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THE VOYAGES OF HMS TURPIN 135
escape tower. Moments later they pulled alongside the vessel on
which they were to serve for many months.
'Never in a million years were we expecting a submarine,'
recalls Beasley. 'We just could not believe it ... Standing
together like clockwork soldiers we were ushered towards the
escape hatch, just forward of the conning tower and told to
drop our holdalls down the steep ladder and follow. Time was
of the essence: Their escort, Leading Seaman 'Snowy' Snow,
was horrified to discover that none of his new charges had
been trained for submarines, and regarded them as a danger
to themselves and the rest of the crew. One of Beasley's three
fellow sparkers called out: 'What's the name of this iron coffin'
The answer came back, 'HMS Turpin: 28
HMS Turpin was a Group 3 T-class submarine which entered
service at the end of the Second World War. In 1945 the Allies
were aware that their submarine technology was well behind
that of the German U-boats, especially Hitler's legendary latemodel
Type-2Is. The Group I and Group 2 submarines that had
been built earlier in the war were scrapped, but like the illfated
USS Cochino, the Turpin and seven other Group 3 T-class
submarines were sent for what was termed 'Super-T Conversion',
essentially an interim measure before new classes of submarine
came on stream. Crucially, the later Group 3 submarines were
of welded rather than riveted construction, making them more
streamlined than their predecessors. Their hulls were now
lengthened to accommodate more electronic equipment, in some
cases a sigint listening room, together with additional electric
motors and new batteries. The deck gun was removed and the
conning tower replaced with a more modern design that enclosed
the periscopes and masts. The radar and sonar were improved.
All eight boats could now achieve a speed of over eighteen
knots, giving them an excellent chance of evading any Soviet
hunters. 29
Tony Beasley and his three 'Telegraphist Special' comrades
were treated to a tour of the Turpin. Snowy explained that,
together with all the recent conversions to bring it up to the