X3 to X54 E-Book

Keith Hall

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 178

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The X- and XE-Class submarines were conceived during the Second World War: around 51ft (16m) long, they were designed to be towed by a 'mother' submarine and use their small size to complete stealth missions, such as attacking harbours and performing reconnaissance. Although they would not begin active service until 1942, the submarine crews achieved quite the record, racking up 167 honours between them, including four Victoria Crosses. Written by ex-submariner Keith Hall, X3 to X54 is a look at the entire life and evolution of the British midget submarine, from its early prototypes to its final journeys. With a wealth of imagery, including archive X-craft photographs as well as up-to-date views of the X51 (HMS Stickleback) from the Scottish Submarine Centre, this is the fascinating, yet little-known, story of Britain's midget submarines.

Leseprobe

All royalties from the sale of this book are beingdonated to the Submarine Centre, Helensburgh.

Front cover image: XE8 under way.(National Museum of the Royal Navy)

Back cover image: Remembrance Day poppies.

(Submarine Centre, Helensburgh)

Frontispiece: The engine room, looking aft.

(Submarine Centre, Helensburgh)

First published 2023

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Keith Hall, 2023

The right of Keith Hall to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 200 6

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Preamble

PART ONE: X CRAFT HISTORY

1      The Mediterranean

2      X Craft Development

3      12th Flotilla Operations

4      X Craft Built During the Second World War

PART TWO: THE ORIGIN OF THE STICKLEBACK CLASS

5      The Cold War

6      Britain after the Second World War

7      The Stickleback Class Introduction

PART THREE: BUILDING THE STICKLEBACK CLASS

8      Constructing the Stickleback Class

9      Layout

10      How the X Craft Works

11      Life On Board the Submarine

12      Stickleback Class Operational Life

PART FOUR: THE SUBMARINE CENTRE, HELENSBURGH

13      The Submarine Centre, Helensburgh

Epilogue

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Also by the Author

PREAMBLE

The Royal Navy developed several midget submarines during the Second World War. However, the decommissioning of the Stickleback class between late 1958 and early 1960s marked the end of the Navy’s enthusiasm for this type of craft. They were initially developed for one purpose and one purpose only, to attack major enemy ships in harbour; however, their usefulness and adaptability was quickly recognised and the range of their missions grew. These craft formed the 12th Flotilla during the war, which included X craft and manned torpedoes. These craft were based at Port Bannatyne on the Isle of Bute.

Submersible vehicles may have been used for military purposes as early as the fourth century bce, when, legend has it, Alexander the Great used a glass diving bell for reconnaissance. The Middle Ages gave birth to many designs for exploratory and military submersibles, most of which, luckily for the potential crews, were never built.

During the America Revolutionary War in 1775, Connecticut-born David Bushnell, who was a student at Yale in the early 1770s, studied the use of underwater explosives and how they could be used to attack British ships. He developed this idea and, with funding provided by General George Washington, an egg-shaped submersible was produced. This became known as the Turtle; it was a hand-powered craft that used a hand-powered drill and a ship’s auger to attach explosives to the hull of an enemy ship.

This very small craft was 10ft by 3ft and had a crew of one man, who propelled his submarine by pedalling. It was made of wood and covered with tar with steel bands for reinforcement, similar to a barrel. On the surface, several small windows allowed the crewman to navigate. A small water tank could be flooded to enable the Turtle to submerge; to surface the submarine, the water could be pumped out by hand.

On 7 September 1776, this unique craft was used to attack General William Howe’s flagship, HMS Eagle, in New York Harbor. General Washington gave permission for this mission and at 11 p.m. on 6 September, Sergeant Ezra Lee pedalled for two hours in his approach to Eagle. Although the attack was unsuccessful, this was the first naval attack ever made in a submarine.

The Turtle made several attempts to attach explosives to the hulls of the British warships anchored in New York Harbor during 1776, but none were successful. A few months later, the British sunk the submarine’s ‘depot ship’ while it was on board. Although Bushnell claimed to have salvaged his submarine, the claim was never confirmed. Washington later wrote that the invention was ingenious, but contained too many variables to be controlled, a thought echoed by many submariners even to this day. A replica of the Turtle is on display in the Royal Navy Submarine Museum at Gosport.

As the Americans realised, enemy ships were more vulnerable to attack in harbour than when they are at sea. During the Second World War, enemy capital ships were anchored in their northern, heavily defended lairs. For aircraft, there were limited and well-defended approaches; anti-aircraft guns and smoke generators made the targets almost invulnerable. Despite this, naval authorities thought these vessels remained vulnerable to underwater attack if the right submersible was available.

