‘Softly, softly, catchee monkey’
‘I decided to stay on because I felt that I had something to contribute, liked submarines, and our flotilla was to be sent to the Pacific, which would satisfy any Australian who had been restless since Japan had entered the war.’
—Lieutenant Max Shean, HMS XE-4
HMS X-20 lurked submerged off the entrance to the bay, waiting. Tich Fraser popped the attack periscope up several times, scanning for the ferry that he knew would soon be arriving. Suddenly, the red-and-white-painted steamer appeared around the headland, its single stack puffing thick black smoke into the clear air, seagulls wheeling and cawing noisily in her wake. ‘Group up, half ahead together,’ ordered Fraser, giving a compass bearing as the little submarine surged forward towards the stern of the steamer. Inside the X-20 the crew could hear the steamer’s screw churning away in the water and the sound of her engine’s rhythmical thumping echoing through the quarter-inch-thick steel hull of the submarine. Changing to the night periscope used for seeing when underwater, Fraser manoeuvred the X-20 below and into the steamer’s wake, ‘tagged on behind’1 as he put it, and followed the vessel between the steep headlands into the bay. The sound of the X-20’s small motor was completely smothered by the much larger and noisier engine and propeller mounted on the ferry, and the hydrophone posts on the headlands registered only the passage of the big surface vessel. A Japanese midget submarine had used exactly the same technique during the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.2
Once the ferry had passed the headlands and started for its landing jetty, Fraser changed course and headed for a large converted steamer that lay anchored on the quiet waters of the bay. Five minutes later he suddenly surfaced right beside the big navy ship, lookouts on deck shouting and pointing down as the tiny submarine’s main hatch popped open and Tich Fraser clambered out on to the casing. But instead of being met by gunfire Fraser received only some half-hearted cheering and clapping from the big ship’s crew, along with a few sarcastic comments. Fraser laughed, and holding on to the partly raised air induction trunk, gave a mock bow to his audience. Then a familiar face appeared over the bridge wing, a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck. ‘Good show, Fraser,’ shouted down Captain Willie Banks. ‘Stand by to be lifted aboard!’ HMS Bonaventure’s 50-ton crane swung immediately into action to retrieve the little submarine.
It was early August 1944 and for the fourth time in a week Fraser had managed to make a successful ‘attack’ on the Bonaventure. It was Fraser’s final test before taking command of a brand-new XE-craft.3 He couldn’t afford to make a single mistake.
*
Five old X-craft, built before the Tirpitz operation and now deemed surplus to requirements, had been moved to HMS Varbel II to be used to train new crews in the basics of midget submarine operations. The improved design, codenamed ‘XE-craft’, was under hurried development in England. Because the boats were to be towed into action by larger submarines, each XE-craft, like the original X-craft, would require three crews – a three-man passage crew for the exhausting outbound journey, a four- or five-man attack crew for the actual operation against the enemy, and another three-man passage crew for the return tow to base.4 This overmanning provided a large pool of volunteers for the skippers to choose the best men for the operational crews.
In spring 1944 the most experienced of the new recruits had been given command of the training boats. Ian Fraser’s first command was to be the X-20. On arrival it lay very low in the lonely waters of the North Minch, its black steel casing looking like some prehistoric animal broaching the still surface. The Bonaventure had deposited the X-20 off Cape Wrath, the most northwesterly point in Britain. It was make or break time for Fraser – he was to complete a series of four command exercises before being allowed to commission a brand new XE-craft. David Carey was appointed his ‘XO’, or executive officer, the boat’s second-in-command.
There was no conning tower like that found on a traditional full-size submarine, just a metal deck, a couple of round hatches and a small dome housing the craft’s two periscopes. The X-craft was designed to be low in the water, making it harder for radar or visual detection.
Fraser had stepped aboard from a tender, his seaboots clanging on the wet casing. He gripped the partially raised air induction trunk for balance, a long schnorkel that could be raised while the submarine was submerged, allowing the faster diesel engine to continue running instead of the electric motor. The diesel was a modified 42hp Gardner taken from a London double-decker bus.
Fraser had clambered down the hatch into the submarine’s cramped white-painted interior, which to the untrained eye appeared to be a narrow confusion of brass wheels and switches, green instrument panels, dials and small bulkhead doors.
Damp was a constant problem in the old X-craft. This was overcome by the most unusual piece of kit ever carried aboard one of His Majesty’s fighting submarines – a ladies’ hairdryer. Nearly all of the important bits of machinery were electrical. Damp played havoc with them, so once an hour a crewman went around and blew hot air on them to dry them out. Headroom inside the boat was only 5ft 3in, a challenge even for very small men like Tich Fraser, and agony for a tall man like David Carey.
