The Sea Devils E-Book

Mark Felton

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 505

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

July 1945. Eighteen young British, Australian and New Zealand special forces from a top-secret underwater warfare unit prepare to undertake three audacious missions against the Japanese. Using XE-craft midget submarines, the raiders will creep deep behind Japanese lines to sink two huge warships off Singapore and sever two vitally important undersea communications cables. Success will hasten ultimate victory over Japan; but if any of the men are captured they can expect a gruesome execution. Can the Sea Devils overcome Japanese defences, mechanical failures, oxygen poisoning and submarine disasters to fulfil their missions? Mark Felton tells the true story of a band of young men living on raw courage, nerves and adrenalin as they attempt to pull off what could be the last great raid of World War Two.

Leseprobe

THE SEA DEVILS

Also by Mark Felton Zero Night: The Untold Story of World War Two’s Most Daring Great Escape

THE SEA DEVILS

OPERATION STRUGGLE AND THE LAST GREAT RAID OF WORLD WAR TWO

MARK FELTON

Published in the UK in 2015 by

Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,

39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

[email protected]

www.iconbooks.com

Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia

by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House,

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Distributed in the UK, Europe and Asia

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Distributed in India by Penguin Books India,

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ISBN: 978-184831-994-3

Text copyright © 2015 Mark Felton

The author has asserted his moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset in Adobe Text by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

To Fang Fang, with love

Contents

Acknowledgements

A note on the text

List of abbreviations used in the text

List of Illustrations

Prologue

1The Expendables

2Cloak and Dagger

3‘Softly, softly, catchee monkey’

4Westward Ho!

5‘Their bird’

6Zipper

7Number Disconnected

8Operation Suicide

9Siamese Blood Chit

10Night Passage

11‘Dive, dive, dive!’

12Enemy Coast Ahead

13Heart of Oak

14Dire Straits

15The Dirty Bastard

16‘Diver out’

17Trapped

18Frogman VC

19Home Run

20Fire in the Night

Epilogue

After the war …

Maps

Appendix

Notes

Index

Acknowledgements

I should like to extend my thanks to the following people, institutions and organisations for their superb and generous help during the researching of this book.

My very great thanks to former Sub-Lieutenant Adam Bergius, DSC, who, in 1945, was one of HMS XE-4’s brave and daring divers during Operation Sabre off Saigon. He very generously and patiently answered all of my questions.

Many thanks to William Fell, CMG, grandson of Captain W.R. ‘Tiny’ Fell, CMG, CBE, DSC, RN, Commanding Officer of 14th Submarine Flotilla, for his fascinating insights into his grandfather’s life and access to family documents and photographs.

Thanks are due to Jane Gilbert and her family for sharing documents and photographs relating to her father, Vernon ‘Ginger’ Coles, DSM, who sadly passed away during the writing of this book.

A great many thanks to Donald Fullarton, Helensburgh Heritage Trust; Ron Rietveld, The Submariners Association, West of Scotland Branch; Emily Morris, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge; David Barnes, Old Worcester, New Zealand; Paul Johnson, The National Archives (Public Record Office), Kew; Shehara Begum, Imperial War Museum, London; Ellis Barker, Newbury Weekly News; Shirley Felton for assistance with research material; The National Maritime Museum, London; Chatham Historic Dockyard; Alison Firth and Stephen Courtney of The National Museum of the Royal Navy; and the kind contributors to the World Naval Ships Forum.

Many thanks to my splendid agent Andrew Lownie, whose encouragement and advice are always very much appreciated.

The team at Icon Books have been fabulous, and my thanks to my editors Duncan Heath and Robert Sharman.

Once again my accomplished wife Fang Fang proved to be a willing sounding board and unpaid research assistant, and most importantly lent me her critical eye during the gestation of this book. Her love, wise suggestions and generous support continue to be invaluable to me and I can’t thank her enough.

A note on the text

Most of the dialogue sequences in this book come from the veterans themselves, from written sources, diaries or spoken interviews. I have at times changed the tense to make it more immediate. Occasionally, where only basic descriptions of what happened exist, I have created small sections of dialogue, attempting to remain true to the characters and their manners of speech.

List of abbreviations used in the text

CBE

Commander of the Order of the British Empire

CO

Commanding Officer

DSEA

Davis Submarine Escape Apparatus

DSC

Distinguished Service Cross

DSO

Distinguished Service Order

ERA

Engine Room Artificer

HMNZS

His Majesty’s New Zealand Ship

HMS

His Majesty’s Ship

HT

Handie-Talkie, Motorola SCR-536

IJN

Imperial Japanese Navy

LST

Landing Ship Tank

MBE

Member of the Order of the British Empire

PO

Petty Officer

RAF

Royal Air Force

RNR

Royal Naval Reserve

RNVR

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

SEAC

South East Asia Command

USAAF

United States Army Air Force

USS

United States Ship

VC

Victoria Cross

W&D

Wet and Dry Compartment

XO

Executive Officer, second-in-command of a vessel

List of Illustrations

Unless otherwise specified, images are from the Fell family collection, all rights reserved.

The crew of the original X-craft submarine X-24: Sub-Lieutenant Joe Brooks, Lieutenant Max Shean, Engine Room Artificer 4th Class Vernon ‘Ginger’ Coles and Sub-Lieutenant Frank Ogden.

Some of the officers and men of 14th Submarine Flotilla photographed aboard the depot ship HMS Bonaventure in Scotland, late 1944.

HMS XE-1 surfaced during training in Scotland.

An XE-craft approaches the practice anti-submarine boom in north-west Scotland.

Lieutenant Max Shean, the Australian commanding officer of HMS XE-4.

Captain William Fell, commanding officer of 14th Submarine Flotilla, with his second-in-command, Lieutenant-Commander Derek Brown, HMS Bonaventure, 1945.

Acting Leading Seaman James ‘Mick’ Magennis with his commanding officer Lieutenant Ian ‘Tich’ Fraser. (Photo: Imperial War Museum)

The crew of HMS XE-5 photographed in Scotland before departure for the Far East: Sub-Lieutenant Beadon Dening, Lieutenant Herbert ‘Pat’ Westmacott, Sub-Lieutenant Dennis Jarvis and Engine Room Artificer 4th Class Clifford Greenwood. (Photo: Imperial War Museum)

HMS Bonaventure passing beneath Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia.

The Davis Submarine Escape Apparatus (DSEA), an early rebreather modified for use by commando divers.

