HMS Templar was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

 of the third group of the T class

British T class submarine

The Royal Navy's T class of diesel-electric submarines was designed in the 1930s to replace the O, P and R classes. Fifty-three members of the class were built just before and during the Second World War, where they played a major role in the Royal Navy's submarine operations...

. She was built as P316 by Vickers Armstrong

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...

, Barrow

Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...

, and launched on 26 October 1942. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 to bear the name Templar, probably after the chivalric order, the Knights Templar

Knights Templar

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

.

Service

Templar served in the Far East for much of her wartime career, where she sank the Japanese merchant cargo ship Tyokai Maru and laid mines. She torpedoed and damaged the Japanese light cruiser Kitakami

Japanese cruiser Kitakami

was a Kuma class cruiser in the Imperial Japanese Navy, named after the Kitakami River in Iwate Prefecture, Japan.-Background:Kitakami was the third of five vessels completed in the Kuma-class of light cruisers...

, and attacked the German submarine U-1062

Unterseeboot 1062

German submarine U-1062 was a Type VIIF submarine of the German Kriegsmarine during World War II.Commissioned on 19 June 1943, U-1062 was one of four Type VIIF torpedo transport submarines, which could carry 39 torpedoes, and were used to re-supply other U-boats at sea...

 but missed her with torpedoes.

She survived the war and continued in service with the Navy, finally being used as a target and sunk in Loch Striven

Loch Striven

Loch Striven is a sea loch adjoining the west side of the Firth of Clyde just north of the Isle of Bute, where it forms a narrow inlet about 8 miles long extending north into the Cowal peninsula. During times of recession in shipping the loch has been used as a sheltered anchorage for laid...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

in 1954. She was salvaged on 4 December 1958 and arrived at Troon, Scotland on 19 July 1959 to be scrapped.