HMS Splendid was an S class submarine

British S class submarine (1931)

The S-class submarines of the Royal Navy were originally designed and built during the modernisation of the submarine force in the early 1930s to meet the need for smaller boats to patrol the restricted waters of the North Sea and the Mediterranean Sea replacing the British H class submarines...

 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...

, and part of the Third Group built of that class. She was built at Chatham Dockyard and launched on January 13 1942.
She served in the Mediterranean, based at Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

, under the command of Lieutenant Ian McGeoch

Ian McGeoch

Vice-Admiral Sir Ian Lachlan Mackay McGeoch KCB DSO DSC was a commissioned officer in the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom...

. During her career, she sank the Italian auxiliary submarine chaser San Paolo, the Italian merchants Luigi Favorita, Devoli, and XXI Aprile, the small Italian merchant Commercio, the Italian auxiliary minesweeper No.