The commanding officers of the four XE-craft submarines used in Operations Struggle, Foil and Sabre: Lieutenant Jack Smart, Lieutenant Tich Fraser, Lieutenant Pat Westmacott, and Lieutenant Max Shean. (Photo: Imperial War Museum)

Rear-Admiral James Fife, commander of submarines, US 7th Fleet, with Captain Fell on the bridge of HMS Bonaventure, Brunei Bay, July 1945.

The attack and passage crews of XE-1 and XE-3 being addressed by Rear-Admiral Fife on the quarterdeck of HMS Bonaventure shortly before departing Brunei Bay for Singapore, 26 July 1945.

Rear-Admiral Fife and Captain Fell bidding a final farewell to the attack and passage crew of one of the XE-craft involved in Operation Struggle.

Tich Fraser’s XE-3 departs for Singapore under tow from HMS Stygian, 26 July 1945.

XE-craft interior showing the steering position in the foreground.

XE-craft interior: planesman’s position.

The Japanese heavy cruiser Myoko. (Photo: Japanese Navy via Wikimedia Commons)

Captain Fell and Lieutenant-Commander Brown on HMS Bonaventure.

VJ Day party aboard HMS Bonaventure, Brunei Bay, 2 September 1945.

The VJ Day party one hour later.

Jimmy Fife salutes the quarterdeck as he departs HMS Bonaventure for the final time in early August 1945.

An XE-craft surfaced in Brunei Bay shortly after the end of the war.

Captain William Fell, commander of 14th Submarine Flotilla, and Captain William Banks, commander of 12th Submarine Flotilla, photographed at Buckingham Palace just after the war.

Prologue

‘You are all sentenced to death by beheading,’1 stated Colonel Masayoshi Towatari, the president of the court. His face betrayed no emotion, his dark eyes flicking across the faces of the ten ‘defendants’ who stood before him. There was a sharp intake of breath among the British and Australian servicemen, who looked lean and hollow-cheeked from months of brutal imprisonment.

‘But, sir, we are prisoners of war,’ exclaimed Major Reginald Ingleton, the 25-year-old senior surviving officer of Operation Rimau. Ingleton’s face was badly bruised on one side from the beatings that he had suffered, his uniform dirty and torn, but he still had the air of a leader about him and the others looked to him in this, their moment of greatest despair. Ingleton, a Royal Marine, stood ramrod straight, his eyes burning with intense anger and his voice cracking as he spoke. ‘We were captured in British uniform attacking legitimate military targets. We have rights under the Geneva …’ Before Ingleton could finish his sentence a small and wiry Japanese major, his white armband emblazoned with red characters indicating membership of the dreaded Kempeitai military police, jumped up from his chair near the prisoners, the hilt of his sheathed samurai sword banging loudly on the table in front of him. Red faced, he bellowed out a long stream of guttural Japanese at them. Although Ingleton and his men understood little, the tone was unmistakable.

Colonel Towatari muttered something in Japanese to the major, who abruptly stopped shouting, bowed stiffly and then resumed his seat, a malevolent look on his face. Turning to Ingleton, Towatari continued in heavily accented English, ‘The verdict of the court has been reached.’ With that Towatari issued orders to clear the court and the prisoners were unceremoniously bundled out of the room by Kempeitai guards and marched back to their cell. It was 3 July 1945. During the course of their ‘trial’ the defendants had received no legal representation, nor had they been given the opportunity to defend themselves. Their guilt had already been decided long before their appearance before Towatari.2

The crime that Major Ingleton and his nine fellow defendants had committed was to have been part of one of the most daring raids on Singapore yet mounted by the Allied forces. The previous October, Lieutenant-Colonel Ivan Lyon and 23 British and Australians, drawn from the top-secret Force Z based in Australia, had infiltrated the seaway around Singapore intending to penetrate the harbour using a group of ingenious one-man submarines called ‘Sleeping Beauties’ and mine as many ships as they could find. Rimau appeared set to emulate the earlier success of Operation Jaywick in September 1943, when 29-year-old Lyon had led thirteen army commandos and sailors in folboats, a kind of collapsible kayak, and blown up seven Japanese merchant ships with limpet mines inside Singapore Harbour for no loss to the raiding party.3

But the Rimau mission had been blown among the jungle-covered islands south of Singapore. Due to bureaucratic fumbling and incompetence, the Royal Navy submarine detailed to pick up Lyon’s men did not arrive, making their escape unlikely. Abandoned to his fate, Lyon had refused to give up and with a small party of men had gone north in black kayaks and, like the Cockleshell Heroes, paddled into Singapore Harbour and managed to mine three ships. He and his men had then fought a terrible running battle through a string of tiny islands as they tried to escape south to Australia. Thirteen had been killed in action, including Lyon, or had committed suicide to avoid capture, while Major Ingleton and nine others were eventually rounded up.

The Japanese had horribly tortured Ingleton and his men. They all knew that only one fate awaited them – death. They were placed on trial for ‘perfidy and espionage’4 but the fact that the Japanese had resorted to a show trial was, in their opinion, just one more indignity at the hands of a dishonourable foe before they finally met their maker.

That day came on Saturday 7 July 1945 on a scrappy piece of waste ground on the Bukit Timah Road in Singapore. Ingleton and his men had been driven to the execution ground in a Japanese army truck; during the journey they had said little to each other. Each man was resigned to his own thoughts. A group of senior Japanese army officers stood off to one side watching the proceedings with grim expressions. The judge Colonel Towatari stood chatting with Major General Otsuka, the local Kempeitai commander as well as the commandant of Outram Road Jail, where Ingleton and his men had been held and abused.5Kempeitai officer Major Hisada commanded the execution. Ingleton and his men had had their hands tied painfully behind their backs and ragged blindfolds wrapped around their heads. Hisada hissed an order and the first prisoner was dragged forward by a group of five Japanese sergeants who would take it in turn executing the Allied servicemen. Three rough burial pits had been dug, and each man was forced to kneel on the edge of one, his head forced down to expose his grimy neck.6 A Japanese sergeant unsheathed his katana sword, took careful aim and with a cry brought the razor-sharp blade down in a terminal arc. The head fell into the pit while dark arterial blood pumped from the prisoner’s still-quivering corpse. Laughing and clapping, the other Japanese quickly kicked the body into the pit and then snatched up another victim.7 Hardly expert swordsmen, the Japanese soldiers slashed at their victims, often taking two or three strikes to remove the heads.8 Each British or Australian prisoner could only sit in darkness, listening to his comrades being horribly butchered, and wait for his own terrible moment to come. Some prayed aloud, others stoically said their goodbyes to their mates or to their wives, sweethearts or children back home.

Such was the price for failing on a mission against the Japanese.

