of the 1st Submarine Squadron in Portsmouth, providing basic training to submarines crews. In that year she took part in Portsmouth 'Navy Days'.[2] On 20 August 1967, Token was on exercise off the West coast of Scotland when she took the Danish merchant ship Opnor, which was adrift after her engines had broken down, under tow, preventing the merchant ship from drifting onto a reef.[3]

She was finally scrapped at Cairn Ryan in March 1970.[4]

Notes

  1. ↑ Souvenir Programme, Coronation Review of the Fleet, Spithead, 15th June 1953, HMSO, Gale and Polden
  2. ↑ Programme, Portsmouth Navy Days 1965, HMSO, p20
  3. ↑ "Token tows ship away from reef". Navy News. September 1967. p. 10. Retrieved 18 August 2018.
  4. ↑ HMS Token, Uboat.net

References

  • Akermann, Paul (2002). Encyclopaedia of British Submarines 1901–1955 (reprint of the 1989 ed.). Penzance, Cornwall: Periscope Publishing. ISBN 1-904381-05-7.
  • Bagnasco, Erminio (1977). Submarines of World War Two. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-962-6.
  • 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. OCLC 67375475.
  • Chesneau, Roger, ed. (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-146-7.
  • Kemp, Paul J. (1990). The T-class Submarine: The Classic British Design. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-826-7.
  • McCartney, Innes (2006). British Submarines 1939–1945. New Vanguard. 129. Oxford, UK: Osprey. ISBN 1-84603-007-2.


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