The Second World War British X craft were developed to exploit this weakness; the post-war X craft were constructed to carry out a different task. The latter were built to test the country’s harbour defences, to see if they could meet a challenge posed by the perceived Russian midget submarines.

Part One of the book explores the history of the X craft, describing their development and the Second World War operation they were involved in. Part Two details the origins of the Stickleback class. Part Three covers the building of this new class of midget submarine and its layout, examines the rather tough life on board one of these very cramped and uncomfortable craft, and looks at their rather short operational life.

Part Four covers the Submarine Centre in Helensburgh and the bringing of HMS Stickleback to Scotland. Apart from highlighting the town’s close links with the submarine community, one of the founder’s main aims was to produce an exhibition that would act as a memorial to the men of the submarine service and the crews of the 12th Flotilla in particular. The centre’s hi-tech presentation certainly achieves this.

The Epilogue covers other memorials to the X craft and where the few remaining ones can be seen.

I have purposely avoided including a glossary and I explain any abbreviations in the text, hopefully avoiding the need for the reader to flip backwards and forwards through the book. For a similar reason, I have not included footnotes or references.

I hope you enjoy the book.

Keith Hall

PART ONE

X CRAFTHISTORY

1

THE MEDITERRANEAN

In the early part of the Second World War, the Italians realised they couldn’t match the Royal Navy, and Mussolini’s efforts to seize control of the Mediterranean had, by late 1941, failed. The raid on Taranto and the Battle of Cape Matapan had given the Royal Navy a decisive advantage. Low morale and fuel shortages further impeded the Regia Marina’s capabilities. Nevertheless, the Italians still had several modern battleships and a few older, modernised vessels. Fortunately for the Italians, the Royal Navy had lost one of its battleships; a German U-boat had sunk HMS Barham on 25 November 1941 and the British had deployed several warships to the Far East in expectation of war with Japan.

Just before the outbreak of war, the Italians set up a special unit to develop innovative ideas to level the balance of power with the Royal Navy. In 1941, this unit became the 10th Flotilla (Xa MAS). They developed two primary/novel methods of attacking the British Mediterranean Fleet.

The first was a 2-ton, 18ft-long wooden speedboat packed with 728lb of explosives. It was powered by an Alfa Romeo AR 6cc Outboard Motor rated at 95hp and could reach speeds of 33 knots. It was known as the Motoscafo da Turismo (MT) and nicknamed Barchino (little boat). These boats were specially designed to make their way through obstacles such as torpedo nets. Once the operator aimed the boat at his target, he locked the steering and dived into the water.

The second weapon, which resulted from a collaboration between two young engineers in the Italian Navy’s Submarine Service, was the human torpedo, known as siluri a lenta corsa (SLC, or slow-speed torpedo).

This was not an entirely new idea. In 1918, days before the surrender of the Central Powers, the collapsing government of Austria-Hungary made clear that it would pass one of its dreadnought battleships, SMS Viribus Unitis, on to the newly created State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, a forerunner of Yugoslavia. The Italians did not want to see a powerful battleship falling into the possession of a potential regional rival; Italy believed the ship still belonged to Austria-Hungary and no peace treaty yet existed. Accordingly, a team of divers entered Pula Harbor and attached a mine to the bottom of the battleship. They were quickly captured and confessed to attaching the weapon without indicating the exact spot of its placement. But the Austrians couldn’t find the mine, which exploded and sank the battleship.

The early Italian vessels were electrically propelled and had a maximum speed of 3 knots and a range of up to 10 miles. Most of these vessels and others developed during the Second World War had hydroplanes at the rear, side hydroplanes in front, and a control panel. There were typically four flotation tanks, two to the front and two aft, which were flooded or blown empty to adjust buoyancy and attitude, as is the case on a submarine. The early vessels were equipped with a compass. In some later versions, riders’ seats were enclosed, and even domed cockpits were added. Most manned torpedo operations were conducted at night and during the new moon to reduce the risk of detection.

On 21 August 1940, the submarine Iride was attacked by three Swordfish from HMS Eagle while loading SLCs in the Gulf of Bomba in Libya. The submarine was sunk.

The first operational use of the SLCs was in September 1940, when eight were carried on board the submarines Gondar and Scirè, which sailed for Alexandria and Gibraltar. When Scirè arrived off Gibraltar, it found the harbour empty: HMS Renown, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Sheffield had sailed a few days earlier to help in the search for the Bismarck. While en route to Alexandria, the second submarine, Gondar, which was carrying three SLCs, passed the Mediterranean Fleet, which had left Alexandria, heading for Malta. Without viable targets, the submarine was rerouted to Tobruk. Before reaching its destination, it sighted an enemy ship and dived to avoid detection. However, it was quickly located by the destroyer HMAS Stuart and attacked. Two other ships joined the attack and the prolonged depth charge attack caused considerable damage to the submarine and the SLC units, which began to flood. It was forced to surface and the crew scuttled the vessel with explosive charges. All the crew but one was rescued and imprisoned.

