HMS Sidon

Two ships of the British Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Sidon, named for Sidon, a city in Lebanon.

The first HMS Sidon (1846) was a first-class paddle frigate designed by Sir Charles Napier[?]. Her keel was laid down May 26, 1845 at Deptford Dockyard. She was launched May 26, 1846. She had a fairly short career for a warship, but it included and the rescue of the crew of the sinking Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation vessel Ariel on May 28, 1848, and a trip up the Nile that same year. She was broken up in July 1864.

General Characteristics

• Displacement: 1316 tons
• Length: 211 feet
• Beam: 37 feet
• Draught: 27 feet
• Engines: two direct-acting Seaward engines making 560 horsepower
• Speed: 10 knots
• Armament
  • Middle Deck
    • 14 eight-inch/60-hundredweight guns
    • two 68-pounder/88-hundredweight pivots (fore and aft)
  • Quarter Deck: four eight-inch/52-hundredweight on slides
  • Fo'c'sle: two eight-inch/52-hundredweight on slides.
• Silhouette: 3 masts, 2 funnels

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The second HMS Sidon was launched in September 1944, one of the third group of S-class submarines[?] built by Cammell Laird[?] & Co Limited, Birkenhead.

On the morning of June 16, 1955, Sidon was moored alongside the depot ship HMS Maidstone[?] in Portland Harbour[?]. Two experimental torpedoes, code-named "Fancy," had been loaded aboard for testing. 56 officers and crewmen were aboard.

At 8:25am, an explosion in one of the Fancy torpedoes (but not the warhead) burst the number-three torpedo tube it was loaded into and ruptured the forward-most two watertight bulkheads. As always in explosions aboard submarines, fire, toxic gases, and smoke accompanied the blast. Twelve men in the forward compartments died quickly and seven others were seriously injured.

The submarine started to settle by the bows with a list to starboard, and her commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Verry, ordered the ship evacuated from the engine room and after escape hatches. Thanks to a rescue party from Maidstone, everyone not immediately killed escaped, except Maidstone's medical officer. He had gone aboard with the rescue party, assisted several survivors, and collapsed, unnoticed, in the control room after everyone else had left. At about 8:50 Sidon sank to the bottom of the harbour.

One week later the wreck was raised and towed into a causeway on Chesil Beach. The bodies of the 13 casualties were removed and buried with full honours in the Portland Naval Cemetery[?] on top of the cliffs overlooking the harbour. A Court of Inquiry[?] cleared anyone aboard Sidon for the loss of the boat. The direct cause of the accident was determined to have been malfunctioning of the "Fancy" torpedo, and that torpedo program was terminated.

A torpedo being readied for the morning test shot had begun a "hot-run" -- its engine had started while it was still inside the submarine and was over-speeding, creating very high pressures in its fuel system. The "Fancy" torpedo used "High Test Peroxide" (HTP) as an oxidizer. When an oxidizer line burst, HTP sprayed onto the copper fittings inside the torpedo, decomposing into oxygen and steam. The torpedo's warhead did not detonate, but its hull burst violently, rupturing the torpedo tube and causing the flooding that destroyed the boat.

It is likely that similar circumstances initiated the sequence of events that caused the loss of Kursk on August 12, 2000.

Sidon was refloated, and sunk as an ASDIC target on June 14, 1957.

General Characteristics

• Displacement: 814-872 tons surfaced, 990 submerged
• Length: 217 feet
• Beam: 23.5 feet
• Draught: 11 feet
• Speed: 14.75 knots surfaced, 8 knots submerged
• Armament: one three-inch gun, one 20mm antiaircraft gun; three .303 machine guns
• Torpedo Tubes: seven 21-inch (six forward, one aft), 13 torpedoes
• Complement: 48