Frogman VC
‘Magennis displayed very great courage and devotion to duty and complete disregard for his own safety.’
—Official Citation, 1945
‘Arm the port charge,’ ordered Jack Smart.
‘Aye aye, skipper, arming the port charge,’ repeated Sub-Lieutenant Harper. He immediately began unscrewing the small wall-mounted wheel that controlled the bomb’s internal timing mechanism. Ten turns was all it took to prime the two tons of Amatol high explosives mounted in the XE-1’s side cargo.
‘Charge armed and ready,’ reported Harper.
‘Very good, number one,’ replied Smart, wiping a slick sheen of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. The submarine was gloomy inside, the XE-1 sitting in the shadows slightly under the overhang of the Takao’s massive keel. Very little light penetrated the boat through the small porthole in the control room roof.
Smart needed to get as close as possible to the Japanese ship to make sure that his bomb did the maximum damage. He had settled the XE-1 in a good position under one of the huge gun turrets. If the bomb managed to set off one of the Takao’s magazines where hundreds of 278lb shells were stored for the 8in guns the ship would be completely destroyed. Either way, Smart believed that his bomb would cause serious structural damage to the warship. Amatol packs a mighty punch, being a highly explosive blend of TNT and ammonium nitrate. The damage that side cargoes had inflicted on the mighty Tirpitz in 1943, a vessel three times heavier than the Takao and considerably better armoured, had been very impressive. Smart’s comrades in X-6 and X-7 had laid four of these two-ton charges under the German battleship. Their detonation had torn shell plating, ruptured fuel oil tanks, hammered a huge indentation in the bottom of the ship and buckled the bulkheads in the double-bottom, causing extensive internal flooding.1
Once Smart had added his side cargo to that already deposited by Fraser, together with Fraser’s six limpet mines, the Takao would be sitting on 10,000lbs of British high explosives. That was an explosive power equivalent to twelve of the conventional torpedoes carried aboard the large Royal Navy hunter-killer submarines operating in the Pacific.
Due to time considerations and the risks inherent in working on an already mined ship, Smart had earlier decided that diver Walter Pomeroy would not be required to add the XE-1’s limpet mines to the Takao’s hull. Pomeroy might yet get a chance to prove his skills on the journey back, as there was no guarantee that the boom gate would still be open. Both Fraser and Smart thought that they got through the gate during the journey in purely by luck.
Now, though, was the moment that Smart and his crew had been awaiting for so many long, stressful and uncomfortable hours: the chance to attack a ship and then slink quietly away. Everyone aboard the XE-1 could feel the tension as they ran through the bomb release drills that they had practised so many times during training.
‘Flood and release port and starboard charges,’ ordered Smart.
‘Aye aye, sir, flooding and releasing port and starboard charges,’ repeated Henry Fishleigh, who immediately started to unwind the larger wall-mounted wheel that began to push the big saddle charges off the sides of the submarine. At the conclusion of the final turn of the wheel there was a loud click followed by several muffled bangs, thumps and groans from both sides of the boat. They all listened as the port charge, the bomb, fell away, its flooded bulk banging against the side of the XE-1 before it landed on the seabed and settled, kicking up a cloud of sediment. The starboard limpet carrier, with its six unused and unprimed mines, also fell away smoothly from the submarine.2
‘Side cargoes clear, Jack,’ said Harper, his face betraying his enormous sense of relief.
‘Well done, chaps,’ said a grinning Smart. Everyone smiled back at the young lieutenant, and the tension inside the submarine decreased markedly. There was a feeling that the worst of the mission was now behind them. Smart started issuing orders to the helm. Now there just remained the tricky business of retracing their steps back down the strait and getting out through the antisubmarine boom. None of them could afford to relax until they were safely attached once more to HMS Spark, and that wasn’t going to happen for a very long time yet.
*
The XE-3 was out of control. Although she was off the seabed, her bow was down five degrees in seventeen feet of water. Any attempt to move resulted in the submarine continuing an uncontrollable turn to starboard, back towards the Takao.3
Tich Fraser looked at Mick Magennis. The diver, his wet dark hair plastered to his scalp, was still dressed in his suit, though he had removed his DSEA apparatus and held his hood in one hand. It was clear that physically Magennis was exhausted after the ordeal of placing the limpet mines on the Takao’s filthy and encrusted bottom. His face was unnaturally pale and sickly-looking, the lack of colour highlighting the dark exhaustion smudges beneath his eyes. Fraser didn’t think he could order the Ulsterman back out to release the jammed limpet mine carrier in his present state.