*

Unbeknown to Ingleton and his doomed men, a thousand miles away in Australia a new plan was taking shape to attack Singapore. A band of highly experienced submariners, among them some of the men who had audaciously crippled the giant German battleship Tirpitz in Norway in 1943, were preparing to mount the most audacious raid yet against Japan’s most important Asian conquest. The men involved knew that the stakes were very high. If they succeeded, the way would be open for a British liberation of Singapore. If they failed they could expect to join the Rimau commandos in ragged graves in the colony’s lush tropical soil. Eighteen men, all under 30 years old, prepared for missions aboard vessels that the Americans had derisively christened ‘suicide craft’. If the Japanese thought that by murdering Ingleton and his men they would frighten the British off from mounting any further raids on Singapore they were sorely mistaken. The Japanese were about to come face-to-face with some of the bravest and most determined special operations personnel the British possessed, men for whom the word ‘danger’ was a matter of mundane routine.

The Japanese were about to face the ‘Sea Devils’.

CHAPTER ONE

The Expendables

‘Keep your mouth shut, your bowels open, and never volunteer.’

—Old Navy maxim

‘Thirty feet, sir,’ called out Acting Leading Seaman James ‘Mick’ Magennis, watching the depth gauge like a hawk watches a mouse. Lieutenant Ian ‘Tich’ Fraser, the 5ft 4in commander of midget submarine HMS XE-3, did not move from the attack periscope, his eyes glued to the huge target that filled its tiny lens. His submarine was slowly creeping west down the shallow Johor Strait, the long, thin channel that separates Singapore Island from the Malayan mainland. Before him, off the old British naval base, was moored the 15,500-ton Japanese heavy cruiser IJN Takao, her fearsome 8-inch gun turrets pointing north up the Malay Peninsula towards where an Allied invasion was expected any day.

The Takao’s superstructure was heavily camouflaged in a crazy green and brown disruptive paint pattern that made her blend in well with the thick jungle ashore. To Fraser, the ship appeared immense, her great pagoda-like superstructure bristling with anti-aircraft guns, fierce tropical sunshine glinting off her bridge windows and upper works. Her five turrets with their ten 8-inch guns looked both menacing and potent. She was moored with her stern facing Singapore Island so that her 630ft-long hull stuck out into the mile-wide Strait like an armoured finger, an immense static gun battery that dominated all approaches for fifteen miles in every direction. Fraser knew that just over a mile downstream the equally huge heavy cruiser IJN Myoko occupied a similar position, the two ships very sharp thorns in the side of Britain’s invasion plan.

The atmosphere inside the black-painted British submarine was electrifying. Its four crewmen sweated profusely in the clammy heat, the air as fetid as a tomb. Each man sat at his assigned station, his face a rictus of tight concentration. The main hatch had been shut many hours before as the submarine had crept into the Strait from the open sea to the east of Singapore.

In comparison to its huge target, the XE-3 was a minnow approaching a whale. But it was a minnow that packed a potentially devastating punch. On one side of the 53ft-long boat was a two-ton Amatol high explosive Mark XX saddle charge, on the other a special rack loaded with six 200lb magnetic limpet mines that would be placed into position by Magennis, the submarine’s main diver.1

Fraser, dark haired, short and at only 24 years old already a veteran wartime submariner with a Distinguished Service Cross to his name, smiled slightly as he watched the distance to his target drop. ‘All right, Magennis, the range is 200 yards,’ he said, ‘we should touch bottom in a moment.’

Magennis, a dark-haired and slightly built 25-year-old Ulsterman from the tough Falls Road area of Belfast, nodded and smiled grimly.

So far, Operation Struggle had gone mostly according to plan, though the XE-3 was running behind schedule by a couple of hours. The submarine had motored for almost 40 miles behind Japanese lines without being detected, passing through a minefield and several sets of underwater listening posts. Now she was only a stone’s throw away from her target. But the most difficult part of the mission had arrived. Fraser had to manoeuvre his submarine directly underneath the keel of the great behemoth before he dropped his main charge, otherwise the damage he would inflict would not be sufficient to sink the steel monster.2

‘Keep her as slow as you can,’ he said to Engine Room Artificer Third Class Charlie Reed who was at the helm steering and controlling the engine. ‘Aye aye, sir,’ he replied.

Sub-Lieutenant William ‘Kiwi’ Smith, the sub’s second-in-command, worked the hydroplanes to control the submarine’s depth and direction. Ordinarily he was a cheerful New Zealander but his face was now a mask of deep concentration as he stared fixedly at the dials and gauges in front of his seat.

The run in was almost silent, with only the gentle hum of the propeller and the electric motor that was driving it breaking the quiet. Suddenly there was a bang as the XE-3’s bow struck the bottom of the channel, the crew lurching forward and grabbing pipe-work and fittings to steady themselves, followed by loud scraping noises as the submarine’s keel bumped through the mud and debris. Smith had a difficult time keeping the little submarine on course as she crashed, dragged and scraped along just thirteen feet below the surface of the crystal-clear Johor Strait.

Fraser, using the night periscope that was designed for underwater work, could see the water’s surface from below moving like a wrinkled and winking pane of glass, growing gradually darker as the submarine came into the Takao’s great shadow. Suddenly, something scraped noisily down the XE-3’s starboard side, a sound alarmingly like giant fingernails being drawn down a huge blackboard, followed seconds afterwards by a violent crash as the submarine struck the Takao’s hull with a reverberating thud.

‘Stop the motor!’ yelled Fraser, wincing at the noise. Reed immediately shut off the engine. Inside the XE-3 the collision had sounded loud enough to wake the dead. But the Takao’s main belt of armour around her waist, designed to absorb the impact of torpedoes, was up to five inches thick. The collision had probably gone unnoticed aboard the warship.

‘I wonder where the hell we are,’3 muttered Fraser, almost to himself. The submarine’s position didn’t feel right. He could see nothing through the underwater periscope. It felt as though the boat was too far towards the Takao’s bow and Fraser suspected that the heavy scraping noise that they had heard had come from one of the cruiser’s thick anchor cables. Fraser decided to back away and line up for another run-in.

‘Port 30,’ he ordered, ‘half ahead group down.’ The electric motor whirred and the propeller turned faster, the submarine beginning to vibrate as the revolutions increased. But the XE-3 did not move. ‘Half ahead group down!’ repeated Fraser, his face sheened with sweat. He began issuing a stream of orders as he vainly tried to move the submarine from under the Takao. But the XE-3 stubbornly refused to budge. Fraser, panic starting to rise almost uncontrollably inside of him, realised that his submarine was trapped. Four men inside a tiny XE-craft, made of only quarter-inch-thick steel and loaded down with enough explosives to sink a battleship, were trapped beneath 15,500 tons of enemy warship deep inside Japan’s most prized harbour. Because the submarine had arrived later than planned, with each passing minute the tide was ebbing away and the Takao was settling lower and lower into the channel, its vast keel pushing down upon the XE-3.