The following month the Italian divers returned to Gibraltar but a rebreather problem prevented one team from approaching their target; another SLC sank. Finally, the third craft experienced a steering failure as it approached HMS Barnham. The two crew tried to drag the SLC into position but couldn’t and abandoned the craft. A few hours later, the warhead exploded without causing any damage, alerting the British to this new threat. More importantly for the British, several days later, one of the scuttled SLCs was washed ashore on a nearby Spanish beach. The British wasted no time in photographing it and some of the equipment from the craft was salvaged and sent to Britain.

These setbacks led to system improvements, intensified training, and the exploration of other attack methods.

By the end of 1941, Italy was struggling to supply the Italian and German armies in North Africa. British surface ships, aircraft and submarines were so successful in blocking Italian shipping that in November 1941 only 38 per cent of materiel (29,813 of 79,208 tons) sent to Libya arrived. The Italian high command planned several measures to help remedy this situation. These included changes to convoying patterns, the use of the battle fleet to escort convoys, and SLC attacks against the British naval bases at Alexandria and Gibraltar.

On 25 March 1941, the MT were used to attack the heavy cruiser HMS York off Souda Bay, Crete. The motorboats were launched by the destroyers Francesco Crispi and Quintino Sella on the approaches to the bay. After negotiating the boom defences, the small craft attacked York and the Norwegian tanker Pericles. Both vessels were sunk.

Scirè returned to Gibraltar on the night of 26/27 May 1941 and launched three SLCs. One sank; the others reached merchant shipping anchored in deep water outside the military harbour but mechanical failures stopped them placing their charges.

On the night of 19 September 1941, Scirè launched three SLCs in the Bay of Gibraltar. Italian intelligence had reported that a battleship, an aircraft carrier and two cruisers were in the military harbour. Unfortunately for the Italians, after the earlier unsuccessful attack, the British were now more aware of this new Italian threat and better prepared to counter it. As a result, the Algeciras roadstead and the entrance to the military harbour were patrolled regularly by harbour launches, which dropped depth charges at regular intervals.

Due to the frequent patrols, the first SLC could not enter the military harbour. With dawn approaching, the crew decided to attack a merchantman and fixed their warhead to a sizeable nearby ship. Realising their intended target was an Italian-registered, captured vessel, they detached the charge and transferred it to another armed merchantman, Durham. The SLC crew scuttled their craft and swam to safety on the Spanish shore. The resultant explosion badly damaged Durham and it had to be beached by harbour tugs.

The second SLC also had trouble with the patrolling harbour defence vessels and chose a target in the roadstead. Their targets broke in half when the warhead exploded.

The third SLC managed to penetrate the heavily defended anchorage. Once inside, the crew decided they did not have the time to search for HMS Ark Royal and decided to attack a large tanker in the hope that a large fire would ensue and engulf the harbour. The resultant explosion broke the back of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary oiler Denbydale; the hoped-for inferno did not happen.

Shortly after this mission, the Italian Navy began work on Oterra, a tanker that had been scuttled in the harbour of Algeciras, Spain, which was within sight of Gibraltar. The Italians told the Spanish that they were cleaning the ship’s trimming tanks and ensuring its neutrality. Next, the ship’s bow was raised and a hatch was cut in the hull, which led to a watertight compartment. When the work was completed, the bow was submerged, which put the new compartment and the watertight hatch under the water. The Italians then told the Spanish they were moving in boiler tubes to repair the engines so the ship could be moved after the war; instead, they loaded several 22ft manned torpedoes.

Starting in early December 1942, the ship was used as a base to launch several attacks on Allied shipping, usually in open anchorages.

On 8 December 1942, three SLCs attacked British naval targets; the British harbour defence ‘reacted furiously’ to the attack, dropping depth charges, and three divers were killed. On 6 May and 10 June 1943, Italian SLCs from Oterra sank six Allied merchant ships.

A large-scale operation was conducted 26 July 1941, when MAS 451 and 452 (24.5-ton motor torpedo boats) accompanied by a 1.9-ton, two-man MTS torpedo boat, nine 1.3-ton MTM crash boats and two SLCs (carried on board an adapted motorboat called an MTL) attacked the Grand Harbour breakwater in Malta.