Fraser’s eyes flicked around the boiling hot boat, looking at his crew. They fell on Charlie Reed. No, Reed had little experience of diving apart from the basic course that every man in the unit had completed as part of his submarine training. His eyes moved on to his number one, Kiwi Smith. The New Zealander was keen but frankly not much good underwater either. What had befallen Bruce Enzer and particularly his best friend David Carey in Australia was never far from Fraser’s mind. The enquiry that had followed their loss at sea had concluded that the deaths were most probably due to the fact that, as both men were not full-time divers, their bodies had not built up a sufficient underwater endurance when using the DSEA apparatus and that they had both succumbed quickly to oxygen narcosis.
There was nothing for it, thought Fraser – he would have to do it himself. He had, after all, dived a lot in Scotland and Australia and was a natural. But though he was certainly a better option than Reed or Smith, Fraser too lacked the endurance that was built up with constant dives. And, if he went, he would be breaking a naval regulation that Captain Fell had been very keen to enforce. The commanding officers of XE-craft were expressly forbidden from leaving their boats under any circumstances. That was how Fraser had been trained and that was the rule, pure and simple. But under the current circumstances Fraser knew that he had to bend that particular rule or the mission would be over and their lives in mortal danger regardless of whatever decision he took after they abandoned the submarine. Fraser had great faith in Smith as second-in-command, and he knew that if anything should happen to him outside the boat, as long as he managed to free the limpet carrier, Kiwi would get the XE-3 out of the strait and make the rendezvous with HMS Stygian. Fraser decided that he had to make the dive to save his men and his boat. He was their leader; he should take the risk.
‘Come out of the way, Magennis,’ said Fraser roughly. ‘I’ll go out and release it myself.’
Magennis’s eyes looked hurt.
‘Hand me the spare set from the battery compartment,’ continued Fraser, asking for the second DSEA apparatus.
Magennis held up the flat of one hand and spoke.
‘I’ll be all right in a minute, sir,’ he said. ‘Just let me get my wind.’4
Fraser was in awe. Magennis’s sense of duty was overwhelming. He could have sat this one out in the submarine and no one would have thought any less of him. He had already gone beyond the call of duty with the very difficult dives beneath the Takao. He was physically shattered but from somewhere deep inside he managed to drag out a few more ounces of tenacity and courage. But above all that, Magennis was the only dedicated diver on board the XE-3, and he would perform that task come what may; even, it seemed, to the point of his own destruction.
Fraser didn’t say anything, just solemnly nodded. He felt an immense surge of pride not just in Magennis, but also in Smith and Reed as well. They were like a well-oiled machine.
For the next five minutes they all sat quietly at their stations, not speaking. Although the fan was running it was still like a furnace inside the submarine, the air heavy and starting to turn noxious. The danger that Fraser and his crew were in was immense. The XE-3 was stopped dead in crystal-clear water that was only seventeen feet deep and they were just twenty feet away from the Takao. If a Japanese sailor looked over the side at the wrong moment there was a better than average chance that he would see the 50ft-long shadow of the British submarine. Until the limpet mine carrier was levered off the XE-3 there was absolutely no way that Fraser could try to avoid any Japanese search for his craft or run to deeper water. Their fate was in the lap of the gods, and they all knew it.
When five minutes had slowly passed, Magennis, with Fraser’s help, wearily donned his diving hood and DSEA apparatus once more. Magennis still looked exhausted but his mind was made up, his jaw set.
Few words were spoken as Magennis clambered back into the W&D compartment, slumping in the seat, eyes glazed. Reed and Smith sat at their stations, monitoring the dials and gauges while Fraser returned once again to the night periscope to watch Magennis exit the boat.
The pumps started and the chamber flooded. Magennis’s equipment was still leaking. He hadn’t swapped his rig with the spare set. Of more concern to Fraser was the large number of bubbles that were released when the W&D hatch was opened. As Fraser watched through the night periscope they wobbled slowly up, expanding and contracting as they went, forming on the water’s surface a short distance above. They were more than enough to betray the submarine’s presence.5
Why the XE-3 wasn’t spotted during its many problematical manoeuvres in the attack on the Takao remains a mystery. Probably it was because the Takao was moored, and unlike in a vessel at sea, a warship in harbour would have a reduced crew, with only general maintenance and training being conducted. Many Japanese would have been on shore leave. The gun crews that manned the main batteries and numerous anti-aircraft weapons probably made up the majority of those aboard, along with a reduced engineering department working below decks to maintain power.