Fraser, hardly pausing for breath, continued to give orders to the helm and engine. ‘Group down, half ahead,’ he called for what seemed like the thousandth time. But his orders were met only by the sound of the propeller spinning impotently and the whine of the motor as it sucked more juice from its two big batteries.

‘Christ, she’s not budging, Tich,’ exclaimed Kiwi Smith, his voice betraying his fear.

‘Full astern!’ said Fraser. The air inside the submarine was almost unbearable, and the pressure of the situation made that air feel even thicker and more noxious than a few minutes before. Still the XE-3 refused to move. Fraser’s eyes darted about the submarine’s narrow interior blankly as his mind raced through options and drills. As he listened to the propeller, his wife Melba’s face suddenly came to him, his pregnant wife back home in England. How in the hell did I get myself into this? he thought angrily. He slapped his hand hard against the periscope shaft and ordered again, ‘Half ahead group down’, already feeling horribly like a drowning man as he spoke.

*

About a year and a half before, early in 1944, Tich Fraser had been drinking tea in the wardroom of the submarine HMS H.44 with his best friend, David Carey. The boat, an old H-Class built in 1919, the year before Fraser was born, was docked in Londonderry after yet another sonar sweeping exercise and both men were bored.4 The boat was quiet, the crew going about routine matters or ashore. Rainy and grey Northern Ireland was a long way from the shooting war in the Mediterranean, where both men had served with distinction aboard more modern fighting submarines.

Fraser’s father had been a marine engineer, so it had come as little surprise to his family that he himself had chosen to go to sea shortly after leaving High Wycombe’s Royal Grammar School. He joined HMS Conway, a 19th-century battleship that had been converted into a training vessel, before serving in the Merchant Navy for two years, which included visiting Australia. In 1939 Fraser had been commissioned into the ‘Wavy Navy’, the Royal Naval Reserve, so named because the officer’s rank rings on their cuffs were styled in a wave pattern.

Fraser had ended up kicking his heels aboard the H.44 all because of an errant ashtray. He had been a junior officer aboard the S-Class submarine HMS Sahib in the Mediterranean. During a spectacularly successful patrol the Sahib had sunk seven Italian ships and a German U-boat. Fraser was one of several officers awarded the DSC. During a raucous celebratory party in the ward-room of the flotilla depot ship at Algiers the drunken officers had attempted to recreate Twickenham and Lord’s with any objects that were not nailed down. Someone had picked up a large, heavy brass ashtray, called out ‘Catch, Tich’ and slung it at Fraser. He ended up with a broken big toe, a long stay in hospital and a transfer to the UK after the Sahib sailed without him.5

The two positive things to emerge from Fraser’s transfer were the opportunity to marry his sweetheart, Melba, who was serving in the Wrens, and his promotion to first lieutenant aboard the H.44.

A young rating entered the wardroom with the signals log tucked under his arm. ‘Thanks, Davis,’ said Fraser as the rating placed the log on the scuffed wooden table between the two officers and withdrew quietly. Fraser leaned forward and cast his bored eye over the pad, expecting to see the usual mundane orders and requests neatly typed out for his review. But today a single word, printed in bold capitals, jumped off the page. That word was ‘SECRET’ and Fraser saw that the signal was from the Flag Officer Submarines to all of His Majesty’s underwater boats. Fraser read on.

Two Lieutenants and two Sub-Lieutenants R.N. or R.N.R. are requested for Special and Hazardous Service in submarines stop Names of Volunteers should be signalled to Flag Officer Submarines immediately.6

Fraser said nothing but slid the pad across the table to Carey, a slightly mischievous smile on his lips. While Carey read, Fraser thought to himself, Well, it’s made to measure. Here am I, a Lieutenant R.N.R. There’s David, a Sub-Lieutenant R.N. That’s two for the price of one for the F.O.S.7

Fraser watched as Carey read the signal through again. He looked up slowly, his inquisitive blue eyes meeting Fraser’s. ‘Shall we?’ Carey whispered conspiratorially. Fraser replied, a large grin forming across his impish face, ‘Why not?’

*

Fraser and Carey joined other volunteers who had responded from across the fleet. The navy had also recruited several dozen midshipmen, petty officers and ratings for the secret programme. They were joining probably the most secret section of the British armed forces, yet they had very little idea of what they were actually getting themselves into.

‘Special and Hazardous Service’ began with a train ride down to Portsmouth, the home of the Royal Navy. A short ferry ride took Fraser, Carey and the others across the harbour to Gosport and HMS Dolphin. The Dolphin wasn’t a ship but a ‘stone frigate’, a commissioned shore establishment.

The navy began by trying to weed out those who were completely unsuited for the kind of work that they would be undertaking.

‘What are your hobbies?’ asked a pleasant naval psychiatrist after the medical tests were completed. Carey thought it a reasonable question, though the next one was a bit odd. ‘What time do you get up at home on Sunday?’ At each response, the psychiatrist made careful notes. ‘Do you like cats?’8 was the next question, and Carey stifled bewildered laughter.

In the subsequent interview the commanding officer was evasive, to say the least. ‘The “Special Service” is most terribly secret,’ he said to Fraser. ‘I cannot tell you what manner of vessel you will serve in except that it is quite small, and navigates with the use of a periscope.’9 When Fraser and Carey met up later in the day to compare notes, Fraser joked about the CO’s description. ‘He might as well have drawn me a picture of it.’

After a few of the candidates had been rejected on medical grounds or for failing their psychological profiling, the survivors were asked back to Dolphin to begin their training. It was at this point that the trainees had the first inkling of what they had let themselves in for.

The commanding officer gathered them all together in a small room with all the windows shut and the door firmly locked. ‘What I am about to tell you is absolutely top secret,’ he said. ‘You are not to tell anybody – don’t tell your wife, your girlfriend, don’t tell your mother, sisters, anybody. Nobody at all.’ Fraser and Carey looked at each other, more intrigued than ever. An expectant air seemed to raise the room temperature as the young officers and ratings listened to the briefing, keyed up, excited and a little apprehensive.

‘You have been recruited to man a 30-ton submarine which has been designed to enter enemy harbours and attack enemy ships,’ said the CO. ‘The submarines are fitted with equipment to enhance their chances of entering and leaving enemy harbours undetected and providing you aren’t detected you have a good chance of a successful attack and retreat.’10 The CO talked for a while longer before abruptly changing the subject.

