Home Run
‘The hazards of the sea are enough. So are its glories.’
—Lieutenant Ian Fraser, HMS XE-3
Eleven miles to freedom, that was all the two British submarines needed to travel in order to exit the Johor Strait into the open sea. It didn’t sound like much, but those eleven miles would take the XE-1 and XE-3 about three hours to cautiously negotiate, and a lot could yet go wrong. Though the navigation was straightforward, hidden dangers existed in the mile-wide channel; dangers that threatened to sink the whole British enterprise when the players were almost at the finish line. Lieutenants Smart and Fraser would relax once they had conned their boats through the anti-submarine boom, but until that time both remained as keyed-up and nervy as racehorses. Exhaustion added to their woes – the hours spent sealed inside the overheated and unventilated submarines while they hunched over instruments and dials had taken their toll, and their eyes were strained and tired.
Smart and Fraser both expected that the Japanese would close the boom gate at sunset, and the two submarines would arrive around that time. It seemed inconceivable that the Japanese would leave the gate wide open during the hours of darkness.1 It wouldn’t make sense.
Looking at their watches and charts, the two skippers calculated that they would arrive at the gate when it was still light, but any problems that either boat encountered on the way down the strait could put them over time. If darkness fell before they reached the boom, it was effectively mission over. They could try to find a quiet creek and hide for the night but the Japanese would be looking for them and they didn’t have too big an area to search.
Fraser and Smart pushed all thoughts of hiding among the man-groves to the backs of their minds. The divers, Walter Pomeroy and Mick Magennis, were their best chance. As long as there was still some light the divers were expected to leave their submarines and cut holes in the net so that the XE-craft could slip through the boom.
For Leading Seaman Pomeroy the prospect of action was exciting. Smart had not used him to mine the Takao, and though he helped out with navigational duties he had been feeling like a spare wheel for some hours. He was relatively fresh and very capable, and Jack Smart knew that he could rely on him if the time came.
Fraser, however, was worried about Mick Magennis. Though he would have over three hours to recover from his exertions against the Takao and the errant limpet mine carrier before the XE-3 reached the boom, Magennis had physically pushed the envelope. He was shattered, and remaining cooped up inside the submarine for several more hours would not help him to recover his strength. Sending him out on one final mission to cut a hole in the boom could be enough to push him over the edge. It was all too easy for a man, even one as experienced as Magennis, to fall victim to ‘Oxygen Pete’. It had already begun to happen twice before during the attack and their complicated exit from the vicinity of the Takao. A punch-drunk diver was the last thing that Fraser needed, especially for a job as delicate and dangerous as cutting a hole in the guarded anti-submarine boom right under the noses of the Japanese. Make a mistake there and the whole mission would be compromised in an instant, and hell would most assuredly follow.
Inside the XE-3 the electric motor was running quietly, though the air conditioning fan remained switched off to cut down on noise. They were headed in the right direction at a steady speed. But there was still plenty that could go wrong.
*
‘Christ!’ shouted Fraser, ‘she going to broach!’ Everything had been normal just a few seconds before the crisis erupted, the XE-3 quietly motoring along at about 30 feet below the surface. They were 1.1 miles from the Takao when they drove into a ‘freshwater pot’, a patch of desalinated water in the midst of the seawater-filled strait.
Freshwater streams and rivers cut through the surrounding mangrove swamps and fed into the saltwater Johor Strait, and the water in the vicinity of the Takao changed its consistency as the tide fell. It had become very ‘fresh’ as the seawater levels had fallen, an extremely hazardous situation.2
The submarine immediately became uncontrollable and rose fast for the surface, suddenly extremely buoyant. Kiwi Smith fought to try to regain control of her, but nothing seemed to stop the XE-3’s rapid rise. For the men inside of her, the realisation that their submarine was about to appear on the surface in the midst of one of the enemy’s busiest and most sensitive harbours terrified them out of their wits.
The XE-3 broached the strait like a whale coming up for air. First her black bow pushed out of the water, followed by the boat’s upper deck, spray blasting into the air as greenish water sloshed over her bilges, concentric rings of white disturbed water marking her position like a giant rifle target.
‘We’ll soon know if we’ve been spotted!’3 yelled a distraught Smith, who wrestled with the hydroplane controls like a man possessed. The submarine had never been so exposed. Her black hull sat on the clear, glassy surface of the strait in plain view of any Japanese who cared to look from ship or shore.
