One Submarine's Secret War Against the Axis

One Submarine’s Secret War Against the Axis tells the extraordinary story of HMS Triumph and her crew during a pivotal year of the Second World War in the Mediterranean.

Arriving in theatre in early 1941, Triumph became a key player in a rapidly shifting campaign. As Allied troops retreated from Greece and Crete under the pressure of the advancing Wehrmacht, the submarine carried out a remarkable range of missions—landing SOE agents, rescuing escapers, and attacking Axis supply convoys and Italian warships with gun and torpedo.

Among the many figures drawn into her story are Greek smuggler Harry Grammatikakis and Lieutenant John Atkinson MC*, who escaped captivity to serve as an SOE and MI9 operative before being captured again and executed by firing squad alongside members of the Greek resistance. Their fates are intertwined with Triumph’s own, which ended in tragedy when she disappeared in January 1942 while on what was to be her final patrol before refit.

The rediscovery of Triumph’s wreck in 2023 has allowed her final mission to be reconstructed in unprecedented detail, revealing new insights into her clandestine operations and the courage of those who served aboard her.