Each mock attack was a major undertaking and hazardous, testing not only the commander but also the entire four-man crew’s ability to work together as a team. Each commander was expected to train three crews, selecting the very best men for his main attack crew, with the rest forming the two passage crews.
The essential factors required of an X-craft commander were daring and the ability to react quickly to changing circumstances. When on a real mission, once out of contact with superiors, the X-craft and its crew would be on their own, and everyone knew the old maxim about best-laid plans.
The X-craft was designed to do one thing very effectively, and that was to creep up on a larger surface warship, get beneath her and lay huge mines, before escaping unseen. The Bonaventure was the ideal practice target.
Fraser had demonstrated during his first ‘attack’ on the Bonaventure the élan that X-craft skippers had to possess. The Bonaventure had been moored in Loch Cairnbawn, way up north off the Minch, the sea area between the Scottish mainland and the Isle of Lewis. A second midget submarine training base had been established there codenamed ‘Port HHZ’.
The advanced training base Port HHZ had headlands of ancient, menacing rock, quite different from Varbel and Varbel II. Patches of yellow, sparse grass were interspersed with outcrops of grey stone. It was an altogether unforgiving environment, a bleak place worn by wind and weather and savaged by the cold North Atlantic.5
Bonaventure’s skipper, Captain Banks, had been told when roughly to expect Fraser’s X-20, so lookouts were posted both aboard the vessel and ashore. This would be the most difficult type of attack to make, against an enemy who was already primed and ready. But Carey came up with a brilliant plan.
The Bonaventure was, like most navy ships, equipped with hydrophones, an underwater listening device that could pick up the noise of a submarine’s propeller and diesel engine or electric motor. The problem was how to approach the Bonaventure without being seen or heard. Carey had realised that they could use the tide. The target vessel was in a bay, so, timing their attack perfectly, Fraser and Carey had simply drifted into the bay with the rising tide, engine off, using only the pump motors spasmodically to control the submarine’s depth.6 Engaging the almost silent electric motor, Fraser had used the smaller night periscope to see underwater, positioning the X-20 right under the Bonaventure’s keel for a textbook attack that earned Fraser high marks from Captain Banks.
The second attack had been altogether different. The Bonaventure simply ‘disappeared’, so that Fraser and the other four X-craft skippers had to find her before launching dummy attacks. Fraser, again using his wits, managed to glean enough information from Banks before he departed to work out where she would most likely be found: Loch Erisort on the Isle of Lewis.
The next day Fraser, after a pleasant and untroubled night’s sleep aboard a fishing trawler in Stornoway, had nosed his submarine into the loch, hugging the high cliffs only 20 feet from the shore. The submarine was running its diesel engine underwater, with the air induction trunk raised just above the surface.
‘Periscope depth,’ ordered Fraser, the X-20 rising.
‘Periscope depth, Tich,’ reported Carey a few seconds later.
‘Up periscope’, ordered Fraser, and the 10ft-long attack periscope slid out from the small dome on the X-craft’s hull, its small head no thicker than a finger poking just above the waves.7 Inside the submarine Fraser pulled down the two brass handles at the base of the periscope and pressed his face to the rubber eyepiece. Such was the limited space that midget submarine commanders had to kneel when using the periscope. The drill was to make a fast 360-degree sweep of the surface to make sure that there was no immediate danger, before settling into a slower sweep to acquire the target. ‘Down periscope. Thirty feet. Eight-five-oh revolutions,’ ordered Fraser. The periscope was hastily retracted and Fraser called out a course as the Bonaventure, its grey sides speckled with rust, swung slowly around its anchor cables with the lazy movement of the calm green water. But this time Fraser had made a mistake, and in a real attack situation it could have cost him his life and the lives of his crew.
Atop the 40ft-high cliffs two lookouts had been posted with powerful navy-issue binoculars. Suddenly, one of the lookouts gave a cry and pointed below the cliffs. A tiny white wake was visible on the surface as the X-20’s small air induction trunk head cut through the water. As the lookouts watched, a second, almost imperceptible wake appeared close by as Fraser raised his attack periscope to take a quick bearing on the Bonaventure. It was unmistakable – the signature of a hunting submarine. One of the naval ratings quickly shrugged off his uniform and dressed only in his underwear gingerly clambered down the steep cliffs and stepped into the calm sea. A strong swimmer, the sailor struck out for the X-20, intending to grab hold of the submarine’s periscope but, fortunately for Fraser, his vessel was too fast for the swimmer and he tired and gave up.8 But if this had been for real, lookouts would have reported the submarine’s position to gun crews atop the cliffs and fast patrol boats in the bay and Fraser would soon have found himself dodging shells and depth charges. As it was, Fraser had no idea that he had been spotted and continued with his mission, making another successful ‘attack’ on the Bonaventure. But his little mistake cost him many marks from the instructors.9
Attack number three had presented fresh challenges. Fraser and Carey were briefed that the Bonaventure would be in a loch ‘somewhere’. But Fraser knew that Captain Banks was a keen trout fisherman. Sitting around moored offshore for days on end waiting for X-craft to make mock attacks was not the most thrilling of occupations, and Fraser decided to use his intelligence to narrow down where the captain would hide his ship. Fraser made some discreet local enquiries concerning fishing possibilities and had soon compiled a shortlist of likely locations.10 Taking into consideration the size of the target vessel and other factors, Fraser selected Loch Eynort on the Isle of South Uist and set off. His hunch was bang on. X-20 made another successful, and, this time undetected, attack on the Bonaventure, scoring maximum marks.
