HMS Venturer (P68)

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Career

Builder:	Vickers Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness
Laid down:	25 August 1942
Launched:	4 May 1943
Commissioned:	19 August 1943
Decommissioned:	1946, sold to Norway
Renamed:	HNoMS Utstein
Struck:	January 1964
Status:	Broken up
General Characteristics
Displacement:	545/740 tons (surface/submerged)
Length:	206 ft
Beam:
Speed:	11.25/10 knots (surface/submerged)
Test depth:	300 feet
Complement:	37
Armament:	Four 21 inch bow torpedo tubes and 8 torpedoes, 3 inch deck gun, three .303 calibre machine guns for anti-aircraft defence

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Venturer.

HMS Venturer (P68) was a World War 2 British submarine and the lead boat^[1] of the V-Class (officially called the "'U'-Class Long hull 1941-42 program").

She sank U-771 on 11 November 1944 7 nautical miles east of Andenes, Norway. Her most famous mission, however, was her eleventh patrol out of the British submarine-base at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, under the command of 25-year-old Jimmy Launders, which included the only time in the history of naval warfare that one submarine sank another while both were submerged.

Sent to the Fedje area, Venturer was then ordered (on the basis of Enigma decrypts) to seek, intercept and destroy U864 which was in this area carrying a cargo of 65 tonnes of mercury and Messerschmitt jet engine parts to Japan,^[2]^[3]

On February 6th 1945 U864 passed the Fedja area without being detected, but on 9th Venturer heard U-864's engine noise (Launders had decided not to use ASDIC since it would betray his position) and spotted the U-boat's periscope as her captain looked for his escort. In an unusually long engagement for a submarine and in a situation for which neither crew had been trained, Launders waited 45 minutes after first contact before going to action stations, waiting for U864 to surface and thus present an easier target. Upon realizing they were being followed by the British submarine and that their escort had still not arrived, U-864 zig-zagged in attempted evasive manoeuvres and each submarine risked raising her telescope.

Venturer had only 4 torpedoes as opposed to U-864's 22, and so after 3 hours Launders decided to make a prediction of his opponent's zig-zag, and release a spread of his torpedoes into its predicted course. The first torpedo was released at 12.12 and then at 17 second intervals after that (taking 4 minutes to reach their target), and Launders then dived suddenly to evade any retaliation from his opponent. U864 heard the torpedoes coming and also dived deeper and turned away to avoid them, managing to avoid the first three but unknowingly steering into the path of the fourth. Exploding, U864 split in two, was sunk with all hands and came to rest more than 150m (500ft) below the surface on the seafloor. Launders was granted a bar to his DSO for this action.

During its career it also sank five merchant ships.^[4]