Jimmy Launders

Captain James Stuart Launders, (1919–1988), was an officer in the Royal Navy during and after the Second World War. He retired from the service in 1974, but continued to serve in an unofficial capacity on training programs until his death in 1988. In addition to his reputation amongst his crew, colleagues, and historians as a brilliant, highly skilled, and courageous officer, Launders is remembered as the only submarine commander in history to have engaged and sunk an enemy submarine (U-864) using only his own unaided vessel while both boats were fully submerged.

Early Royal Navy career In 1925, when he was five years old, his parents took him to the British colony known as the Uganda Protectorate. He spent his childhood "exploring" what is today Mount Elgon National Park and took many extended trips with his father into the far western part of the country in what would later become Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Launders returned to England in late 1935 at the age of 16, attending The Skinners' School , before joining the Royal Navy as a cadet on 1 January 1938. Upon completion of his training, he was posted as a midshipman to the battlecruiser on 1 January 1939. He was serving aboard Repulse when the war broke out. 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: Venturer.

Action aboard Venturer Venturer had sunk some thirteen German vessels during ten patrols over the previous twelve months, some east of Andenes, Norway, resulting in Launders' appointment as a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) "for courage, skill and undaunted devotion to duty". However Venturer'''s most notable feat was the sinking of U-864 on 9 February 1945, off Bergen, Norway, while both vessels were submerged.

Sinking of the U-864

Launders was the commander of Venturer when, on 9 February 1945, in the North Sea west of Bergen, Norway, his submarine torpedoed and sank U-864, commanded by Korvettenkapitän 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. Launders became the first, and to date only, submarine commander to be publicly acknowledged as having sunk another submarine in combat while both vessels were submerged. Placed on Retired List (Medically Unfit) on 29 November 1974.