There was also a psychological element at play. The Japanese, as Fraser later noted, evidently felt secure in the Johor Strait, and so may have been less vigilant in watching for enemy infiltrators.6 Unlike Lieutenant-Colonel Ivan Lyon’s Force Z attack on merchant ships in Keppel Harbour in 1944, located on the open seaward side of Singapore Island, the old British naval base at Sembawang was tucked away down a long and easily defended narrow strip of water.
But perhaps the biggest factor was luck. Fraser and Smart had both been lucky so far. But there were plenty of Japanese patrol launches about, so even though two British midget submarines had successfully penetrated the defences, they could not afford to relax their guards for even a second. The perilous situation being faced by Fraser demonstrated just how high the stakes were in the game of cat-and-mouse that the XE-men were playing with the Japanese.
Fraser watched as the exhausted Magennis dragged himself out of the open hatch carrying a huge spanner in one hand. He paused to give Fraser a signal that he was okay, even though the leak in his equipment continued to plague him. He then swam over to the limpet mine carrier and started work.
The three crewmen inside the XE-3 waited with bated breath. They had already been stationary and highly exposed in enemy waters for five minutes while Magennis had attempted to recover his composure before the dive. Now they were forced to endure an agonising seven-minute wait while Magennis worked to free the mine carrier.7 The only sound inside the boat was the steady click of the marine chronometer. Every so often Magennis’s spanner would clang against the submarine’s outer hull, causing those inside to jump at the sudden loud noise.8 They were all as nervy as cats. ‘What the fuck is that fool doing?’ exclaimed a tense Fraser after one particularly loud crash from outside.9 He had specifically told Magennis that he must be as quiet as possible, the fear of Japanese hydrophones still firmly in Fraser’s mind.
Fraser was starting to lose his cool. The perilous nature of the situation would have tried the patience and forbearance of any man, and the burden of command sat heavily on young shoulders. Exhausted and impatient to be moving again, he found himself suddenly overtaken by an impotent anger against those who had placed him and his men in such an intolerable situation. He swore about Captain Fell, Lieutenant Potter and the other officers that had planned the mission, and railed inwardly at the Admiralty and perhaps mostly at himself for having been so foolish as to have volunteered in the first place. He cursed himself for not going out there in person to release the limpet carrier instead of sending Magennis, who, thought Fraser, in his current exhausted state was making enough noise to wake the entire Imperial Japanese Navy.10
*
The only sound that could be heard aboard the XE-4, sitting on the seabed south of Saigon, was the gentle snoring of several members of her crew. Max Shean had crept three miles south from where his two divers had severed the Saigon telephone cables, airing the boat and recharging the batteries as he went. Shean had taken the XE-4 down to the bottom and ordered the crew to rest.11
The air conditioning fan whirred quietly while the crew tried to get what rest they could inside the boat’s cramped and uncomfortable interior. Shean remained by the periscope standard, dozing in his chair, while Ben Kelly slept in the control room’s single bunk. ERA Coles remained at his post, eyes half open, apparently as immovable as Charlie Reed on the XE-3. The two exhausted divers, Briggs and Bergius, lay on boards over the battery compartment snoring fitfully.
Shean’s plan was to wait for darkness, surface and then head for his rendezvous with HMS Spearhead. He would employ the same technique that all of the XE-craft had used when approaching their targets – running on the surface with the commander on deck with binoculars, communicating with the crew by shouting down the partially raised air induction trunk. This would mean that the boat was well ventilated and comfortable and Shean would be able to find the Spearhead.
Shean’s head lolled forward until his forehead was touching the periscope standard. He had never felt so tired, so washed out, in his life. He closed his eyes and concentrated on listening to the patient click of the chronometer. He quickly dozed off again, the heat enervating.
*
Outside the XE-3, Magennis barely registered the time. His only battle was against the limpet mine carrier and just staying conscious. Once out of the W&D, he swam over to the carrier and sat astride it like a jockey. The water was a little muddy towards the bottom, churned up by the recent movement of the submarine across it.
Magennis looked closely through his face visor at the carrier – he could see that the lifting clips had not fallen away as they had been designed to. Using the large spanner, he slowly undid one of the clips; the effort was almost too much, but eventually it fell away. The two-ton carrier, already released at the bottom from inside the submarine, was now held on to the XE-3 only by a single remaining lifting clip.12
Magennis was again breathing hard, and his equipment was venting a steady stream of bubbles from the faulty reducing valve that slightly obscured his vision. These bubbles were collecting on the surface like foam, and could be easily seen by anyone who looked.13
It was hard physical labour, even underwater. The spanner was heavy and awkward, and Magennis’s hands, already badly cut from scraping off barnacles from the Takao’s keel, were sore and bleeding. His position astride the limpet carrier was ungainly and uncomfortable.14 He worked on the second lifting clip, slowly turning its giant screws. It was difficult to concentrate, his mind wanted to wander, and he knew that he was being slowly poisoned with each new breath that he dragged through the DSEA. The spanner head kept slipping off the screws, and he was forced to slowly reposition the tool several times before continuing. Suddenly, the clip fell off and the heavy carrier, with Magennis still straddling it, dropped off the side of the submarine with a lurch and fell towards the seabed.