The fourth and final training attack had been by far the most daunting, and the closest yet to the conditions that the X-craft were likely to encounter on missions against the enemy. The Bonaventure was anchored in Gairloch, a bay with a narrow inlet that the navy had rigged with listening posts and hydrophones to pick up submarine engine noises. Though the X-craft’s propulsion machinery and auxiliaries like pumps and the periscope hoist were designed to be as quiet as possible, they would be detected if they attempted to motor into the bay. Also, Carey’s plan of floating in with the tide was impossible to repeat at Gairloch. But Fraser and his crew had been long enough in northwest Scotland to pick up local knowledge to aid their plans. The day nominated for the exercise was the same day a MacBrayne steamer would put into the bay to pick up passengers and parcels for the Western Isles. Fraser had used the steamer as camouflage, hiding in its wake to fool the hydrophones and soon getting beneath the Bonaventure. His motto was ‘Softly, softly, catchee monkey’, and such patience brought results.
At the conclusion of the last exercise the X-20 and the other submarines had been hoisted aboard the Bonaventure, which sailed back to Port HHZ.
*
While 12th Submarine Flotilla worked up in the Western Isles, in London, Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s mind was far away from Europe, even though the ferocious battle for Normandy was still raging. Churchill had closeted himself inside 10 Downing Street with his senior advisors for three days in mid-August. His mental energies were devoted to attempting to evolve a strategy for the war in the Far East. The decisions taken would have a direct bearing on the midget submariners busily training far to the north. Two conflicting claims were on the table before the PM – the Pacific and the Bay of Bengal.11 It was decision time.
The Far Eastern winds of war had finally started to blow in Britain’s direction following the strategic defeat of Japan’s invasion of India at the battles of Kohima and Imphal in July 1944. The Japanese army, broken, starving and diseased, was retreating from the Assam border back through Burma. Two strategies had immediately presented themselves to Churchill’s newly appointed commander in southeast Asia, the King’s elegant and urbane cousin Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten.
The first was Operation Capital, a drive by General Sir William Slim’s 14th Army to cross the Chindwin River in pursuit of the Japanese and capture the strategically vital town of Mandalay. The second, the plan that really excited Mountbatten, was an air- and seaborne invasion of Burma’s capital, Rangoon. Designated Operation Dracula, it was well named for it was designed to cut the Japanese main line of communications to their troops in Burma, slicing through the enemy’s exposed jugular and bleeding out his supplies.
On 9 August Churchill gave his approval to Dracula, but with an important proviso. It could be launched only if Hitler was defeated by October 1944. An early collapse of Nazi Germany might also offer the possibility of switching the main amphibious assault from Rangoon to Singapore.12 This would mean Britain becoming an equal player with the United States in the defeat of Japan. With much of the Japanese fleet bottled up in ports throughout Asia, Captain Banks’s declaration of targets aplenty when he had first briefed the new X-craft recruits at HMS Varbel didn’t look like empty rhetoric.
*
Captain Banks selected six men from his pool of veteran and fresh X-craft skippers to take command of the first division of the new XE-class midget submarines. The boats were still under construction at Broadbent’s of Huddersfield, Markham’s of Chesterfield and Marshall’s of Gainsborough, but the men had to be ready to take them over the moment that they were completed. The chosen skippers were gathered in Bonaventure’s wardroom to be told the good news.
‘Jack,’ said Banks to the bearded Lieutenant John Smart, ‘you’ll command XE-1.’ Smart was elated to get the class leader. Banks knew that it took real guts to volunteer for another tour in X-craft after the harrowing experience Smart had had on the Tirpitz operation, and giving him the lead boat showed everyone how much faith Banks had in him. It would be his third midget submarine command.
‘Pat,’ said Banks, looking across the table at Lieutenant Pat Westmacott, the tall, handsome New Zealander. ‘You’ll have XE-2.’ Westmacott smiled broadly. ‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir,’ he said, simply.
‘Tich, you get XE-3,’ said Banks to Fraser. His appointment was a testament to just how effective an X-craft skipper new boy Fraser had become in so short a time.
