| James Stuart Launders | |
|---|---|
| Nickname | Jimmy |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Service/branch | Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1938–1962 |
| Rank | Commander |
| Commands held | HMS Venturer |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
| Awards | DSO and Bar DSC and Bar |
James "Jimmy" S. Launders DSO & Bar, DSC & Bar (1919–1988) was an officer in the British Royal Navy during and after World War II. He retired from the service in 1962, but continued to serve in an unofficial capacity on training programs until his death in 1988.[1] In addition to his reputation amongst his crew, colleagues, and historians as a brilliant, highly skilled, and courageous commander, Launders is remembered as the only submarine commander in history to have engaged and destroyed an enemy submarine (U-864) during time of war using only his own un-aided vessel (HMS Venturer) while both ships were fully submerged.[2] The unique type of engagement and the unusual nature of the enemy submarine's mission has provided one of the more enduring footnotes to the war, further cementing the fame of Launders, Venturer, and her crew for their wartime action.
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Launders joined the Royal Navy as a cadet on 1 January 1938. Upon completion of his training, he was posted as a midshipman to the battlecruiser HMS Repulse on 1 January 1939. He was serving aboard Repulse when the war broke out.[1]
Though he would continue to serve aboard Repulse for more than two years, it was to be his last assignment to a surface vessel for some time. On 1 April 1941 (after the war had been raging for about a year and a half and the Battle of the Atlantic was well underway), Launders was posted to his first submarine assignment aboard HMS P35. In recognition of his outstanding service during that critical phase of the Battle of the Atlantic, Launders was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross on 22 December 1942. He was subsequently promoted to lieutenant on 1 April 1943. His career was on a "fast track", and on 18 May 1943, he received his first command, one that would make him famous: HMS Venturer.[1]
Venturer was Launders' first submarine posting, but his intellect, quick thinking, and leadership had put him in position for just such a challenging command. Venturer was a fast-attack "hunter-killer" sub, whose mission was to hunt for enemy shipping and other submarines, attack them, and to effect a speedy getaway without engaging in a prolonged action.[2] Launders was a "rising star" in the Royal Navy submarine command at the time.[2] a "boy-wonder with a genius for mathematics,"[2] which gave him a tremendous edge in making the necessary vector calculations (manual or minimally mechanical-computer assisted figuring of speed and trajectories for targets, torpedoes, attacking vessels, currents, etc.) that were part of submarine warfare tactics of the day.[2]
The Royal Navy staff's opinion of Launders' capabilities was apparently shared by his crew. Regarding his time aboard Venturer with Launders, former Royal Navy Sub Lieutenant John Frederick Watson (a retired geologist who served with Launders during the war aboard Venturer and was decorated "Awarded for Great Keenness and Devotion to Duty" for his actions during that time)[2] stated:
It was very much a Band of Brothers. Only 37 in the crew and Launders was way ahead in terms of his experience, his knowledge, his abilities; it was obvious to the rest of us. Nobody thought to question what he decided to do.[2]
Former Able Seaman and retired Royal Navy instructor Henry James Plummer also served aboard Venturer during the war with both Launders and Watson. Himself decorated ("Awarded for Courage, Cheerfulness, and Alertness"),[2] Watson said of Launders:
We trusted him. We knew he was a good commander. We’d have gone to the end of the Earth with him…because he was that good.[2]
King George VI also praised Launders, declaring him "...a fearless and skillful commander."[2]
Although she had sunk some 13 German vessels during 10 patrols over the previous 12 months,[2] including the Type VIIc U-Boat U-771 off Norway's Lofoten Islands on 11 November 1944,[3] some 7 nautical miles (13 km) east of Andenes, Norway, Venturer's most notable feat was the sinking of U-864 on 9 February 1945, off Bergen, Norway while both vessels were submerged. Launders became the first, and to date only submarine commander to be publicly acknowledged as having sunk another submarine in combat with both vessels were submerged.[2]
He was the commander of the HMS Venturer when, on 9 February 1945, in the North Sea west of Bergen, Norway, his submarine torpedoed and sank U-864, commanded by KrvKpt. Ralf-Reimar Wolfram. U-864 was a Type IX U-boat, designed for long, ocean-going voyages with limited re-supply. It was on a highly-sensitive, long-range, covert mission codenamed "Operation Caesar" to deliver highly sensitive technology to their wartime ally, the Empire of Japan. U-864's top-secret manifest included jet-engine parts from the German Me-262 jet fighter plane that the Japanese were going to try to clone, missile guidance systems from Peenemünde, of the type used on the V-2 Rocket, and many tonnes of mercury, a raw material that was in short supply in Japan that was vital to the industrial production of ordnance since it was a necessary component in the fabrication of detonators.[2]
U-864 had put in to the U-boat pens in Bergen to repair damage from having run aground during their first attempt to set off on the mission (they had to take very round-about routes that were often not well charted to avoid Allied anti-submarine warfare patrols in the main shipping channels).[2] During the boat's layover there several days earlier, the pens were hit by an Allied bombing raid, but U-864 itself escaped serious damage. With her damage repaired, U-864 once again was underway for Japan.[2]
However, their normally quiet engine started to make an abnormally loud, rhythmic noise that could be easily detected by any ASW equipment in the area. KrvKpt. Wofram decided to return to Bergen to repair the problem.
