HMS Soufriere; a brief note of her service in the Royal Navy.

[Rheged]

I seem to recall some time ago, suggesting that the career of the Soufriere, a half-sister to the better known submarine Surcouf might be of interest. Here then is the product of my research.  As usual, please feel free to read, ignore, disdain, adapt or even deride this offering, as you see fit.    Should you have further information about this little-known vessel, I'd welcome your input and should anyone be brave enough (or sufficiently unhinged enough)  to convert this material into styrene, I'd very much like to see it!

HMS Soufriere

This story begins in Kelvinside, Glasgow in April 1895, with the birth of Alexander Dougald Thompson-Frazer. After a childhood education at Glasgow Academy, he entered the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth in August 1908 and passed out as a Midshipman third in his term. After showing considerable  interest in the relatively new submarine   fleet, he was posted to HMS Dolphin at Gosport.  Most of his subsequent service was in submarines, although he did spend a year as a sub-lieutenant on a destroyer.  In April 1918, as a newly promoted lieutenant-commander, he  became captain of the E class submarine E33.  Nine wartime patrols  in the North Sea as part of a forward picket line off the German coast  followed, and on November 21st 1918 the officers and crew of E33 watched the Imperial German High Seas Fleet sail into the Firth of Forth to surrender.    The end of hostilities  resulted in a reduction in the size  of the Royal Navy.  By  late 1921, E33 had been taken out of commission and Thompson-Frazer, seeing no chance of promotion or even continued employment, resigned his commission and took up a place at Glasgow University studying engineering. After taking a first class degree, he took employment with the Swiss engineering company Sulzer Brothers.  By 1938, Thompson-Frazer headed the Sulzer agency in Cherbourg  with a staff of 20 Swiss technicians and an ex RN Engine Room Artificer as foreman.

The French Submarine service in the inter-war period  advanced the theory of a "sousmarin-corsair"...a submersible commerce raider .  The submarine Surcouf  (1) was commissioned in 1934, with an armament of two 8 inch guns and a seaplane. She was rapidly followed by a second vessel, the Soufriere. After extended trials and two  initial sorties from Brest, Soufriere  docked in Cherbourg to allow the Sulzer agency to effect fine tuning and modifications to the diesel engines

On June 15th 1940, the evacuation of British and Canadian f.orces from Cherbourg began, under the control of Admiral Dunbar-Naismith in Devonport. The naval party were instructed to acquire or render inoperable any assets that could be used by the advancing German forces.  At this juncture, Thompson-Frazer approached the commander of the naval party with a remarkable suggestion.  Soufriere was in all respects ready for sea, and manned only by an anchor watch at the Sulzer jetty. Why should the naval party not take command and sail Soufriere to Devonport? The Sulzer staff were all prepared to co-operate and if the submarine sailed on the surface, a minimal crew was necessary.  To the objection that no submarine commander was available, Thompson-Frazer reminded the naval party that he had commanded an E class submarine........albeit some time ago.  Captain Peter Hill, commanding officer  of the  Cherbourg evacuation party decided that the over-riding Royal Navy mantra of "Engage the enemy more closely"  covered the situation. Soufriere was boarded by a party of naval ratings and Royal Marines and  with a 45 year old commanding officer  a retired Royal Navy  ERA  and a party of Swiss (2) civilians in the engine room, Soufriere  slipped her cables and put to sea. The 6 hour voyage to Portland Harbour was accomplished with minimal interference from the Luftwaffe, the escorting Grimsby class sloop HMS Ellenborough putting up a considerable volume of fire from her own armament and the massed rifles of evacuated troops . Having safely arrived at  Portland naval base, a more regular crew was assembled and Soufriere was sailed to Gosport.  Thompson-Frazer was offered a commission as an engineering officer in the submarine service, and ended  the war as Commodore Thompson-Frazer DSO, OBE.

At this point Soufriere was regarded by the navy as an answer in search of a problem.  After some consideration she was commissioned as HMS Soufriere with her name derived from the volcano on the island of Montserrat, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean.  She was subject to a brief refit by Vickers at Barrow in Furness which was simply replacing all metric gauges with Imperial units and sent to Rothesay to be "loosely attached" to the 3rd Submarine flotilla.   The submarine M2, lost on exercise in 1932, had operated a Parnell Peto(3)  aircraft, and it was decided to check if this aircraft would be a suitable replacement for the Besson MB411 (4) that Soufriere carried whilst in French service. Trials with Peto N182 (which had been in deep storage at RNAS Ford since 1931)proved that the concept was viable, but spending up to 15 minutes immobile on the surface for both flying off and recovery operations did not appeal to submarine officers.
 