‘However, before we begin to train you in submarine handling, you must achieve a level of proficiency underwater using the Davis Submarine Escape Apparatus. You have ten days, gentlemen, to master submarine escapes. Those of you who pass this section of the course will progress to submarine training. Good luck.’11

*

For men like Fraser and Carey who transferred from the regular submarine branch, this part of the course was simply a refresher. For men from the surface fleet, it represented much more of a challenge.

Day one began in Dolphin’s large heated water tank, a sort of swimming pool that measured 40 feet wide and 30 feet deep.12 The trainees, in swimming trunks, gathered around the edge in front of the training staff.

‘Right, gentlemen, this ’ere is the Davis Submarine Escape Apparatus or “DSEA”,’ announced Warrant Officer Chadwick, the chief instructor. He held the rig up so that the class of trainees could all see it. Invented by Sir Robert Davis of the diving equipment firm Siebe Gorman,13 it had dramatically increased the chances of surviving a submarine sinking. ‘Now, pay attention, as your life may depend on it one day,’ said Chadwick. ‘This is the breathing bag,’ he continued, pointing at a square canvas and rubber bag. ‘It’s worn on the chest.’ Another instructor demonstrated by placing the set over his head and securing the waist straps. ‘Inside the bag is a Protosorb canister that scrubs your exhaled breath,’ explained Chadwick. He then pointed to a pocket on the end of the breathing bag. ‘This holds a steel oxygen cylinder. There is a control valve connecting it to the breathing bag here,’ he said, pointing. ‘When you open the cylinder’s valve it lets oxygen into the bag and charges it to the pressure of the surrounding water. Everyone keeping up so far?’

The group, eagerly concentrating, muttered agreement in unison and Chadwick continued.

‘Now, the canister that I mentioned inside the breathing bag, that’s connected to a mouthpiece by this ’ere flexible corrugated tube,’ he said, pointing to a long brown pipe that looked like something pulled off an army gas respirator. ‘Not surprisingly, you stick this bit in your mouth. Right ho, Jim,’ said Chadwick, and his partner popped the mouthpiece in. ‘You can only breathe through your mouth, so you wear this on your nose,’ said Chadwick, holding up a flexible rubber nose clip. ‘Lastly, you ’ave yer goggles,’ and his partner slid on a pair of rubber and glass goggles.

‘Right, Bob’s yer uncle, now you’re ready to dive,’ Chadwick said, grinning. ‘Now, before we try the set out, one more thing. The breathing bag is also fitted with a non-return release valve,’ he said, pointing to the toggle. ‘This allows air to escape from the bag as you ascend towards the surface and the water pressure decreases. Once you are at the surface, you can close this valve and the air in the bag will then act like a lifejacket. If it deflates, you refill it by opening the non-return valve and blowing into the mouthpiece.’ Chadwick paused and smiled. ‘Right, gentlemen, I hope I haven’t blinded you all with science this morning. By the end of today you are all going to be very, very familiar with these sets.’ A few of the trainees choked back nervous snorts of laughter.

‘Now for the bit you’ve all been waiting for. PO Stevens has a DSEA for each of you. Once you’ve got your sets on we’ll try them out in the tank.’

The DSEA was basically a primitive rebreather and was readily adaptable for use by frogmen operating from submarines because the set did not emit any telltale bubbles like a regular aqualung.14 This meant that enemy sailors looking over the sides of their ships should not see anything untoward on the surface of the water. The downside was that after a certain amount of time the Protosorb filter would be used up and the air would turn poisonous. The amount of time spent in the water was therefore critical.15 Breathing pure oxygen over an extended period of time resulted in narcosis. The divers created a mythical monster named ‘Oxygen Pete’ that lurked in the depths ready to snare the unwary. Only death awaited those who fell into his clutches.16

The trainees pulled on the bulky equipment, set their nose clips and settled their goggles over their eyes. Chadwick told them to put their faces into the water while continuing to breathe normally. Several panicked or held their breath. Overcoming this natural urge was hard for many in the class. ‘As you go under, you breathe out one long breath,’ said Chadwick. A few more attempts and they soon realised that they wouldn’t drown.

After several days of getting familiar with the DSEA in the tank the make-or-break test was a simulated escape from a flooded submarine. A steel chamber had been set into the bottom of the tank about 25 feet below the surface, accessible through a separate steel door. One instructor and three trainees would be sealed into the chamber with hardly any space to move.

Lieutenant Max Shean, a 26-year-old softly spoken Australian from Perth, had been one of the original recruits to the secret programme back in 1942. Shean had learned all about the sea from his father, and together they had built and sailed boats. Mechanically minded, Shean had been halfway through an engineering degree at the University of Western Australia when war broke out. While ashore on leave from the corvette HMS Bluebell in mid-1942 Shean had seen an Admiralty Fleet Order calling for volunteer officers and ratings for ‘Special and Hazardous Service’. The ad had also rather ominously stated that the volunteers should be good swimmers, under 25 years of age and unmarried.17

Shean had signed up before he realised what he had let himself in for. The Dolphin course was a shock. Shean never forgot the reaction of several of the trainees when confronted by the submarine escape test.18 The ones who’d had the most to say during DSEA training were the first to crack up once inside the chamber. ‘That was when the noisy peckers went quiet, except for one who screamed, “Let me out. Let me out. Let …” This the instructor did, and that was the last we saw of that volunteer.’19 In Shean’s class of twelve, three washed out at this point.

‘Right, sets on,’ said the instructor to Fraser’s new group almost two years later, as the steel door was banged shut with grim finality. Fraser had done this test before when he had first joined the submarine service, but everyone hated it. It was so unnatural and so claustrophobic. The three trainees squeezed inside the chamber inserted their mouthpieces, opened their oxygen tank valves, put on their nose clips and then pulled down their goggles. ‘Right, I’m equalising now,’ said the instructor, before he also put in his mouthpiece. Inside the dim metal chamber the feeling was oppressive. The instructor opened a valve and water started to rush into the small space, incredibly loud and violent. The pressure in their ears soon started to become painful. The trainees looked at each other, their round eyes behind their goggles clearly alarmed. The first-timers looked terrified. Soon the water was up to their waists, then their chins. The recruits fought down the urge to panic as the rushing water rose inexorably, bringing with it the primeval terror of drowning. They breathed rapidly, then suddenly their heads were fully submerged, four men entombed inside a metal coffin. The instructor, now that the pressure was equalised, stretched up and opened the hatch in the roof of the tank, the metallic bumps as the door swung open muted and dull beneath the water.

