Dundee International Submarine Memorial

Dundee International Submarine Memorial - Honouring Gallantry and Commemorating Sacrifice

Dundee Harbour was, from August to October 1939, the war station of the Royal Navy’s 2nd Submarine Flotilla. From April 1940 to May 1945, it was the base of the 9th Submarine Flotilla, a unique international force of British, Dutch, Free French, Norwegian and Polish crews. Russian submarine crews were also based in Dundee in the summer of 1944.

Six submarines and 296 sailors and commandos were lost on war operations from Dundee.

Dedicated in 2009, Dundee International Submarine Memorial honours the gallantry of all the British, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish and Russian submariners who sailed from the River Tay during the Second World War and commemorates the 296 who are ‘Still on Patrol’.

Still on Patrol - The Lost Dundee Submarines.
• HMS Oxley. Sunk in error by HMS Triton on 10 September 1939. Fifty-three of her crew lost, two survivors.
• HMS Thames. Lost, probably in a German minefield, early in August 1940 after attacking the German battlecruiser Gneisenau. All 62 crew lost.
• Dutch O-13. Lost, possibly in a German minefield, during a patrol in the North Sea in June 1940. All 31 Dutch and three British crew killed.
• Dutch O-22. Lost, probably in a a German minefield, while on patrol off south-west Norway in November 1940. All 42 Dutch and three British crew killed. Wreck discovered 40 miles off the Norwegian coast in 1993.
• Norwegian Uredd. Sunk by a German mine while on patrol near Bodø in February 1943. All 32 Norwegian and three British crew lost along with six Kompani Linge commandos and one MI6 agent in transit to occupied Norway. Wreck discovered in Fugløy Fjord in 1985 and is now a designated war grave.
• Soviet B-1 (ex-HMS Sunfish). Sailed from Dundee to join the Soviet Northern Fleet, sunk in error by the RAF off the coast of Norway on 27 July 1944. All 50 Soviet and one British crew lost.

Also commemorated on the memorial.
• Free French submarine Rubis. One man lost overboard while returning through an enemy minefield after the submarine was heavily damaged during an attack on an enemy convoy off Norway in 1941.
• Operation Musketoon. Raiding party landed in occupied Norway by the Dundee-based Free French submarine Junon. One commando fatally injured during an attack on a power station in Glomfjord. Seven other commandos taken prisoner and later executed at Sachsenhausen concentration camp.



Dundee International Submarine Memorial was jointly commissioned by the Unicorn Property Group and Dundee City Council.