Soufriere's long surface range was finally  put to use in early 1941, when she was attached to a small hunting group of light cruisers, tasked with identifying and neutralising Kreigsmarine supply ships and blockade runners. Her first success was when she approached the supply tanker Esso Mecklenburg flying a false flag.  On coming alongside the tanker west of the Cape Verde islands, a boarding party was able to seize the tanker and take her into Freetown in Sierra Leone.  Cypher  material recovered in the exploit was immediately flown to the UK, whilst captured supplies were distributed amongst HM ships. Esso Mecklenburg was renamed Empire Montserrat and eventually became the Eastern Fleet base tanker at Kilindini in Kenya.  Further interceptions were made by the cruiser squadron and blockade running became an increasingly unprofitable venture.

In mid-December 1941, HMS Soufriere was used as an escort on  a Liverpool to Caribbean  tankers in ballast   convoy. It was considered that any commerce raider would find her two eight inch guns and 18 knot speed too much of a challenge.  On arrival at Point Fortin, Trinidad  Soufriere refuelled and moved immediately to Colon at the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal to act as a guardship, Japan having attacked Pearl Harbour the previous day. She remained there for some weeks before being used by an Admiralty training team out of Charleston Navy Yard as a "Clockwork mouse" asdic target attempting to rapidly change the United States Navy from a peacetime to a war footing.

HMS Soufriere was the only long range vessel  available when a Vichy-supporting administration took control of Tahiti, the   main island of French Polynesia.  Fifty Royal Marines from Bermuda were embarked in the accommodation earmarked for prize crews in the commerce raider  submarine's original design. Passing through the Panama Canal, she made a steady 12 knots and 18 days later arrived in Tahiti.   Mistaken by locals for her half-sister Surcouf, Soufriere was able to land her marines unopposed and take control of the situation. New Zealand troops arrived some days later to ensure that the administration reverted to Free French officials.  Soufriere then sailed westwards to Australia, berthing at Cockatoo Island Naval Dockyard  for a refit.

In October 1942, Soufriere sailed north to assist the Australian army 7th division in the retaking of the Northeastern  New Guinea coast.  Acting as a mobile heavy artillery battery, Soufriere devastated Japanese supply dumps along the coast and as a commerce raider did serious damage to the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer resupply convoys. Early 1943 saw Soufriere  sailing via Perth , Trincomalee and Aden to Alexandria. She passed through the Mediterranean and called briefly at Gibraltar before  reaching HMS Dolphin at Gosport. In July 1943, she was paid off and handed over to the Free French Navy.  A major refit to restore her to French operating standards followed.   Her large crew requirement and lack of trained submariners in the Free French forces meant that she was considerably underemployed for nearly a year after her reinstatement in the French navy.  Soufriere's twin 8 inch guns added to the huge weight of naval firepower on D-day  but under French command her proudest moment was entering Cherbourg Harbour after the port had been liberated and sufficiently cleared to allow safe access.  On 18th August 1944 Soufriere entered Cherbourg and berthed at the former Sulzer works jetty from where she had been taken by the Royal Navy  four years previously.

As a vessel of the Marine Nationale, Soufriere served a further eight years as a static training ship in Cherbourg and later Brest, before being decommissioned and sold for scrap. She was scrapped by Chantiers de l' Atlantique at St Nazaire  during the course of 1953.

 
(1)  https://www.hisutton.com/Surcouf.html
(2) The Swiss engineers were subsequently flown to Gibraltar and travelled from Algeciras to Genoa by a Spanish passenger ship, then by train to Switzerland
(3)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parnall_Peto
(4) https://www.passionair1940.fr/Aeronavale-1939-40/Aeronavale/Appareils/Hydravions-Embarques/Besson-MB411/EN-Besson-MB411.htm

[PR19_Kit]

SUPERB Mike, that reads just wonderfully, and would have many reaching for their reference books muttering 'Hmm, I didn't know about that one'.     

[Gondor]