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HMS ''Urge'' was a British U-class submarine, of the second group of that class, built by Vickers Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness. She was laid down on 30 October 1939 and was commissioned on 12 December 1940. She is the only Royal Navy ship to have borne the name. ''Urge'' spent most of her career operating in the Mediterranean, where she damaged or sank a a number of mostly Italian warships and merchant vessels. She was lost with all hands on 29 April 1942. There are several theories about her final fate. The long-held official view is that she was lost to a mine off Malta. Other theories suggest she was sunk by direct enemy action, the most common that she was lost to an Italian air attack off Libya. The boat was adopted and partially funded by the people of the Welsh town Bridgend as a result of the national "warship week" in 1941.〔(BBC News - Missing submarine found )〕 ==Career== Prior to deployment to the Mediterranean, ''Urge'' sank the Italian tanker ''Franco Martelli'' in April 1941 whilst in the Bay of Biscay on passage from the UK to Gibraltar. ''Urge'' also damaged the Italian passenger ship ''Aquitania'', and the Italian merchant ship ''Marigolda''. ''Marigolda'' was already grounded after being torpedoed by aircraft on 24 September 1941. Then on 13 December, ''Urge'' torpedoed and damaged the Italian battleship ''Vittorio Veneto'' during the operations around the First Battle of Sirte. On 1 April 1942 ''Urge'' torpedoed and sank the Italian light cruiser ''Giovanni delle Bande Nere''. ''Urge'' was one of the first British submarines to land commandos by canoe (or folding kayak), and a number of successful commando raids were launched from her. These raids targeted enemy infrastructure such as railways and pioneered techniques used in later SBS work. However, special operations were hazardous, and in October 1941 a member of ''Urge's'' crew was lost to enemy fire when attempting to rescue an Allied agent from shore. On other occasions enemy patrol activity or traps were a frequent risk to landing operations. ''Urge's'' torpedoes were sighted and avoided, suffered gyro failures, or otherwise failed to hit the target on a number of occasions including attacks on the Italian merchant vessel ''Capo Orso'', the Italian tankers ''Superga'' and ''Pozarica'', the Italian destroyer ''Alpino'', the German merchant ''Ingo'', the Italian heavy cruiser ''Bolzano'', and the Italian troop transport ''Victoria''. ''Urge'' also unsuccessfully attacked an unidentified armed merchant cruiser south of the Strait of Messina, subsequently attacking it with gunfire on the surface, but breaking off the attack due to accurate return fire.〔(HMS Urge ), Uboat.net〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「HMS Urge」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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