HMS ''P41'' was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

U-class submarine built by

Vickers-Armstrong Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, w ...

. She was transferred to the

exiled Exile is either an entity who is, or the state of being, away from one's home while being explicitly refused permission to return. Exile, exiled, exiles, The Exile, or The Exiles may also refer to: Exiles * Babylonian captivity, or Babylonia ...

Royal Norwegian Navy The Royal Norwegian Navy () is the branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for navy, naval operations of Norway, including those of the Norwegian Coast Guard. , the Royal Norwegian Navy consists of approximately 3,700 personnel (9,450 i ...

before completion and renamed HNoMS ''Uredd''. She and one of the B-class in 1940 have so far been the only Norwegian submarines to have been sunk.

Service history

Ordered on 11 March 1940, the submarine was laid down at the

Vickers-Armstrongs Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, w ...

shipyard in

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town and civil parish (as just "Barrow") in the Westmorland and Furness district of Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the county of Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borou ...

on 15 October 1940, and launched on 24 August 1941. She was transferred to Norwegian command on 7 December 1941. She served mostly as a patrol craft off the coast of Nazi-occupied Norway, eventually completing a total of seven successful missions for the

, sinking several German ships. In February 1943 she was assigned, under the command of

Rolf Q. Røren Rolf is a male given name and a surname. It originates in the Germanic name ''Hrolf'', itself a contraction of ''Hrodwulf'' ( Rudolf), a conjunction of the stem words ''hrod'' ("renown") + ''wulf'' ("wolf"). The Old Norse cognate is ''Hrólfr''. ...

, to drop off six ''

Kompani Linge Norwegian Independent Company 1 (NOR.I.C.1, pronounced ''Norisén'' (approx. "noor-ee-sehn") in Norwegian) was a British Special Operations Executive (SOE) group formed in March 1941 originally for the purpose of performing commando raids during ...

'' soldiers at Bodø as part of Operation Seagull - and then proceed to the island of Senja to pick up two French submariners who had been left behind by the . Contact with ''Uredd'' was lost and she was believed to have been sunk in a German minefield on 10 February. The Royal Norwegian Navy officially declared her lost on 20 February 1943, the Royal Navy on 28 February. In 1985, discovered the wreckage of the ''Uredd'' southwest of Fugløyvær and confirmed that she had hit a German minefield laid by the German minelayer - killing the crew of 34 and six soldiers. The following year,

King Olav V Olav V (, ; born Prince Alexander of Denmark; 2 July 1903 – 17 January 1991) was King of Norway from 1957 until his death in 1991. Olav was born at Sandringham House in England, the only child of Prince Carl of Denmark and Princess Maud of Wa ...

unveiled a memorial to those lost aboard the ''Uredd'', located in Grensen. The wreck is officially a

war grave A war grave is a burial place for members of the armed forces or civilians who died during military campaigns or operations. Definition The term "war grave" does not only apply to graves: ships sunk during wartime are often considered to b ...

. As HNoMS ''Uredd'' was operating with the Royal Navy's 9th Submarine Flotilla based at Dundee in Scotland, her crew are all commemorated on Dundee International Submarine Memorial.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * * * * Hutchinson, Robert, ''Submarines, War Beneath The Waves, From 1776 To The Present Day''

External links

Royal Norwegian Submarine flotilla history page (Norwegian)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uredd (P-41) Ships built in Barrow-in-Furness 1941 ships World War II submarines of the United Kingdom British U-class submarines of the Royal Norwegian Navy World War II submarines of Norway Lost submarines of Norway Maritime incidents in February 1943 World War II shipwrecks in the Norwegian Sea Ships sunk by mines Submarines lost with all hands