"Of all the branches of men in the Forces, there is none which shows more devotion and faces grimmer perils than the submariner.
Great deeds are done in the air and on the land; nevertheless, nothing surpasses your exploits." Winston Churchill.

"Only in attack does a submarine reveal herself, before creeping away to the concealment of the deep"

She was rammed and sunk on 1st August 1940 with 52 survivors.  The Royal Navy commissioned the submarine HMS Oswald on the 1 March 1929. It departed from Portsmouth with HMS Osiris, Odin and Otus as part of the 3rd Submarine Flotilla. During World War Two the Italian destroyer Vivaldi rammed HMS Oswald whilst it undertook a patrol in the Straits of Messina. The crew were captured and taken as prisoners of war in Italy.

The ramming and depth charging by the Italian destroyer Vivaldi caused extensive damage to HMS Oswald and the vessel’s Lieutenant Commander decided to abandon ship and sink the craft. Petty Officer Edwin Clay describes in his prisoner of war logbook his escape from the submarine. After getting a few DSEA sets out, the vents of the submarine were opened and we took in water.  The Captain made us keep in a bunch and we gave the Oswald three cheers as she dived. A few minutes after we felt the battery tanks go with a bang'. Following two and a half hours of being in the sea the Italian destroyer returned to collect the crew. 52 submariners had survived but three of the ratings had died whilst in the water. The Italians gave the newly captured prisoners food and blankets before taking them to a naval hospital at Taranto, Southern Italy.

From Taranto the crew of HMS Oswald moved to the island of Poveglia, near Venice, where they worked on repairing the local roads and gardens. Then, in October 1940, a train transported them to the prisoner of war camp in Sulmona. At each station Italian soldiers faced the carriages with fixed bayonets, however, they did allow people to throw bags of sweets to the hungry prisoners. The prisoner’s brick built huts at Sulmona had a concrete floor and furniture consisting of iron beds with two blankets, two sheets and a pillow. As the weather in the camp grew colder the prisoners felt the need of warm clothing. Ninety per cent of the boots had holes and their owners fixed wood to the soles to keep their feet off the snow. For socks they used pieces of sheeting bound round their feet.

Prisoner escapes altered life in the camps for those captives left behind. After a successful getaway the guards often ransacked the huts and withdrew privileges from the remaining prisoners. Despite it being contrary to the Geneva Convention, the guards often enacted some form of collective punishment such as a reduction in food.  In Italy numerous accounts by Allied fugitives speak of the kindness and generosity shown by all sections of Italian society to escapees. Most striking of all was the help offered by the impoverished peasantry. If discovered this could result in their punishment and even death. One such account involved Leading Telegraphist E J Arnold who became a prisoner of war when the Italian corvettes Minerva and Euterpe sank the submarine HMS Saracen in 1943. He managed to escape from his internment camp and found refuge with two Italians called Rosa and Seraphina in the village of Caparolla. Uniquely, during his escape, he had taken a Luftwaffe shirt.

After the war Arnold returned to Caparolla to say thank you to Rosa and Seraphina for their help in saving his life. He discovered that someone had reported them to the Germans. They made Rosa and Seraphina stand outside of their house all night long and in the morning shot them. As a vivid reminder, Arnold saw the bullet holes still in the side of the house.

.http://www.rnsubmus.co.uk/general/losses.htm#oswald - Says: On 19^th July 1940 HMS Oswald left Alexandria for patrol east of Sicily. At 1230 on the 30^th she spotted a convoy comprising three merchant ships and several destroyers. Oswald’s unsuccessful attack on the convoy alerted the Italians to the submarine’s presence and the 14^th and 16^th Destroyer Squadrons were ordered to seek out the submarine. On 1^st August the destroyer Vivaldi sighted Oswald on the surface at a range of 2500 metres. The destroyer immediately turned to ram the submarine, striking Oswald’s starboard side. Oswald began taking in water and the order to abandon ship was given. Not long after a series of explosions shook the submarine and Oswald sank to the bottom.

August 2009: I read your stuff about the Oswald. My dad, Robert (Jock) Scott, was stoker aboard when it came to an inglorious end, but he survived and spent the rest of the war as one of the  POWs. He died at the very young age of 57, and never talked about his experiences to us kids (I was conceived on his return to UK) My brother John is 4 years older, and bears the middle name of Oswald! But he never liked being named after dad's boat. I would like to learn more of his time as a POW. On another site I found a picture of about 34 of the crew posed in the camp, but it is a bit small, and I'm guessing which is dad, if he's on it. Love to hear from you, Mike Scott.

Not being a naval person, but - how can you have a 'stoker' on a submarine?

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