We have a wonderful wooden box in our collection. It contains a leather wallet full of snapshot photos, some coins, cufflinks, a pocket watch, a pipe, and some rather fancy personalised cutlery. The snapshots show uniformed servicemen and a submarine, captioned HMS Ursula. The box quite obviously belonged to one of the officer class of the Royal Navy, and the cutlery holds the answer to whom.
HMS Ursula was the first permanent command of Lieutenant Arthur Richard Hezlet. He commanded her from September 1941 and did six patrols in this U-class submarine. This box represents a brief snapshot of a distinguished submariner early in his naval career. He would go on to become Vice Admiral Sir Arthur Richard Hezlet KBE CB DSO DSC, one of the most famous submariners of the Second World War
Hezlet joined the Navy aged 13 in 1928, and began his submariner course at HMS Dolphin in 1935. Already promoted to Lieutenant in 1936, he was made First Lieutenant of HMS H43 from January 1938 to April 1939.
His first deployment of WW2 was in the Norwegian Sea on HMS Trident. He subsequently passed the notorious “Perisher” exam (Submarine Commanding Officers Qualifying Course), and assumed command of the obsolete HMS H44. His first torpedo attack on the enemy would be in the Mediterranean when his ship, HMS Unique, sank the Italian troop ship, Esperia, for which he was awarded the DSC.
It was after proving himself in this theatre that he was given command of HMS Ursula from 6th September 1941 to 6th March 1942. During this time, Ursula did patrols off Tripoli, the southern approaches to the Strait of Messina, and off the East Coast of Tunisia. She torpedoed and damaged the 4,858-ton Italian Merchant, Beppe on 18th October 1941. More notably, she managed to get involved in a battle with an armoured car while the submarine’s gun crew were engaged in shelling a coastal road bridge on the Italian mainland. This was part of a reconnaissance mission on 22nd October off the North of Cape Spartivento, in which she was instructed to select a suitable bridge to bombard. She fired 77 rounds at the chosen bridge, landing 22 direct hits.
Ursula made an unsuccessful attack on a convoy on 11th November 1941, and was depth charged by the escort ships, though she sustained no damage. Following this, she patrolled the Bay of Biscay in case any German Capital ships at Brest left port.
On return to Britain, Hezlet was given command of his old boat, Trident, engaged in operations around the convoys to northern Russia. He sank the 5,386-ton German ore carrier Hödur. Trident then escorted Convoy PQ16 to Murmansk, a journey that saw almost constant action, and picked up survivors from sunken merchantmen. Hezlet was mentioned in dispatches for his action on convoy duties.
He then became a training officer for midget submarines in preparation for the attack on the German battleship Tirpitz in the Altenfjord, Norway, in 1943. He wrote the training programme and had a major say in who was chosen for the eventual attack, which put the battleship out of action for months. On 11th September 1943, his ship, HMS Thrasher, left Loch Cairnbawn towing submarine X5 to her departure point for what was to be Operation Source, the attack on the Tirpitz. Thrasher then laid anchor at Kafjord before ultimately returning to Holy Loch. X5 was sadly lost during the attack.
Next came action in the Pacific with HMS Trenchant, which participated in Operation Boomerang, the USAAF’s B-29 raid on oil fields and refineries at Palembang. Trenchant was to assist with any search and rescue operations for downed aircrews.
In October 1944, Trenchant deployed two Mark II Chariot Manned Torpedoes to destroy two former Italian Merchant ships. The mission was successful, with both targets sunk.
On 8th June 1945, Hezlet’s ship sank the 13,300 ton heavy cruiser Ashigara. It was the largest Japanese warship to be sunk by a Royal Navy warship during the war. For this, Hezlet was awarded the US Legion of Merit, plus a bar to his DSO.
The young man given command of HMS Ursula back in 1941 could not have known what an illustrious career lay ahead. For him the future was very uncertain with many perilous missions ahead. The box is a wonderful time capsule from a remarkable gentleman who has since cemented his name in the history books. It is on display at Pool House alongside many other fascinating artefacts and incredible stories of bravery.