‘Max, XE-4,’ said Banks to Max Shean, the only Australian at the table. Like Smart, this would be his third tour in command of an X-craft. The ribbon of the Distinguished Service Order, second only to the VC, on his left shoulder was testament enough to his bravery and tenacity. He nodded solemnly.
‘Terry, XE-5,’ said Banks to Lieutenant J.V. Terry-Lloyd. A South African who had been awarded an MBE during the Tirpitz operation, Terry-Lloyd beamed. He had something of a mad streak in him and also a fine singing voice.13 ‘Thanks Boss,’ replied Terry-Lloyd in his strong accent.
‘And last, but by no means least, young Bruce,’ said Banks. Lieutenant Bruce Enzer, another young Volunteer Reserve officer, looked up excitedly. ‘XE-6.’
The first division was fast shaping up into a real Commonwealth flotilla, with three Britons, a Kiwi, an Aussie and a South African as skippers.
*
Much was expected of the new XE-craft. The Admiral (Submarines), who commanded all the navy’s submersibles, had wasted no time in writing to Admiral James Somerville, Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Fleet, Britain’s largest naval force then in southeast Asia, pointing out the extraordinary improvements that had been made to the original X-craft design. The first generation of X-craft had shown during three operations in Norway ‘their exceptional value for attacking enemy ships even in the most strongly defended harbours’.14 The improvements in both design and crew training since then made the XEs much more potent weapons than before. The Admiral reported to Somerville that the first division of the new flotilla would be ready for action in the Far East by March 1945.15
*
Shortly after Captain Banks had assigned the new commanders to their boats, Fraser and some of the other officers were ordered to visit England to look over the six new XE-craft while they were still under construction, to ‘stand by’ their boats in naval parlance. The submarine assembly areas at Broadbent’s, Markham’s and Marshall’s all rang to the sounds of hammers and pneumatic tools as a small army of civilian craftsmen laboured around the clock to finish the boats. Although outwardly almost exactly the same as the older X-craft, the XEs had been slightly lengthened to 53¼ feet, an increase of eighteen inches, and been fitted with some improved equipment, including most vitally air conditioning for operations in the Far East.
Fraser and the other new skippers were sent to the factories at various times to watch the construction. As well as being able to provide valuable input, it was an excellent way for the young men who would have to take these new vessels to war to ‘bond’ with these inanimate machines of destruction, to fully understand them inside and out. They learned a lot from the artisans who designed and built them, knowledge that made their operation even more effective.
A few weeks later Tich Fraser found himself aboard a blacked-out London Midland & Scottish Railway train rumbling and squeaking its way north to an American base on the Clyde. He was sitting in a first-class carriage, the collar of his naval greatcoat turned up against a cold draught from an ill-fitting window, a draught that was laced with smuts from the steam engine as the locomotive hauled its top-secret cargo to Scotland. On an enormous bogey-truck was XE-3, her long steel hull hidden inside a massive wooden crate. The crate was disguised to look like an enormous food container.16 Fore and aft of the XE-3 were empty flatbeds as spacers, as the submarine was too long and overhung its own carriage. Behind the single passenger carriage was a guard’s van. If anyone wondered why a naval officer was accompanying a train that consisted of a single giant crate and a first-class railway carriage, no one said anything. It was wartime and people believed what they were told, or minded their own business.
Inside the carriage Fraser smoked a Player’s and sipped from a thermos of coffee provided for the trip from a hamper of food prepared at the factory.17 His operational crew accompanied him as always. Like the other XE-craft commanders, Fraser had taken his crew with him on every visit to the factory to watch the building of ‘their’ submarine. It would hopefully be a smooth transition for all of the crews from the old X-craft to the new XEs.
Mick Magennis felt very proud to be among the special group of men who would crew them. He was grateful that Fraser had chosen him for his main operational crew. A bond of friendship had grown up between the officers and the few ratings in the programme. They were risking their necks together, and shared adversity had broken down the usual naval conventions.18
Occasionally, the train would slow down as it passed through blacked-out stations, the steam whistle giving a lonely blast, but for the most part Fraser sat, lulled into a drowsy state by the train’s rhythm. He had little idea of his specific destination beyond Varbel, but it was clear that wherever it was, it was going to be warm. The XEs were designed for tropical operations and that could only mean one thing – sooner or later Fraser and his crew would be facing the Japanese. A sudden chill ran down his spine at the thought, for, like all servicemen, he had read in the newspapers and heard stories about Japanese barbarity and atrocities since their invasion of China in 1937. But first he would have to work up his crew on XE-3 in the safer waters of the Western Isles, and prepare them for whatever lay ahead. He stubbed his cigarette out on the floor, leaned his head back against the vibrating seat rest and closed his eyes. But sleep stubbornly refused to come.