The chamber at Dolphin replicated the one-man Wet and Dry (W&D) compartment found aboard an X- and XE-craft submarine. In the W&D, the diver would flood the chamber while the submarine was submerged, open the hatch in the roof and swim out to complete net cutting or limpet mining. By the same method the diver could re-enter the submerged submarine, all without upsetting the submarine’s delicate buoyancy or trim.20 It was an important underwater innovation and unique to the Royal Navy.

Once out of the chamber in the tank at Dolphin the trainees swam into a canvas-type trunk, which was rolled down from the top of the tank and fitted around the escape hatch.21 Breathing from the DSEA, the trainees ducked down into the trunk and floated up to the surface. Exits were also practised into open water, until the trainees had become very comfortable with the process.

There followed a physical reaction test, where the trainees were placed 60 feet down beneath the murky water of Portsmouth Harbour – twice the safe depth for DSEA diving.22 But it was necessary so that the divers could identify the onset of oxygen narcosis and guard against it.

Able Seaman Mick Magennis, who volunteered to train as a diver after being a spare crewman during an earlier operation, judged this to be the worst part of the training at Dolphin. Once he had been down on the bottom for a few minutes Magennis felt his lips begin to twitch until he could scarcely keep the DSEA mouthpiece in. His arms and legs began to go numb with pins and needles. He knew that in a few minutes they would start to twitch involuntarily as oxygen poisoning began to invisibly take over his body. A pounding headache, like a sledgehammer inside of his skull, had started. Magennis knew that soon he would start having convulsions, black out and drown. He fought these symptoms as long as he could, but his body was shutting down as the narcosis slowly killed him. But just when he was about to give in he was hauled back to the surface, half-conscious, dazed and confused, by two strong instructors. ‘You’ve passed, lad,’23 bellowed a chief petty officer, clapping Magennis hard on the back. Magennis could hardly speak, his lips numb and his body shivering with cold. The instructors quickly stripped off his DSEA and laid him down on the floor until his circulation began to return to normal. ‘Jesus, Joseph and Mary,’ gasped Magennis, before he managed to sit up groggily, ‘what a hell of a way to fight a war.’ Now he knew why the Dolphin course had been christened the ‘Perisher’.

CHAPTER TWO

Cloak and Dagger

‘I think they must have been, without exception, the most uncomfortable little ships ever built.’

—Lieutenant-Commander John Beaufoy-Brown, HMS Varbel II

Tich Fraser, David Carey and ten other officers and men all crowded aboard the night train to Glasgow at London’s King’s Cross Station. Though they had first-class tickets, the train was so overcrowded with servicemen and women that most of the group had to stand in the corridor. All except one young sub-lieutenant, who was so tall that he stretched out across the laps of seven accommodating Wrens. It was a long journey north during wartime, but among the new recruits, who had faced the terrors of the ‘Perisher’ and passed the test, a certain élan had already surfaced – they thought of themselves as an elite.

At Glasgow the group changed trains to Wemyss, then took a ferry to Rothesay Bay on the Isle of Bute. They appeared to be heading to the far end of the British Isles, to a rural Scottish backwater about as far away from the shooting war as it was possible to get. It was idyllic after bomb-scarred Portsmouth and London, with green rolling hills, low mountains, flocks of sheep, and picturesque lochs. The air was fresh and lightly scented with the smell of the sea.

Gulls shrieked and cawed overhead as the small passenger ferry arrived at its destination. The recruits piled off the ferry onto the stone jetty, their kit bags slung over their shoulders, and looked around.

‘Over here, chaps,’ announced a well-spoken female voice. They turned and saw a blue-painted Royal Navy truck pulling in beside a row of tiny fishermen’s cottages. Leaning out of the driver’s window was an attractive blonde Wren in her early 20s. ‘Jump aboard,’ she said, flashing them a winning smile.

‘This job is getting better by the minute,’ quipped David Carey, as they all piled into the back of the truck. A mile down the road, which was really only a country track, the truck was stopped at a checkpoint. Two sailors in landing rig armed with Lee Enfield rifles spoke to the Wren before peering into the back of the truck. One ticked off the party on a clipboard. The white-painted wooden barrier was raised and the truck rumbled on down the road for another mile before jerking to a halt on the shores of a stunning loch.

‘This is it, chaps. The end of the line,’ said the Wren, banging her hand on the side of the truck as she leaned out of the cab. The trainees, gathering their kit, jumped down from the tailboard and looked around. ‘Where on earth are we now?’ murmured Fraser. A tall and imposing grey stone building stood before them. Unknown to Fraser and his comrades, they, along with several other fresh intakes, had arrived at one of Britain’s most secret bases – HMS Varbel.

*

British secret underwater warfare had come about in reaction to the successful deployment of frogmen and human torpedoes by the Royal Italian Navy early in the war. The British decided to copy the Italian method and create their own human torpedoes, christened ‘chariots’, with the two-man crews of these sit-on contraptions wearing early diving suits and modified DSEAs. In June 1942 the unit had moved to Loch Erisort in Scotland to begin training for missions against the enemy. Chariots were used against the ‘pride of Hitler’s navy’, the battleship Tirpitz, in Norway in October 1942, and extensively in the Mediterranean, though with only limited success. Concurrently, the British had also started development of an extraordinary new type of small submarine codenamed the X-craft. The Flag Officer Submarines, Vice-Admiral Sir Max Horton, was particularly keen on midget subs. A successful First World War sub skipper, Horton realised that the chances of standard-sized submarines penetrating enemy harbours to attack capital ships had been virtually neutralised by booms, anti-submarine and anti-torpedo nets. Small submarines equipped with divers who could cut through the defences were the obvious solution. Midget submarines also had distinct advantages over chariots – they could travel much further and stay on a mission for much longer. By January 1943 six new X-craft were operational. Most famously these six subs attacked the Tirpitz on 22 September 1943 in what was codenamed Operation Source. They inflicted serious damage, though at heavy cost to Britain’s most secret new naval arm.

*

The Kyles of Bute Hydropathic Hotel was a grand old Victorian pile outside the town of Rothesay on Loch Striven in northwest Scotland. It was a long, three-storied building, with only an entrance porch to break its straight line. Of a rough-faced grey local rock, the basements contained a fascinating collection of baths from the time when the hotel had been a relaxation spa for the wealthy.1 It was positioned high on the side of a hill overlooking the quaint fishing village of Port Bannatyne.

