HMS Adventure, pennant number M23, was an Adventure-class minelaying cruiser of the Royal Navy built in the 1920s that saw service during the Second World War.

Laid down at Devonport in November 1922 and launched in June 1924, Adventure was the first vessel built for service as a minelayer; she was also the first warship to use diesel engines, which were used for cruising.

Adventure was built to replace the converted First World War veteran Princess Margaret, and her design was dictated by a requirement for a large mine capacity and a good cruising range.

She was built with a transom, or flat, stern, to improve cruising efficiency, but the dead water caused by such a form meant that mines tended to be sucked back into the hull when they were launched; an obviously dangerous situation for a minelayer.

The anti-aircraft armament was completed by a single octuple multiple pom-pom in 'B' position (not fitted until the late 1930s) and a pair of quadruple .5 in (13 mm) Vickers machine guns.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, the Royal Navy started laying a series of defensive minefields in British coastal waters and the English Channel.

From 11 to 16 September 1939, Adventure, together with the coastal minelayer Plover and the converted train ferries Shepperton and Hampton, escorted by the cruiser Cairo and the destroyers of the 19th Destroyer Flotilla, laid 3119 mines in the Straits of Dover, sealing the east end of the Channel from penetration by German submarines.

[5] On 13 November 1939, at 05.25, Adventure was badly damaged near the Tongue Light Vessel, in the Thames Estuary by an underwater explosion.

In July she sailed with the task force involved in Operation EF, the raid of Kirkenes and Petsamo, in support of the Soviet Union following the German invasion.

In her four years of service as a mine-layer Adventure undertook some 20 mining operations, laying minefields throughout the Western Approaches and the North Sea.