The instant the limpet mine carrier was released, the XE-3, suddenly two tons lighter, began to drift off on the current. Magennis’s eyes grew wide in his visor as his ride home started to pull away from him, out of his reach, as he tumbled towards the seabed atop the sinking carrier.15
*
Jack Smart and the XE-1 were already on their way home while Mick Magennis was struggling to release the flooded limpet carrier. With both side cargoes successfully released, Smart did not linger near the Takao. He set an immediate course back down the strait towards the boom gate. Still assuming that Fraser had mined the Takao several hours earlier, Smart was determined to be outside the gate when the XE-3’s charges went up. He assumed that Fraser was probably already close to the boom and would shortly be heading out into the open sea to make his rendezvous with his mother submarine.
Smart knew that it would be a long, slow and cautious journey back down the strait. But he had some advantages. He had bought himself some time by switching targets from the distant Myoko. The mining of the Takao had gone without any problems, and his diver was still fresh and ready to tackle the boom net if the gate was closed when they arrived. As long as he arrived at the boom before darkness fell everything should be okay.
‘Time?’ asked Smart.
’Sixteen fifteen hours, skipper,’ replied Harold Harper.
‘Excellent. Half ahead group down,’ said Smart, and the XE-1 began to move away from the Takao on its carefully worked-out course.16
*
Magennis dropped the heavy spanner as he tumbled off the moving limpet mine carrier. The spanner plummeted down and embedded itself upright in the mud. Within seconds the XE-3 had moved several yards away from him, drifting on the current. The shock of suddenly being thrown off his submarine was swiftly replaced by a fear of being left behind. He struck out madly for the XE-3, his fatigue suddenly forgotten, hands stretching out to try to reach her, fins kicking wildly in the water, his breathing panicked and fast. Time seemed to slow down, Magennis’s entire being concentrated on just reaching the submarine’s hull before the gap widened any further.
Suddenly he felt metal beneath his fingertips, and kicking even harder, both hands came to rest on the XE-3’s cold, hard surface. Magennis lay for a few seconds on the drifting submarine’s hull, hugging the metal until he felt strong enough to head back to the W&D compartment.
When he arrived at the hatch he gave Fraser, watching through the night periscope, a slow and distracted thumbs-up before he hauled the hatch open and clambered down inside. Wearily, he closed the lid. He sat in the flooded chamber, his breathing heavy and laboured. Just raising his aching arms to engage the pumps to drain the chamber was an immense effort. Summoning up his last reserves of determination, Magennis began to drain down.17
Once the W&D was empty he rested his head against its hard metal interior and closed his eyes, one hand absently dragging the DSEA mouthpiece from his lips and pulling off his visor. He just wanted darkness to envelop him. But he fought the feeling – he couldn’t allow himself to drift into unconsciousness. The air inside the chamber revived him a little and soon Fraser had the door to the control room open and was helping to drag him out.
*
With the flooded limpet carrier detached, the relief was palpable inside the submarine. Fraser, recovered from his fury, was suddenly all business again. When he got the barely conscious Magennis into the control room he clapped him roughly on the back. ‘You’re a gem, Mick,’18 he said with feeling, ‘a bloody gem!’ Magennis muttered something unintelligible and propped himself in a corner where he sipped water from a tin cup and began to slowly return to the land of the living.
‘Starboard twenty, steer oh-nine-oh degrees,’ Fraser ordered, his voice decisive and quick.
‘Aye aye, skipper,’ said a grinning Kiwi Smith, ‘steering oh-nine-oh degrees.’
‘Half ahead group down,’ said Fraser to Reed, who engaged the electric motor.
‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied Reed as the whine of the propeller started up.
‘Twelve hundred revolutions,’ ordered Fraser. The submarine’s head swung about and under power she started to move forward.
‘Okay,’ said Fraser, smiling gently. ‘Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.’19
Magennis raised his head and seemed to perk up slightly at the good news. ‘You heard the man. Let’s get the fuck out of here,’20 he said, the tiniest ghost of a smile crossing his blue lips.