‘Dive, dive, dive!’ shouted Fraser frantically, slamming his hand repeatedly against the periscope standard as he yelled, issuing orders to blow the two main ballast tanks in an effort to get the submarine back below the water as fast as possible. The sounds of the compressed air being forced from the ballast tanks was loud, clouds of spray pluming noisily over the submarine’s hull before she slid below the surface leaving just a patch of disturbed water to mark her position. The XE-3 was only at the surface for six seconds, but for Fraser and his crew those six seconds felt like an eternity4. They felt naked and worked in a lather of sickly panic to get the XE-3 back into the depths. She was still moving forward on her electric motor, and Fraser’s swift action combined with her passing out of the freshwater pot into saltier waters soon restored the boat to her safe depth.5
Inside the XE-3 Fraser was almost having palpitations, and the rest of the crew didn’t feel much better. It was the suddenness of the crisis that was the most worrying. They wiped nervous sweat from their faces and swore and cursed. For several minutes the crew all listened, waiting for the sound of approaching propellers from above to signal that their unplanned manoeuvre had been spotted and the Japanese had sent a patrol launch to investigate, perhaps a launch with grey, barrel-shaped depth charges stowed on her fantail. But there was nothing. No sound, just the XE-3’s propeller whirring gently.
They had lost effective depth control over the submarine, and Fraser knew that he had to expect more episodes like this to occur during the remaining miles to the boom gate. He knew that the crises when they came would begin without warning and leave the crew struggling to react and reestablish control. Fraser had to try and minimise the chances of their surfacing again. He may have got away with it this once – time would tell. But Fraser knew that his boat wouldn’t last long if it started behaving like a giant metal porpoise, popping up on the surface every few miles. Eventually they would surely be seen and destroyed. For Fraser and his cohorts it felt as though Mother Nature herself was conspiring against them, trying to keep them from reaching the boom gate before darkness fell, holding them in the strait against their will.
*
‘By my calculations, the boom is 2,000 yards away,’ said Jack Smart. Just one more mile and they would be out of the strait and on their way home. ‘Everything clear,’ he added as he took a quick scan of the way ahead with the attack periscope.
Jack Smart had had a few scares himself as XE-1 headed away from the Takao, the freshwater pots also causing him some momentary problems, but he managed to avoid completely losing control of his submarine. Unlike the XE-3, the XE-1 had remained resolutely submerged, though more by luck than by design.
As the XE-1 edged further towards the mouth of the Johor Strait the water became saltier and much more stable until normal conditions returned. The tide was coming back in and the sun was going down, the sky taking on a reddish-orange glow as dusk approached.
‘Take us back down to 40 feet, number one,’ Smart ordered Harold Harper.
The XE-1 submerged deeper into the channel. She was running almost silently on her electric motor. Smart turned to Walter Pomeroy.
‘You’d better get ready,’ he said. Pomeroy nodded and fetched his hood and DSEA set, checking it carefully. He had mixed feelings about what he might have to do, though at the same time he wanted an opportunity to practise for real what he had learned in training. Cutting through an anti-submarine net was a slow and physically demanding process, particularly so under combat conditions where any mistake could lead to disaster. About the last place any XE-craft skipper wanted to be was stopped beside a heavily defended antisubmarine boom, particularly one that was hanging in such shallow water as that in the Johor Strait.
Pomeroy knew that he would have to work as fast as possible. Smart would place the bows of the submarine against the net. The motor would continue running at ‘dead slow’, holding the XE-1 in the net. Pomeroy would then exit the submarine and collect a pair of hydraulic cutters from their storage box. Working as fast as he dared, and fighting against the current, which at this time of day and location would probably be running at at least a knot, perhaps more, Pomeroy could begin to slice through the thick steel mesh that made up the old British boom. Smart would monitor him using the night periscope.
Pomeroy reckoned that it would take him about fifteen minutes to cut a hole. The XE-1 would then pass through and Pomeroy would swim after her, stow the cutters and re-enter the W&D before the submarine resumed her passage. At least that was how it had been done in training in Scotland – doing it for real was going to be quite different. Even in the safety of Scotland several divers, including Mick Magennis, had half-poisoned themselves working hard at depth, trying to make the cuts as fast as possible. If ‘Oxygen Pete’ seized a diver there was no way he could rush to the surface where a safety boat would be waiting to retrieve him. The only thing waiting up top in the Johor Strait would be the muzzle of an Arisaka rifle and a 6.5mm bullet courtesy of Emperor Hirohito.
During the trip through the open boom earlier that morning Smart had reported that the Japanese had placed a defence vessel beside the gate. This boat might be equipped with hydrophones that could detect the noises made by the submarine’s motor and the all-important hydraulic cutters. And like Fraser in the XE-3, Smart had also noticed several Japanese sailors fishing or simply looking down at the clear water as he passed through. That time both submarines had passed through the open gate quickly, but stopping against the boom for twenty or so minutes while the divers worked was courting disaster. A 50ft-long submarine wouldn’t be hard to spot in clear, shallow water.
