HMS Seal (M37/N37) was a Grampus-class mine-laying submarine of the Royal Navy. She served in World War II and was captured by the Kriegsmarine and taken into German service as UB. A naval mine is a stationary self-contained explosive device placed in water, to destroy ships and/or submarines. ... Royal Navy Vanguard class submarine A submarine is a specialized watercraft that can operate underwater. ... The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the British armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ... World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons like the atom bomb World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th-century conflict that engulfed much of the globe... The Kriegsmarine (or War Navy) was the name of the German Navy between 1935 and 1945, during the Nazi regime, superseding the Reichsmarine. ...

She was laid down at the Chatham Dockyard on 9 December 1936, launched on 27 September 1938 and commissioned in the Royal Navy on 24 May 1939. Chatham Dockyard, located on the River Medway in Kent, England, came into existence at the time when, following the Reformation, relations with the Catholic countries of Europe had worsened, and thus requiring added defences. ... December 9 is the 343rd day (344th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1936 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... September 27 is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 95 days remaining. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... May 24 is the 144th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (145th in leap years). ... 1939 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

On 29 April 1940 Seal set out on a mine-laying mission in the Kattegat between Denmark and Sweden. On 4 May she was damaged by a mine and lay on the bottom until night, when she surfaced and tried to reach Swedish waters. At 01:30 she was spotted on the surface and attacked by two German Arado Ar 196s. With Seal unable to dive and the Lewis gun jammed, the crew surrendered to the anti-submarine trawler UJ-128 at 06:30. Seal was towed to Kiel where she was repaired and in November she was commissioned into the Kriegsmarine as UB under the command of Fregatkapitän Bruno Mahn. April 29 is the 119th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (120th in leap years). ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Baltic Sea The Kattegat, or Kattegatt, is a bay of the North Sea and a continuation of the Skagerrak, bounded by Denmark and Sweden. ... May 4 is the 124th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (125th in leap years). ... The Ar 196 was a shipboard reconnaissance aircraft built by Arado starting in 1936. ... The Lewis Gun was a pre-WWI era American design of machine gun most widely used by the British and Imperial armies that continued to see service all the way through to WWII. It is visually distinctive because of the wide tubular cooling shroud around the barrel, and the top... Anti-submarine warfare is a term referring to warfare directed against submarines. ... A modern Icelandic trawler A trawler is a fishing vessel designed for the purpose of operating a trawl, a net that is dragged along the bottom of the sea (or sometimes above the bottom at a specified depth). ...

As her equipment was not designed to German standards she had little military values, but was useful for propaganda purposes, and study of British torpedoes led to a better design of detonator. She was decommissioned in 1941 and scuttled at Kiel in 1945.

External links

• HMS Seal and UB from uboat.net