HMS TRIUMPH carried out North Sea patrols off Norway until December 1939 when she was badly damaged by a mine which blew off eighteen feet of her bows. After repair lasting six months, she resumed patrol duties off Norway in August before being transferred to the Mediterranean in January 1941 for the interception of supply traffic to and from North Africa.

During February 1941 she landed commandos for a raid on the Apulian coast. Whilst on patrol in May that year she sank two ships off Calabria as well as the Italian Auxiliary Ramb 3 off Benghazi. Her successes continued in June when she sank the Italian submarine Salpa off Mersa Matruh by torpedo after a surface gun action. Whilst on patrol in July, she attacked and sank a 500-ton freighter being escorted by the Italian gunboat Dante de Lutti which was then sunk in a surface action. Some damage requiring repair was subsequently carried out in Malta. On return to duty in August, she attacked and damaged the Italian cruiser Bolzano. During an Adriatic patrol in September 1941 she sank another merchant ship and damaged two others in surface gun attacks. The next month she sank a transport in the Aegean and on return to deployment off North Africa she carried out an attack on a coastal convoy sinking one of its ships.

HMS TRIUMPH (Lt J S Huddart) sailed from Alexandria on Boxing Day 26 December 1941 for a patrol in the Aegean with instructions to land a party of agents on Antiparos, returning later to re-embark them, together with any escapees who might have been collected.

Four days later she reported that she had safely landed the party, but she failed to make the rendezvous on 9 January, and nothing further was heard from her. There is no Axis record of her loss; it is likely she struck a mine off Milo.

In 2023 it was announced that, after a 25 year search, what is almost certainly the wreck of TRIUMPH has been discovered by Greek diver Kostas Thoctarides in the Aegean Sea, at 203m, several kilometres off Cape Sounio on mainland Greece. The bow section has catastrophic damage but it is not yet determined whether this was caused by a mine or by a malfunction of one of TRIUMPH’s own torpedoes. See this article from Divernet.

It is known from German records that a submarine, which could only have been TRIUMPH, made an unsuccessful attack on a tug towing a barge around Cape Sounio on the morning of 9 January, and that it was that night that the submarine was to have conducted the pickup from Antiparos. Thus we now know that 9 January 1942 is the actual date that HMS TRIUMPH was lost, although the official date of the crew’s death, based on being overdue at the end of patrol, remains 20 January 1942.

The website of the HMS Triumph Association has much information about the submarine and her crew. Many of the stories and photographs of crew members here have been sourced from their site, with thanks to the Association and the family members. The author of that site would very much welcome it if any family members not represented there would get in touch.

In June 2024 a commemoration was conducted at sea over the position of the wreck of HMS TRIUMPH, attended by 42 descendants of crew members.  An outstandingly beautiful and informative 38 minute film of the occasion was commissioned by Gav Don,  nephew of Lieutenant Robert Don, DSC**.