3 × .303 calibre machine guns for anti-aircraft defence
HMS Venturer was a Second World War British submarine of the V class that sank two German U-boats and five merchant ships during the war. Following the war, the boat was sold to Norway and was renamed HNoMS Utstein. She was discarded in 1964.
On completing trials and working-up, Venturer commenced operations patrolling the Norwegian coast for coastal traffic and U-boats leaving or entering base.
She was successful on several occasions, sinking three Axis vessels during 1944.
Lt J S Launders DSC RN, on commissioning of Venturer at Holy Loch, 20 August 1943 (IWM A18834)
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 first time in the history of naval warfare that one submarine intentionally sank another while both were submerged.
On 6 February 1945, U-864 passed through the Fedje area without being detected, but on 9 February 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. Launders was waiting for U-864 to surface and thus present an easier target. Upon realising they were being followed by the British submarine and that their escort had still not arrived, U-864 zig-zagged underwater in attempted evasive manoeuvres, with each submarine occasionally risking raising her periscope.
Venturer had eight torpedoes. U-864 could carry up to 22 torpedoes but due to the nature of the trip (transport to Japan) she did only hold 4 torpedoes at time of action. After three hours Launders decided to make a prediction of U-864's zig-zag and released a spread of his torpedoes into its predicted course. This manual computation of a firing solution against a three-dimensionally manoeuvring target was the first occasion on which techniques were used and became the basis of modern computer-based torpedo targeting systems. Prior to this attack, no target had been sunk by torpedo where the firing ship had to consider the target's position in three-dimensional terms, where the depth of the target was variable and not a fixed value. The computation thus differs fundamentally from those performed by analogue torpedo fire-control computers which regarded the target in strictly 2D terms with a constant depth determined by the target's draught.
The torpedoes were released in 17-second intervals beginning at 12:12, and all taking four minutes to reach their target. Launders then dived Venturer suddenly to evade any retaliation. U-864 heard the torpedoes coming, dived deeper, and turned away to avoid them. The first three torpedoes were avoided, but U-864 unknowingly steered into the path of the fourth. Exploding, U-864 split in two, and sank with all hands coming to rest more than 150 metres (490 ft) below the surface. Launders was awarded a bar to his DSO for this action.
Merchant ships sunk
During her career, she sank five merchant ships all off the Norwegian coast.
With the end of hostilities Venturer was destined for disposal. In 1946 she was sold to the Royal Norwegian Navy, and was renamed Utstein. She served with the Norwegians until January 1964, when she was struck from the Royal Norwegian Navy register. After her removal from naval service, the submarine was sold to a scrapyard and broken up.
^Busch, Rainer; Röll, Hans-Joachim (2001). Der U-Boot-Krieg, 1939–1945: Deutsche U-Boot-Erfolge von September 1939 bis Mai 1945 [The U-boat War 1939–1945: German U-boat successes from September 1939 to May 1945] (in German). Hamburg: Mittler & Sohn. pp. 268–270.
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