British radar had detected these craft well before they reached their destination, and the Italians were met with a fierce pre-warned and prepared opposition. Apart from the MTS, all the craft were lost, fifteen personnel were killed, including the unit’s commander, and eighteen were captured.

A major operation was launched on 3 December 1942, when Scirè, carrying three SLCs, sailed from Italy. On 19 December, it made a submerged approach to Alexandria harbour, where the battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant were anchored. Italian intelligence had mistakenly reported that an aircraft carrier would be in the port.

Once in position, Scirè launched the SLCs. One team successfully attached a mine to the hull of Queen Elizabeth and another attached its mine to a large oil tanker. The final team, despite mechanical problems both with their breathing equipment and with the SLC itself, secured their charge to Valiant.

The resultant explosions caused considerable damage. Queen Elizabeth sank into the mud, although it remained upright; Valiant was seriously damaged but did not sink. The tanker Sagona was severely damaged, and a British destroyer, HMS Jervis, which was fuelling alongside it, also suffered severe damage. Queen Elizabeth took nine months to repair; Valiant six. Jervis was repaired and operational by the end of January. Sagona was towed back to England, although the repairs were not completed until 1946.

Overnight, the Italians had eliminated two of the Royal Navy’s most powerful ships in the Mediterranean and at minimal cost to themselves. The attacks on Gibraltar were a nuisance. Malta showed, or so the Admiralty believed, that the human torpedoes were no real threat but this was very different. This attack represented a dramatic change in Italian fortunes and would affect British tactics from a strategic point of view during the next six months. The Italian fleet had temporarily wrested naval supremacy in the east–central Mediterranean from the Royal Navy.

2

X CRAFT DEVELOPMENT

This Italian attack prompted Winston Churchill to send a memo to the Chiefs of Staff Committee on 18 January 1942. The prime minister requested:

Please report what is being done to emulate the exploits of the Italians in Alexandria harbour and similar methods of this kind. At the beginning of the War Colonel Jefferies had a number of bright ideas on the subject, which received very little encouragement.

In late March 1942, New Zealander Captain William Fell, who had been the commanding officer of the infantry assault ship HMS Prince Charles, was visiting the headquarters of the Submarine Service at Northway House, London. He had served on submarines since 1918, but during the war he had been posted to Q ships, followed by various positions in Combined Operations, and now he was looking for a new appointment. While there he met Max Horton, Flag Office Submarines, who asked him if he would like to return to submarines. Fell replied in the affirmative and Horton said, ‘go away and build me a human torpedo’. Fell was briefed about the Italian attack on the fleet in Alexandria and told that two of the human torpedoes had been salvaged and were being transported to HMS Dolphin.

That evening Fell drove to Dolphin and the following day he met Captain Reginald Drake DSO, Commander of the 5th Submarine Flotilla. Together with the base’s chief engineer, Commander Stanley Terry, they started to develop the British human torpedo, which they named Cassidy. At this stage, the actual Italian vessels had not arrived in Britain, so they had to use photographs. They started with a 20ft-long wooden log, 2ft in diameter. The front was rounded and the back tapered. A 2-gallon tank was attached to each end and pipes, valves and a pump connected so that water could be flooded or pumped out from the tanks or water could be transferred from one to the other. In the middle was another tank that could be filled from the sea and emptied by being blown by compressed air. A lead keel was fitted because the prototype vessel tended to roll over when lowered into the water. Once the craft was stable, hydroplanes and a rudder were fitted; a joystick controlled these.

During this period, another team member, Commander Geoffrey Sladen DSO, was at the Siebe Gorman factory at Tolworth, developing a diving suit for the two-man crews of the human torpedoes.

This resulted in a very heavy, cumbersome dry suit, which became known as the ‘Sladen Suit’. The diver put on the suit by climbing through a wide rubber tube at the navel; once ‘inside’, the tube was folded and tied off before the diver entered the water. The first version had two small, glazed eyepieces. It was redesigned with a single oval flip-up viewport so the wearer could use binoculars. The divers that had to wear it referred to the suit as ‘Clammy Death’.

Recruiting the men that would crew the vessels started in May 1942. Initially, Sladen and Fell approached newly joined RNVR officers; out of a thousand men, 200 showed an interest in this new project, which had become known as special submarine-related service. Out of these 200, eleven made it through the first screening. They were then posted to HMS Dolphin in Gosport, Hampshire, to join the ‘Experimental Submarine Flotilla’, where they joined a small number of junior rates.

Initial training took place, wearing standard diving suits and hard helmets with air supplied from a surface compressor because the Sladen diving suit was not yet available. There were also many short trips on submarines.