| rdfs:comment | - HMS Poseidon (P99) was a Parthian-class submarine designed and built by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering in Barrow-in-Furness for the Royal Navy, launched on 22 August 1929. She spent most of her short career assigned to the Yellow Sea region, based at the Royal Navy's base at Weihai, China. At about 12:12 on 9 June 1931, while exercising on the surface with the submarine tender Marazion north of the vessels' base at Weihai, and despite excellent visibility, Poseidon collided with the Chinese merchant vessel SS Yuta.
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| abstract | - HMS Poseidon (P99) was a Parthian-class submarine designed and built by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering in Barrow-in-Furness for the Royal Navy, launched on 22 August 1929. She spent most of her short career assigned to the Yellow Sea region, based at the Royal Navy's base at Weihai, China. At about 12:12 on 9 June 1931, while exercising on the surface with the submarine tender Marazion north of the vessels' base at Weihai, and despite excellent visibility, Poseidon collided with the Chinese merchant vessel SS Yuta. Thirty-one of the submarine's crew managed to scramble into the water before the submarine sank to the seabed below within a few minutes. Aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, heavy cruiser HMS Berwick and sister submarine HMS Perseus led the rescue operations. Poseidon was equipped with Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus which had come into service two years earlier. This was a closed circuit underwater breathing system which provided the wearer with a supply of pure oxygen and a canvas drogue to slow the rate of ascent. Despite the submarine not being equipped with specialised escape compartments or flooding valves, eight of the crew managed to leave the forward end of the boat, although two failed to reach the surface and one died later. Twenty-one crew died in total. A consequence of the successful escape of part of the crew was to change Admiralty policy from advising crews to wait for the arrival of assistance to attempting to escape from the submarine as soon as possible. This policy was announced in the House of Commons in March 1934.
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