HMS Trooper (N91) was a Royal Navy T-class submarine built by Scotts Shipbuilding in Greenock, Scotland. She was laid down on 7 May 1940, launched on 5 March 1942, and commissioned on 29 August 1942.
Service in the Second World War
Trooper spent most of her operational career in the Mediterranean Sea, where British submarines played a major role in attacking Axis shipping. During her wartime patrols she:
- Sank the Italian tanker Rosario.
- Sank the Italian merchant ship Forlì.
- Sank a sailing vessel.
- Sank the Italian submarine Pietro Micca.
- Damaged additional enemy vessels and attacked several others.
One of her earliest missions involved Operation Principal, a special operation using manned torpedoes ("human torpedoes") against Italian shipping in Palermo harbour. Trooper acted as a support submarine for the operation.
Disappearance
On 26 September 1943, under the command of Lieutenant John Somerton Wraith, HMS Trooper left Beirut for her eighth war patrol in the Aegean Sea near the Dodecanese Islands. She was also involved in special operations supporting Allied activity in German-occupied Greece.
Trooper failed to return to Beirut and was reported overdue on 17 October 1943. All 64 crew members were lost. For decades, the exact cause and location of her loss remained unknown. The prevailing theory was that she had struck a German minefield.
Discovery of the Wreck
In October 2024, Greek researcher and diver Kostas Thoctaridis and his team located the wreck in the Icarian Sea, between the Greek islands of Ikaria and Donousa, at a depth of about 253 metres (830 feet). The submarine was found broken into three major sections, consistent with a catastrophic mine explosion.
Royal Navy experts later confirmed the wreck as HMS Trooper. Evidence suggests she struck a German EMF mine laid in September 1943, ending an 81-year mystery surrounding her disappearance.
Legacy
The discovery brought long-awaited closure to the families of the crew and confirmed HMS Trooper's final resting place. Today she is regarded as a protected military grave and a reminder of the hazardous submarine operations conducted in the Mediterranean during World War II.