Loch Striven sticks up like a crooked forefinger adjoining the west side of the Firth of Clyde north of the Isle of Bute, penetrating about eight miles into the Cowal District of Argyll. The navy had reserved the hotel and the loch as a submarine exercise area, and the waters were closed to civilian traffic. An early bend hid most of the loch from view, but once this was rounded a long, narrow fjord-like waterway stretched off into the distance. It had steep rock walls that were almost devoid of vegetation, those high walls casting dark shadows over the loch at all hours, giving the place an air of mystery, and for some of the recruits an impression of menace and evil.2

Fraser, Carey and the new recruits arrived at HMS Varbel only a few months before D-Day in 1944. The once-luxurious health resort had been largely stripped of its furnishings and paintings but it was bustling with Wrens in their attractive blue uniforms.3 Outside, the White Ensign snapped out in the breeze from a flagpole as naval personnel of all ranks and trades bustled in and out of the hotel’s grand entrance.

The rather curious name ‘Varbel’ had been derived from the names of the two officers most closely associated with the creation of X-craft, Commanders Varley and Bell.4 They were extraordinary men.

Cromwell Varley, DSC, had been a successful submarine skipper during the First World War. In developing the original X-craft concept at his engineering works on the River Hamble, Varley had drawn on his experience of chasing a German cruiser across the North Sea and up the Elbe River before torpedoing her in sight of the crew’s welcoming families. Varley’s original idea was for a small submarine that could be sent up the Rhine into Germany to place charges under the bridges during the transition to war. The Admiralty turned the idea down as both impractical, which future operations would prove it was not, and unethical.5

Fraser, Carey and the other young officers were shown into the wardroom at Varbel where they discovered several highly decorated midget submarine veterans already in residence. These men were the survivors of Operation Source. Though controversial at the time, the explosive charges from two X-craft had caused extensive damage to the 42,000-ton Tirpitz. Two X-craft skippers had been awarded the Victoria Cross. However, of six hard-to-replace X-craft sent on the raid, five had been lost with eight highly trained ‘X-men’ killed and a further eight taken prisoner by the Germans. Small wonder that X-craft soon earned the name ‘suicide boats’ from those not directly connected with the programme.

A few of those who had survived Operation Source had gone on to take part in two more operations in Norway. Both had been attempts to sink the Laksevåg floating dock in Bergen. X-24, commanded by Max Shean, had, in error, mined a German merchant ship tied up at the dock on 15 April 1944, but under a different skipper and crew the boat had returned and finally destroyed the dock on 11 September.6

When Fraser, Carey and the wide-eyed new officers arrived, the veterans, a mixture of skippers, first lieutenants and divers, were lounging in leather club chairs before the wardroom’s large unlit fireplace.

‘Hello, Ian Fraser.’ Fraser extended his hand to a tall Royal Navy lieutenant who rose from his seat to return his greeting. ‘Everyone calls me “Tich”,’ Fraser added.

‘Hello Tich, I’m Pat Westmacott,’ the officer replied, shaking Fraser’s hand warmly. At six feet tall, Herbert ‘Pat’ Westmacott towered over Fraser and was a tight fit inside an X-craft.

‘And this is David Carey,’ said Fraser. The two men shook hands.

‘Pleasure to meet you, David,’ replied Westmacott.

‘Your accent, sir, Australian?’ asked Carey.

‘No,’ smiled Westmacott, ‘I’m from New Zealand. And you can ditch the ‘sir’, we don’t tolerate any of that quarterdeck bullshit here.’ Carey was a little shocked at Westmacott’s bluntness, but the change was refreshing. Westmacott, who was 24, had been awarded both the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and the DSC, and had been the commander who had taken the X-24 in to finally sink the German floating dock at Bergen.

‘If it’s an Aussie you’re after, you’d better meet Max,’ said Westmacott, indicating Shean. He rose from his seat by the window, a crooked grin spread across his friendly face.

‘Max Shean. G’day,’ said the Australian lieutenant, shaking hands with Fraser and Carey. The other new officers followed suit, introducing themselves around. Soon the air was filled with good-natured laughter and the burble of conversation.

Blond-haired and fork-bearded Lieutenant Jack Smart, a handsome 27-year-old, looked more like a 17th-century buccaneer than a Volunteer Reserve officer. He strode over to greet the newcomers. ‘Welcome to the asylum, chaps,’ he said. Smart, born in Northumberland in 1916, had joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1938. After service on a minesweeper in the Mediterranean he had volunteered for X-craft. On the Tirpitz operation Smart had commanded HMS X-8, and was ordered to attack a secondary target, the German battlecruiser Lützow. Smart and his crew had barely made it back alive from the mission. Before they had got anywhere near the Lützow the X-8’s towing line to the ‘mother’ submarine HMS Sea Nymph had parted. When Smart had surfaced his boat the Sea Nymph was nowhere to be found. Smart had decided to go on with the mission regardless but the X-craft had sprung serious leaks. Jettisoning his two side charges, four tons of Amatol high explosive, these had blown up, one close enough to have damaged the submarine, to such an extent that the crew, after drifting for 37 exhausting hours, had finally abandoned it.7 Smart had been awarded the MBE and had bravely volunteered to stay on with the programme.

Several of the younger sub-lieutenants, mostly employed as divers, introduced themselves. They were a friendly bunch and soon put Fraser, Carey and the newcomers at ease. After dumping their kit in their accommodation and having a quick look around, Fraser’s group joined the other recruits, officers and ratings for their first official meeting.

*

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ said the Royal Navy captain to the assembled recruits in the hotel’s former dining room. The view through the large picture windows was stunning, the flat expanse of the loch stretching away to distant mountains. But no one looked out of the window – all eyes were on the older officer standing on a small wooden stage before them.

‘My name is Banks and I’d like to take this opportunity of welcoming you all to the 12th Submarine Flotilla,’ he announced in an authoritative voice. William Banks was 44 years old, ancient in the eyes of the many young officers and ratings in the room, most of whom were barely out of their teens. Banks exuded experience. Of medium height, with a large forehead and receding swept back brown hair, he was a pre-war professional. The rows of medal ribbons on his left shoulder were testimony to that. He’d joined the navy in 1918 and been in submarines since 1923. He’d won a DSC in 1940, been mentioned in despatches in 1942 and taken command of the X-craft project in April 1943 as commander of both HMS Varbel and 12th Submarine Flotilla. Banks had personally planned the attack on the Tirpitz.8 For putting the mighty battleship out of action for six months Captain Banks had received the CBE from a grateful King George VI. The recruits were to discover that Captain Banks was a charming man to talk to, and a man who got things done.9

‘What we do here is very hush-hush, that much I’m sure you’ve already guessed,’ said Banks. ‘But before I begin, I have to insist that what I say is not merely confidential, but top secret. So I must ask you beforehand, every one of you, to undertake as officers and gentlemen, or as loyal servicemen, never to divulge anything of the details I’m about to give you until the operation is over.’10

They responded to a man, giving the time-honoured naval response of ‘Aye aye, sir.’

