Partly-Built Submarines for Yugoslavia
L67 and L68 were laid down at Armstrong’s High Walker yard as standard RN L class submarines in late 1917. The order for their construction was cancelled in March 1919 while they were still on the stocks, and they were sold to the builders in October 1919. They were towed to Elswick where they lay until 1926. After an unsuccessful attempt to sell the submarines to Poland, the two incomplete hulls were sold (with Admiralty permission) to Yugoslavia, hauled back on to building berths and reconditioned, commissioning as Hrabri and Nebojsa respectively in 1928.
In notifying the other signatories of the details of this sale, the British took great pains to provide a full and frank history of these hulls, including specific mention of the cancellation of the Admiralty contract in 1919, well before the WNT was signed.
This provoked a response from the Italians, who wrote to the Foreign Office stating that the Italian Government had received a request in an identically similar case to transfer to a foreign power two submarines, the construction of which had been commenced by Ansaldo San Giorgio for the Italian Navy, and later suspended. The Italians refused this request because they believed that such a transfer would be contrary, if not to the letter, then certainly to the spirit of the WNT, and requested Britain advise whether they concurred with this point of view. The British reply differentiated the cases, on the grounds that the submarines sold to Yugoslavia were not the property of the British Government at the time of the Washington Conference, whereas the Italian submarines apparently were, and they therefore concurred that the Italian interpretation of the WNT was correct in relation to the request made of the Italian Government.