I have an interesting story that explains why I am on this forum.

My Dad was a geordie who signed up to the Royal Marines at 17 in 1947.  Sadly he died in 2002 but he left me an old ships wheel, although I had no idea where he acquired it.

I researched the wheel and discovered it was from HMS Penylan, a Type III Class Destroyer which was sunk by S115 in 1942 in the English Channel.

“on the night of 2-3/12/1942, Penylan was escorting coastal convoy PW257. Off Start Point, Channel, it was attacked by 6 S-boote of the 5th Flotilla out of Cherbourg. In this attack, the freighter Gatinais and the Penylan were sunk, Penylan being claimed by S.115 of OL Klocke.
The S-boote had been tracked by shore radar since 0325 hrs but only one badly-worded signal had been sent to the convoy at 0437 hrs, resulting in a complete surprise by the Germans”.

Anyhow, I live in NE Scotland and met a Welsh girl whom I now live with - we go to Wales (Anglesey) a couple of times a year to stay at her mum's and she once remarked to me that Penylan was by co-incidence her Grandmothers House name long ago Pen-y-lan).

Well, we were there on holiday a couple of weeks ago and she was helping her mother tidy up some stuff when she came across old papers including a letter from her uncle who was known to have been killed in the war.  There was also a telegram informing of his death - on HMS Penylan.... amazing co-incidence.

As I have been gathering info on the net, I came upon this site which to my delight, had photos of S115 (although clearly not in good condition).

If anyone has any further info about this boat, I would appreciate it.

This is a very interesting site!

cheers,

Brian.

Hello 'briser'

Welcome aboard shipmate and thank you for your kind words regarding the site.

I am wondering whether you have traced the story of the e-boats elsewhere on the site. Just click the logo on the top left of page - then select Boat Histories - then 'E-Boats -(toward the end of the list) and then follow the many links that are within that particular Topic - some interesting images there too.

Regards

Hi Pioneer. Just started to explore then had to return to a semblance of working lol!

I will certainly be looking around more when I get more time.

Brian.

Hi Brian

I'm afraid that is all my H.Fock book says about it. Both Norway and Denmark inherited a whole pile of E-Boats off the Americans, the Danish finally used 18 of them in their intended role as the Glenten Class, modifying their weapons fits to keep them up to date and keeping them shipshape until they were decommissioned in the early 60's, and built 6 more of their own called the Flyvefisken Class (1954-74) and finally the 4 boats of the Falken Class (1962-78).The Norwegians seemed less enthusiastic with Lurssen's displacement hull design and broke up most of theirs by about 1950. They inherited some Scott-Paine designed 80ft Elco PT Boats off the USA (PT 602-612) and these formed the basis for the design of the Tjeld (Nasty) Class boats (all hard-chine).

In the late 40's the Danes inherited some of the Norwegian E-Boats boats too, but S-115 was not one of these. It is likely she was broken up quite early on. Try Norwegian Naval Records?

Regards, Christian.