In December 1941, Lieutenant-Commander Tomkinson received the DSO and bar, was mentioned in dispatches, and at his request, received two years' seniority in lieu of a second bar to the DSO; in 1942, further awards to Tomkinson were pending for the torpedoing of the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto on 14 December 1941 and the sinking of the Italian cruiser Giovanni delle Bande Nere on 1 April 1942, but he was lost before these awards could be made.
Vice Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlet stated in his history of British Submarines in WW2 that had Tomkinson survived he would “almost certainly” have received a third bar to the DSO.
[2] Vice-Admiral Sir Ian McGeogh, a post-war Flag Officer Submarines who served briefly on Urge in 1941, wrote that Tomkinson "should in my view have been awarded the Victoria Cross – preferably before he was lost.
The project was led by Timmy Gambin of the Archeology and Classics Department of the University of Malta, Francis Dickinson, a grandson of Lieutenant-Commander Tomkinson, and Platon Alexiades, a naval researcher from Canada.
The unveiling formed part of a number of events to commemorate those lost, which included a wreath laying at sea and was attended by HMS Urge families and friends and the Royal Navy Submarine Service.
Prior to deployment to the Mediterranean, Urge sank the 10,750 ton Italian tanker Franco Martelli in April 1941, whilst in the Bay of Biscay, on passage from the UK to Gibraltar.
The attack was made by Lieutenant-Commander Tomkinson at a range of 5,000 yards and the impact of two torpedo hits caused the Italian warship to break in two and sink rapidly.
However, special operations were hazardous, and in October 1941, a member of Urge's crew (Sub Lt Brian Lloyd [5]) was lost to enemy fire when attempting to rescue an Allied agent from shore.
In Spring 1942 Urge was closing on an unidentified armed merchant cruiser south of the Strait of Messina, when explosives recently laid by her SBS commandos detonated and destroyed a train.
[7] Official sources including the Flotilla Captain GWG Simpson’s report on HMS Urge's loss had long attributed her sinking to a mine outside Malta.
By the end of April 1942 enemy air raids had destroyed several British submarines in their Malta base and the Royal Navy’s local minesweeping capability.
The dangers of the enemy minefields were made clear a few days after Urge's disappearance, in early May 1942, when another RN submarine HMS Olympus struck a mine when leaving Malta and sank with heavy loss of life.
On 16 April 2015 Belgian diver Jean-Pierre Misson[8] claimed to have found the wreck of Urge based on sonar recordings taken off the coast of Libya, at Marsa el Hilal.
It is possible that if they identified a wreck (which remains in doubt) it could be that of German submarine U-205 which foundered at Ras Hilal, while being towed by the corvette Gloxinia after capture on 17 February 1943.
[16][17] On 27 April 2022, the 80th anniversary of HMS Urge's loss, the President of Malta His Excellency Dr. George Vella and the British High Commissioner Katherine Ward LVO OBE, unveiled a memorial at Fort St. Elmo to HMS Urge, Lieutenant Commander Tomkinson, his ship’s company, naval passengers, and a war correspondent lost as a result of the sinking.
The previous Sunday a service had been held at St Paul’s Pro-Cathedral, Valletta to remember those lost in the submarine, and there is now a brass plaque honouring them within the cathedral.