The light would soon begin to fade from the sky. If Pomeroy failed in his mission the XE-1 would have to retrace her steps some way back up the strait and Smart would have to find a quiet man-grove creek where they could lie up during the hours of darkness before attempting to get through the boom at first light on 1 August. This would mean that the XE-1 would be within the strait when the Takao blew up in a few hours’ time. It was a safe assumption that the Japanese would definitely close the boom gate after such an attack, and perhaps also station further vessels at the entrance to the strait if they suspected midget submarines were responsible. As Captain Fell later commented, with admirable understatement, if they had been caught inside the boom after the Takao went up, it would ‘have been most unpleasant, and probably fatal’.6
Smart was certainly worried about such a fate, not only because of the danger to his own life and that of his crew, but because capture would mean ‘blowing the gaff’. It would jeopardise all future XE-craft operations against the Japanese. The Japanese would immediately improve their anti-submarine defences throughout their remaining territory and the chance of further XE-craft missions being successful would be seriously threatened.
Pomeroy finished dressing, the suit constricting and uncomfortable. After wearing a shirt and shorts for so many hours, the diving suit was extremely hot. Sweat streamed from his red face. Putting the set and the face visor to one side for the moment, Pomeroy returned to assisting Smart with the navigation.
*
‘I’m losing her again!’ shouted Kiwi Smith as the XE-3 started once more for the surface of the strait, completely out of control.
‘I can’t fucking hold her!’ Smith wrestled with the hydroplane controls to no avail, his face a rictus of fear and frustration.
Fraser instantly ordered more ballast blown, trying to control the boat’s trim by whatever means he could think of. Suddenly, a low buzzing sound started up outside the submarine, growing louder by the second. All eyes turned upwards towards the pressure hull, even though they could see nothing.
‘Christ, it’s a fucking motor boat,’ cried Fraser. By the sound of it, it was coming directly towards them. They were still stuck in the freshwater pot, the submarine wanting to surface. Smith and Charlie Reed continued to wrestle with the controls and the ballast tanks as the whine of the Japanese patrol craft grew louder and louder, starting out as the faint buzzing of a wasp until it grew to the deafening racket of a bandsaw.
‘Depth?’ yelled Fraser over the din, which filled the inside of the submarine, making the hull thrum and vibrate.
‘Eight feet,’ yelled back Smith. Fraser’s face was ashen. They were practically at the surface.
Closer and closer came the motor boat, its engine noise growing in intensity. Fraser was convinced that the Japanese must have detected them. If the boat came any closer she was going to run them down.7
‘Depth?’ screamed Fraser, the sound of the motor boat’s engine vibrating through his head.
‘Five feet and still rising, Tich!’ screamed back Smith.
‘Brace for impact!’ yelled Fraser, before stuffing his fingers in his ears against the unholy racket.8 The rest of the crew did the same, at the same time squeezing their eyes shut as they waited for the sickening crunch of the patrol boat’s bow as it smashed into the XE-3’s barely submerged hull.9
*
‘That’s it – Lamma Bloody Island,’ said Pat Westmacott, turning his head away from the periscope. ‘Finally,’ he added in a weary and irritable voice.
The XE-5 had carefully worked its way the last 30 miles to Hong Kong.
‘Well, boys, we can’t do anything today, it’s too late,’ said Westmacott to his crew. The delay caused by breaking the tow-line to HMS Selene had completely ruined Westmacott’s chances of arriving in the West Lamma Channel in time on 31 July to start hunting for the two cables that he had been sent to sever. There was nothing for it but to rest and wait for dawn to break on 1 August.
*
‘Depth!’ screamed Tich Fraser one last time as the sound of the Japanese patrol boat’s big engines filled the XE-3’s interior. The submarine had only been a few feet beneath the surface when Fraser had given the warning to stand by for a collision. Kiwi Smith mouthed something to Fraser in reply but he didn’t hear, the New Zealander’s voice drowned out by the roar of the Japanese engines. Fraser closed his eyes and jammed his fingers back in his ears. Was this it, he thought? Was this how it would be?
But no devastating crash occurred. The patrol boat passed directly over the heads of the four praying sailors crouched inside the submarine with barely a foot of clearance before it started to pull away from them, the dreadful sound easing rapidly down. At the same time, the XE-3 passed out of the freshwater pot and started to sink, the crew quickly regaining control of her. Fraser thought it was a miracle that the patrol boat hadn’t hit them. The crew’s luck had continued to hold. It was another close call to add to the growing catalogue of calamities that had defined their mission thus far. Fraser set a course for the boom gate once again, his heart thumping in his chest, slightly light-headed from the excitement and the cloying atmosphere inside the boat.