Little did he know (nor did anyone in Germany's U-boat command, for that matter) that the Enigma code, Germany's top-secret naval encryption system, had been broken by British mathematician Alan Turing and his cryptanalytics team at Bletchley Park. All naval communications to and from the Nazi U-boat fleet were being read by the Allies, and they knew of Operation Caesar.[2] Wanting to avoid giving the Japanese any advantage that might extend the war in the Pacific, Royal Navy Submarine Command dispatched Venturer to intercept and destroy U-864.
Launders' received a brief message from Royal Navy Submarine Command as to the estimated whereabouts of U-864 (with reasonable precision, somewhere near the island of Fedje, off Norway's southwest coast, just north of the pens at Bergen), along with instructions to destroy her. Launders set about the task, making one risky but calculated decision: he decided to switch off the Venturer's ASDIC (an advanced form of sonar of the time), which would severely limit their ability to detect other submarines, but would greatly reduce the chance of being detected themselves. They would rely purely on Venturer's hydrophone (a common, long-used, and far less sophisticated than ASDIC underwater acoustic detection device) to try to detect U-864.[2] It was a huge gamble.
U-864 had already left the area recommended to Launders. Unfortunately for the U-boat, U-864's commander had decided once again to return to Bergen to repair an engine noise problem. The decision would bring U-864 right back past Fedje, where HMS Venturer was lurking.
Venturer's hydrophone operator noticed a strange sound which he could not identify. He at first thought that it sounded as though some local fisherman had started up a boat's diesel engine.[2] Launders decided to track the strange noise. Then, due to poor adherence to proper periscope usage protocol on the part of the German crew, the officer of the watch on Venturer's periscope noticed another periscope poking up above the surface of the water.[2] Combined with the hydrophone reports of the strange noise, which he determined to be coming from a submerged vessel, Launders surmised that they had found U-864.[2]
Launders tracked U-864 by hydrophone (in itself a difficult feat), hoping it would surface and allow a clear shot. However, U-864 detected the presence of an enemy submarine, remained submerged, and started to zig-zag. This made U-864 quite safe according to the assumptions of the time.
After several hours, it became clear that the U-boat was not going to surface, but Launders decided to attack anyway. It was theoretically possible to compute a firing solution in three dimensions, but this had never been attempted in practice because it was assumed that performing the complex calculations would be impossible. Nevertheless, Launders and his crew made the necessary calculations, made assumptions about U-864's defensive manoeuvers. Launders ordered the firing of all torpedoes in the four bow tubes (as a small, fast-attack boat, Venturer was equipped with only four in the bow, none in the stern, and carried a full complement of only eight torpedoes), with a 17.5 second delay between each shot, and at variable depths. U-864 made a crash dive, straight into the path of the 4th torpedo. The result was catastrophic damage to the U-864's hull, causing the German boat to instantaneously implode, with the loss of all hands. U-864 sank 31 nautical miles (57 km) from Bergen.
Discovered in 2003, the wreckage rests beneath 460 feet (140 m) of water some 2.2 nautical miles (4.1 km) West of the island of Fedje, which is located off Norway's Southwest coast, some 31 nautical miles (57 km) North of the city of Bergen. Since she went down with all 73 hands on board, the wreck is classified as a War Grave, and all maritime operations relating to the wreck (including environmental cleanup efforts) must adhere strictly to the international protocols dealing with treatment of such sites.[2]
For their actions, several crewmen aboard Venturer were decorated by the Royal Navy, and Launders' naval career continued well after the war.[1] As for U-864, in addition to being the last German U-boat sunk by enemy action prior to the end of the war on 8 May 1945, she also maintains her notoriety for two other reasons:
First, it was on a mission to carry top-secret military parts to Imperial Japan, Germany's Axis ally. The manifest included jet engine parts from a German Messerschmidt Me-262, the world's first operational jet fighter aircraft. The parts would have likely arrived too late in Japan to have made much of a difference in the outcome of the Pacific Theatre of the war. In fact, U.S. troops occupying the Japanese home islands after the war found Japanese versions of an Me-262-like craft, the Karyu, hidden under camoflauge.[4]
Second, U-864 was also carrying in its keel steel bottles containing a total of between 60–65 metric tonnes of mercury, a bio-toxic metal that was used at the time in the industrial manufacture of ordnance detonators and firearms cartridge primers.[2] Some of the bottles were probably broken open during U-864's demise and others were probably compromised over time due to the corrosive effects of being submerged in salt water for years. As the mercury escaped, it was converted to methylmercury, CH3Hg, which has even more toxic potential than pure mercury since it is more readily propagated through the food-chain, affecting a greater quantity and variety of organisms. It is innately toxic as well since it indistinguishable to certain transport proteins in the human body from a vital amino acid, and is therefore transported freely throughout the body with devastating results.[5] The particular area where U-864 came to rest is currently off-limits to fishing while the Norwegian government determines the best course of action for remedying the ecological disaster caused by the methylmercury contamination.[2]
After victory in Europe on 8 May 1945, Launders did not muster out of the Royal Navy, but continued to serve, receiving promotions to lieutenant commander in 1949 and commander in 1957. In the post-war years, he was posted to a number of different vessels and shore stations, held a number of staff posts, and was even posted to NATO. Launders retired from the Royal Navy in 1962 with the rank of commander.[1]
Jimmy Launders died in 1988 of natural causes at the age of 69.
According to the Royal Navy's Historical Society, the service record of Commander James Stuart Launders, Distinguished Service Cross with Bar, Distinguished Service Order with Bar, is as follows:[1]