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In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, the Submarine
Service, in common with all the armed forces, was rapidly scaled
down in a political atmosphere of financial economy and war-weariness.
The desire for disarmament in the 1920s and early 1930s led to
international limits being imposed on submarine construction by
the London Naval Treaties of 1930 and 1936. Before the latter
was signed, the British Government even proposed the abolition
of the submarine, though it did not expect its proposal to be
accepted. Inside the Royal Navy there was still a residue of feeling
against the weapon, echoing its earliest days at the beginning
of the century, but also reinforced by the repugnance felt against
the unrestricted submarine warfare of the German U-boats.
At the end of the war, the boats which had carried the burden
of the fighting were retired from service. Of the large number
of different designs built during the war itself, only a few survived
into the interwar period. Some, like the K and M classes, were
the product of over-ambitious tactical concepts and did not endure.
The former, for example, was an attempt to build a submarine to
operate with surface fleets, but it suffered a large number of
accidents and was described as "the result of an unholy
union between a destroyer and a submarine". The H class,
built from an American design, and the L class, a larger and more
powerful version of the E class, became the mainstays of the interwar
fleet.
The first new designs to be constructed in peacetime reflected
Britain's changing strategic situation. Growing rivalry in the
Pacific between Japan and the United States persuaded Britain
not to renew its Japanese alliance, as it desired closer relations
with the USA. Therefore, the O, P and R classes, begun in the
mid-1920s, were designed as large, long-range boats to safeguard
Britain's interests in the Far East. They remained on the China
Station until 1940, when Italy's entry into the Second World War
saw them transferred to the Mediterranean.
These boats were superseded by new designs in the 1930s, which
were to provide the backbone of the submarine service during the
Second World War. The small S and U classes were built for Home
coastal waters and the Mediterranean. The T class, "undoubtedly
the finest submarines ever constructed for the Royal Navy",
and the Porpoise class were intended for action in the Far East
against Japanese surface ships and on minelaying operations respectively.
The submariner's world was still one of danger. The Service lost
fourteen boats between 1918 and 1939. The most tragic incident
occurred in June 1939 when HMS Thetis went down in Liverpool
Bay during diving trials with the loss of all but four of the
103 men on board - 53 crew and fifty staff from her Cammell Laird
builders.
See Images 7 and 8 in the Image
Gallery.
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