On 8 November 1939, some nine weeks after the outbreak of World War II, Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, announced, ‘Since the outbreak of war one of our submarines, HMS Oxley, has been destroyed by an accidental explosion’. The announcement was untrue because, not only was Oxley lost some seven weeks earlier, on 10 September, but the ‘explosion’ was not accidental. It would be over a decade before the true story became public knowledge.
HMS Oxley had an unusual career, having been ordered originally, with her sister Otway, for the Australian Navy. They were built at Barrow-in-Furness, launched in 1926 and completed in 1927. The two boats were similar to the Royal Navy’s Odin class, with a surface displacement of 1,350 tons, and submerged 1,870 tons. Armed…