‘You already have some idea of what you’ve volunteered for, but not the details. Well, now I’m going to put you out of your misery.’ Banks turned and walked over to a large board mounted on an easel that was covered with a dust cloth. A petty officer stood beside it. Banks nodded and the petty officer removed the cover, revealing a large diagram of an X-craft in profile. The trainees all craned forward in their seats and a ripple of excitement flashed around the room.

‘Settle down,’ said Banks in his schoolmasterly way. ‘This, gentlemen, is the X-craft midget submarine. The “X” stands for secret. With this weapon we have been able to strike stealthy blows against the enemy on several occasions. It’s my job to train you to use this ingenious machine. Well, let’s have a look at her, shall we?’

Banks picked up a pointer from a side table and began to outline the diagram to his audience.

‘The X-craft is a real submarine, only in miniature,’ announced Banks. ‘It has a crew of four – a commander, pilot, engineer and a diver. The range is just over a thousand miles under its own power and it can dive safely to 300 feet.’ Banks pointed out the various ballast and trim tanks and briefly described their operation.

‘So, gentlemen, the X-craft can do everything that a big submarine can do except fire torpedoes.’ Banks pointed to the side of the craft. ‘Here you’ll notice this crescent-shaped object. This is called a “side cargo”. It contains two tons of Amatol high explosive. One can be carried on each side. This is the X-craft’s main weapon and it is dropped beneath an enemy warship. Naturally, you’ll want to be very far away when they go up. She can carry limpet mines as well, and in this configuration the X-craft will carry one side cargo and one limpet carrier containing six 200lb mines in lieu of a second side cargo. Naturally, the diver’s job will be to emplace the mines on enemy ships. However, the primary function of the diver is to cut holes in anti-submarine nets to allow the X-craft to get at protected enemy warships and the like.’11

The trainees were intrigued, and Fraser, like many listening to Banks, was slightly unsettled by what he had volunteered for.

‘Now, the X-craft is about 50 feet long externally and about five-and-a-half feet across the beam. If you look around you might notice that many of the chaps who’ve been selected for this programme are, how shall I put it, jockey-sized. This is because the submarines are quite cramped inside. The only place where an average-sized chap can just about stand up is in the periscope chamber. So, the short-arses have the advantage.’ The audience all laughed. It was certainly plain to see that a lot of the men present in the room were well below average height, including the appropriately named ‘Tich’ Fraser and the equally small Mick Magennis.

‘Internally, the space is reduced to about 35 feet because of the propeller, diving rudders and so on,’ continued Banks. He spoke for another ten minutes, roughing out for the men the subjects that they would shortly start to learn in great detail both in the classroom and in practice. It was clear to everyone in the room that this was a completely different kind of warfare, and both exciting and daunting in equal parts.

‘We’ve plenty of targets but limited time. You will have to work your socks off but there will be missions aplenty for those who complete the programme.’ Banks paused and folded his arms. ‘I’m not going to soft-soap you, gentlemen. What we do here is damned dangerous work. But you chaps have been selected because you’re the best we can find to do this sort of work. You’ll be sailing in a very small boat, she’s unarmed, and you’re going to take her into some of the best-defended stretches of water that we know of.’ Banks paused for a moment to let what he had said sink in.

‘If you are successful, your actions will shorten the war,’ said Banks. ‘Work hard and pay attention to the training staff. The programme is challenging, but none of you would be here if we thought you couldn’t complete it.’ A ghost of a smile passed over Banks’s lips. ‘Well, chaps, that’s my pep talk, for what it’s worth,’ he said, and rubbed his hands together gleefully.

‘Right, let’s get to work.’

*

For the first couple of weeks after arriving from London the trainees were lectured on the principles and operation of X-craft submersibles in the hotel’s dining room. The lectures lasted from morning till night.12 For men like Fraser, who was already a seasoned submariner, the work was not particularly challenging, but for those who had come from the surface fleet it was a steep learning curve. Nearly all of the officers were not submariners but reservists from either the RNR or RNVR, essentially civilians with limited sea experience. Most of the engine room artificers were already qualified submariners, along with some of the stokers and electrical artificers.13 The need for secrecy was constantly drummed into them.

They were also given a course in hard-hat diving in Kames Bay. For nearly everyone, it was his first introduction to this Victorian form of underwater exploration. In practice, the X-craft divers would not use the equipment but Captain Banks had decided that it was an excellent method to get the trainees comfortable in open water.14 The thick tan-coloured Siebe Gorman diving suits, with polished brass fittings and grey lead shoes, were cumbersome and extremely heavy. Once screwed into the brass helmet the trainees all had to fight off dreadful feelings of claustrophobia. It took a lot of self-control to calm down as they were winched 60 feet down into the dark peaty waters from a motor cutter.15

By the end of the first part of their course the recruits had digested the theory of X-craft operations and increased their confidence under the water. The recruits were then loaded aboard trucks and driven ten miles north up Loch Striven, to another top-secret training base. It was time to start practical training.

Nestled on the loch’s steep mountainous sides were one or two crofters’ cottages, and, at the loch head, a gently sloping alluvial plain. Here was located Ardtaraig House, the country shooting lodge of a 19th-century shipping magnate, built in traditional Scottish grey stone.16 The cluster of buildings had been leased to the navy and commissioned as HMS Varbel II, the advanced diving training centre for 12th Submarine Flotilla.17

The commanding officer was 35-year-old Lieutenant-Commander John Beaufoy-Brown. Born in 1910, Beaufoy-Brown had joined the navy in 1927 and transferred to submarines in 1931. In 1940–41 he had commanded the T-class submarine HMS Taku during operations in the North Sea and Atlantic, winning a DSC. Before taking command of Varbel II in 1943, Beaufoy-Brown had been on the staff of Admiral Sir Max Horton, Flag Officer (Submarines).18 He was an experienced sub skipper and a no-nonsense character held in high regard by both the trainees and the staff.

The programme’s ‘mother’ ship, the 10,000-ton former Clan Line steamer HMS Bonaventure was moored on Loch Striven ready to take crews and training submarines to even more remote practice grounds further to the northwest. Built to handle heavy lifting, the grey-painted Bonaventure could carry four X-craft on her fore-deck, two on her after-deck, and two in her after-hold. Her crew contained specialists in every trade, and she had a well-equipped workshop capable of handling almost any type of repair as well as plenty of accommodation space for the over 50 men who would be required to provide crews for the twelve new top-secret XE-craft submarines that were under construction in England for operations in the Far East.19 It was planned that the first six boats would comprise the senior division of a new flotilla to be based aboard the Bonaventure. They would sail to the Far East first.