HMS Sportsman

About

HMS Sportsman was a third-batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Completed in 1942, she spent most of the war serving in the Mediterranean Sea. After an initial patrol off Norway, she sank the heavy transport Général Bonaparte in the Mediterranean in 1943 and missed a French oil tanker.

She was heavily damaged after a mistaken attack by an Allied bomber, and was sent east after repairs to participate in operations in the Black Sea. After the operation was cancelled, Sportsman patrolled the Aegean Sea, sending several Greek and German ships to the bottom. She sank the German transport SS Petrella in early 1944 despite it being clearly marked as a prisoner-of-war ship, killing 2,670 out of 3,173 Italians aboard.

Sportsman sank several more ships, and suffered minor damage when she was detected and sighted while attempting to attack a convoy. After a refit in the United States, she returned to the United Kingdom where she participated in additional training for operations in the Far East. The deployment was cancelled when the war in the Pacific ended in 1945, and Sportsman was placed in reserve at Harwich.

She was transferred in July 1952 to the French Navy...