*
‘Stand by, chaps, the gate’s coming up,’ said Jack Smart, as he looked through the attack periscope. The rest of the crew stiffened in their seats, ready for action. The trickiest part of the exfiltration down the strait was now upon the XE-1 and her pensive crew. Smart could see the defence vessel, still in its original position, and the line of large buoys stretching right across the mouth of the strait from which the huge anti-submarine net was strung. The light was fading and he really had to concentrate to see any detail.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Smart slowly, pressing his face harder against the viewfinder.
‘By George, the gate’s still open,’ he exclaimed, his face beaming. ‘Down periscope!’
A few minutes later and Smart and his submarine were correctly positioned to begin an approach towards the open boom gate. He had the submarine as deep as he dared and running slow ahead. Walter Pomeroy, now rather relieved that his services had not been required after all, sat sweating inside his redundant diving suit with a stopwatch and a slide rule in front of him. Once more the countdown began, each minute slowly dragging by as the XE-1 came closer and closer to the wide-open gap. The risk of detection was huge. Jack Smart waited by the periscope, his cap tipped back on his head. Harold Harper and Henry Fishleigh watched their dials and gauges intently, two statues rigid in their seats, hands on the control levers, awaiting orders.
When Pomeroy suddenly announced that the run was complete Smart immediately ordered him to raise the periscope.
‘Chaps, we’ve made it, we’re through!’ shouted Smart. The other crewmen laughed or swore in equal measure, a wave of relief sweeping through the boat like a fresh breeze.
‘Time?’ demanded Smart.
‘Nineteen fifteen hours, Jack,’ replied Harper. They had made it much earlier than any of them had anticipated.10
*
Full control had by now been asserted over the XE-3, the submarine reaching the end of the Johor Strait where the water salinity increased. There were no more surprises from nature or the Japanese. The XE-3 approached the boom gate just over three hours after leaving the Takao. Fraser, like Smart, was both surprised and relieved to find the gate still open. HMS XE-3 slipped through unnoticed at 7.49pm.
The relief was as great as that aboard the XE-1. Fraser paused for a moment to reflect on what he and his crew had achieved. He also thought about his friend Jack Smart, and wondered how things were going for him.11 He had no idea that the XE-1 had passed through the gate over half an hour before him.
‘Right, Magennis,’ said Fraser, ‘let’s get you out of that suit.’
Fraser helped Magennis to strip off the thick diving suit. The diver had been wearing blue overalls underneath and these were wringing wet with sweat. Magennis shook them off and put on a fresh khaki shirt and shorts.
‘Start the fan,’ ordered Fraser, and Smith switched on the ventilation, easing the uncomfortable atmosphere inside the boat a little. But the heat didn’t seem to bother the men any more. ‘The job was done. That was what mattered,’12 said Fraser afterwards.
The crew settled down to getting the boat to her rendezvous with HMS Stygian. With the pressure mostly now off, Fraser relaxed and for the first time in many hours he was able to actually converse with his men instead of just issuing orders and commands.
‘What will you do when you get back, number one?’ he said to Smith.
Smith smiled wearily and rubbed his stubbly chin. ‘Sleep for three days,’13 he replied. His face was deathly pale. The stress and tension were starting to leave them all. Smith’s shoulders sagged with exhaustion.
‘I think I’ll get the jar of rum from under my bunk and swig the lot,’14 said Fraser, wincing slightly in pain as his spoke. His knees were starting to bother him after kneeling for so many hours. But the thought of a drink cheered him up. Beneath his bunk aboard HMS Bonaventure, hidden in a cupboard, was a gallon stone jar. Before the XE-3 had departed on the mission, Fraser had had the forethought to draw the entire rum ration for his crew and stash it.
‘Just put me on a ship and send me home,’ piped up Charlie Reed, as stolid and reliable as ever, still at his station, eyes fixed to his gauges.
‘I’ll help you with the rum, sir,’15 said Magennis, a mischievous grin forming across his face. He’d more than earned a drink on this trip.
Every so often Fraser had the periscope raised and he swept for danger and corrected his course. As the light continued to dim to dusk, Fraser could make out low hills, jungle, swamp and the occasional farmer’s field begin to fade from sight as the XE-3 headed for the open sea. Somewhere out beyond Singapore lay the Stygian and that bed in her seamen’s mess.