On this day, 78 years ago, the HMS Urge “was lost off the coast of Malta,” say the British High Commission in Malta on their Facebook page. They are remembering the fateful day when 29 crew members and 10 passengers lost their lives at sea.

An informative article shares that HMS Urge “was one of the small U class of Royal Navy submarines which were intended for short range patrols and anti-submarine training purposes.”

The ship joined the attack against Italian enemy convoys in 1941 and it was one of the submarines that carried out the first special forces raids. HMS Urge’s most notable achievement was the torpedoing of the 45,000 tonne Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto in December 1941. Damn...

On 1^st April 1942, Urge successfully torpedoed and sank the Italian gun cruiser Giovanni Delle Bande Nere. While a success, it took place on the base of the 10th Submarine Flotilla at Malta that experienced an intensified enemy air raid. Subsequnetly, the base became unviable and the remaining submarines sailed for Alexandria.

After surviving 20 intensive war patrols HMS Urge was never heard of again after it left Malta on 27^th April 1942. She was lost along with 32 crewmen and 12 passengers (11 naval personnel and journalist Bernard Gray).

In 2019 staff and students at University together with the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage discovered that the shipwreck of HMS Urge was lying just a short distance from our islands. The full story of the ship’s life, loss and discovery is still being compiled.