HMS Urge: A Cruiser-Killer Found Seventy-Nine Years Later

Laid Down at Barrow

HMS Urge was built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Barrow-in-Furness, laid down on 30 October 1939 and commissioned on 12 December 1940 under Lieutenant Commander Edward Philip Tomkinson, a U-class submarine of just 540 tons surfaced displacement that would go on to compile one of the more remarkable combat records of any small submarine in the war.

Punching Far Above Her Weight

Across twenty patrols in barely a year, Urge sank the 10,750-ton Italian tanker Franco Martelli in April 1941 and, on 14 December that year, torpedoed and damaged the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto, a remarkably audacious strike against one of the largest warships in the Mediterranean by a submarine a tiny fraction of her size.

She also pioneered commando operations, landing Special Boat Section personnel by canoe.

Sinking the Bande Nere

Urge's most celebrated success came on 1 April 1942, when she torpedoed the Italian light cruiser Giovanni delle Bande Nere, a warship of 6,844 tons, roughly ten times Urge's own displacement.

Two torpedo hits broke the cruiser in two, and she sank rapidly with the loss of 381 Italian sailors, a devastating strike against a proper front-line warship that stands among the more remarkable achievements of any British submarine that size.

Lost With All Hands

HMS Urge departed Malta for Alexandria on 27 April 1942, carrying 32 crew, 11 naval passengers and the war correspondent Bernard Gray, and struck a mine shortly after leaving Grand Harbour, sinking with the loss of all 44 aboard.

Her wreck remained lost for 77 years until it was located in 130 metres of water off Malta, the discovery announced on 30 October 2019 by researchers from the University of Malta, with definitive identification finally confirmed in May 2021 when divers found her name lettered on the conning tower, bringing a measure of closure to a loss that had gone unresolved for nearly eight decades.