HMS Totem was a Group 3 T-class submarine of the Royal Navy which entered service in the last few months of World War II.

With the surface fleet dramatically reduced after the end of the Second World War, he commented that this was one of the few methods the Royal Navy had for "getting to the enemy on his home ground".

[3] To fulfil this new role, Totem was one of eight boats which were extensively modified to become "super T-conversions", giving them higher speed and quieter operation underwater.

The hull was streamlined, which included the removal of the deck gun and the replacement of the bridge fin with one which was taller, enclosing the periscopes and masts.

[5] During early 1955 Totem carried out "Operation Defiant", a six-week patrol in the Barents Sea to gather Signals intelligence on Soviet naval forces.

Her stern emergency marker buoy washed ashore on the coast of Khan Yunis, an Arab town southwest of Gaza, just over a year later, on 9 February 1969.

It appears that the submarine dived suddenly and rapidly past her maximum depth limit and suffered a catastrophic hull rupture.