USS Venetia (SP-431) was a large 589 gross ton steam yacht leased by the U.S. Navy during World War I.

Venetia—a single-screw, steel-hulled steam yacht built in 1904 at Leith, Scotland, by Hawthorne and Company to plans drawn up by the designers Cox and King—was acquired by the U.S. Navy on 4 August 1917 from California industrialist John D. Spreckels for use as a patrol craft.

The next day, they rendezvoused with Montauk, Gypsum Queen, and Barnegat off the Delaware Bay breakwater and headed for Bermuda where they arrived on the 26th and remained into the new year, 1918.

The yacht eventually departed Ponta Delgada on 8 February in company with Nahant and Penobscot—each ship towing a French subchaser.

On 11 May 1918, Venetia was steaming off the port quarter of a 7-knot (13 km/h) convoy bound for Gibraltar, when a torpedo streaked past her bow, some 150 to 200 yards (180 m) ahead.

Lookouts on the armed yacht then sighted "a large amount of water" spouting into the air over the bow of SS Susette Fraisinette, a French steamship about 100 yards (91 m) away.

While the French trawler Isole picked up 34 survivors from Susette Fraisinette, Venetia cruised in widening circles until 0520, carrying out a sector search for the offending U-boat.

Her periscopes were down, and lookouts in the yacht noted that the enemy submersible mounted a single gun (a 3.4-inch (86 mm) weapon) forward of the small conning tower.

As Venetia bore down on UB-52, Porterfield laid out his battle plan: keep the U-boat one point on the starboard bow, open up with 3-inch (76 mm) gunfire at about 6,500 yards (5,900 m), machine guns at 2,000, "and finish by ramming him at full speed."

Just before nightfall on 17 May, the armed yacht was steaming on an irregular zig-zag pattern when the British steamship SS Sculptor took a torpedo from UB-39.

Venetia, two and one-half to three points abaft the beam of the stricken merchantman and 1,300 yards (1,200 m) away, simultaneously sounded general quarters and rang down emergency full speed ahead.

As the yacht passed astern of Sculptor, Porterfield assumed that, after making her attack, the submarine had turned aft on the starboard side of the convoy.

14) assisted in the attack, dropping seven depth charges; Venetia subsequently stood by Sculptor with orders to get her underway, if possible, in tow, and circled the crippled ship at 12 knots (22 km/h).

Venetia subsequently conducted two more round-trip convoy escort voyages—one to Genoa and one to Bizerte—before she departed Gibraltar on 6 November, bound for Madeira, in company with Surveyor.

The ships arrived at Funchal, Madeira, on the 9th, and Venetia departed on the 11th, the day that the armistice was signed at Compiègne, France, ending World War I.

During her last month in European waters, Venetia made a round-trip voyage to Portugal before sailing for the United States on 21 December, towing SC-223, as part of a homeward-bound subchaser detachment built around the tender Hannibal.

Subsequently, touching at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Venetia arrived at Guantanamo Bay on 31 January 1919.

One week later, on 27 February 1919, Venetia shifted to the Mare Island Navy Yard where she was decommissioned, and all of her military fittings were removed.