CHAPTER TWENTY

Fire in the Night

‘One man inspired us all on that mission: Lt. Fraser. He was cool, real cool.’

—Acting Leading Seaman James Magennis, HMS XE-3

‘Prepare to surface,’ ordered Lieutenant Fraser at 8.00pm. He had given up trying to see anything through the attack periscope. The light was fading fast. Fifteen minutes later Fraser changed his mind and, ever cautious, decided to attempt to have one last look around, just for the sake of his peace of mind. The periscope was run up but unsurprisingly Fraser could see very little and he abandoned the attempt soon after.

‘Take her down to 30 feet, number one,’ said Fraser to Kiwi Smith.

‘Aye aye, skip, making my depth 30 feet,’ replied Smith. Fraser had decided to wait for darkness before surfacing the XE-3. The electric motor was running at full power, propelling them further and further from Singapore and danger and towards their agreed rendezvous point with HMS Stygian.

‘I’ll check the batteries,’ said Mick Magennis. After a few moments, he reported that the battery density was 1,195, far higher than any of them expected. Fraser was relieved – he had plenty of reserve if he needed it.¹

‘Stand by to surface,’ ordered Fraser at 9.00pm. The main vents were closed and everyone waited tensely at their stations.

‘Surface on number 2 main ballast only,’ said Fraser to Charlie Reed. Fraser wanted to make a gentle and quiet ascent to the dark surface.

Gathering his binoculars, Fraser clambered into the W&D compartment and reached up and took hold of the hatch clip.

‘Surface the boat,’ he ordered.

‘Aye aye, skipper, surfacing the boat,’ replied Smith.

‘Twenty feet to fifteen feet from number 1 open the induction,’² said Fraser to Reed. Reed slammed the lever down, water pouring into the submarine as the air forced its way out. The boat was at the surface. Fraser took off the clip from the W&D compartment hatch. Suddenly, the hatch was torn from Fraser’s fingers as a violent rush of pressurised air shot out of the XE-3, the hatch clanging open loudly. Fraser was bucked hard against the compartment’s coving and almost blown out of the submarine by the force of the explosion. Pressure had built up steadily inside the sealed submarine for fourteen and a half hours as the crew had constantly vented air from the diving tanks and oxygen cylinders. They had no way of checking the pressure because the small aircraft barometer in the control room was broken. When Fraser released the W&D hatch it was like lifting the ring-pull on a shaken can of soda water.

A second after the hatch had blown open the interior of the submarine filled with an ethereal fog as the colder outside air mingled with the submarine’s oppressive interior.³ It was like the opening of a cold tomb in some Victorian graveyard, eerie and strange.

Fraser, after recovering from the shock of the explosive depressurisation, gingerly raised his head out of the W&D compartment’s hatch. The moment his eyes adjusted to the darkness he spied trouble.

*

Aboard the XE-1, a similar scene played out to that aboard the XE-3, with Jack Smart and his crew shaken by the turbulence when the hatch was opened. Smart had surfaced the boat, thankful for the fresh air. He could feel some of the stress of the past two days beginning to leave his body. He remained on deck armed with his trusty binoculars, communicating with his crew down the raised air induction trunk. The search had now begun for HMS Spark, his ride home.

*

The moment Tich Fraser had his head out of the open W&D compartment hatch he saw the dark outline of a large boat right on top of him. His stomach flipped and he ducked involuntarily before raising his head again as a junk’s high stern passed just a few feet from the submarine, the only sounds the creaking of her rigging and the slap of water against her blunt bow as she moved slowly through the sea.⁴ Fortunately, Fraser didn’t see anyone aboard her. He glanced at the sky: it was clear and moonless. He didn’t order a crash dive, as the ghostly junk didn’t appear to be a threat.

Fraser ducked his head below the hatch parapet and spoke briefly to Kiwi Smith.

‘Steer one-eight-oh degrees,’ Fraser said quietly. Smith repeated the order and the XE-3 turned away from the junk.⁵ Fraser wasn’t going to take any chances at this stage of the mission. It was better that they slink away while everything was peaceful.

Once the submarine was out of earshot of the junk, Fraser ordered the diesel engine engaged so that they could move more quickly towards their rendezvous with the Stygian.⁶

‘Raise the induction,’ ordered Fraser, closing the W&D compartment hatch. He re-entered the control room and opened the main hatch, scrambling up onto the deck. Fraser knew that he was exhausted, and it would be tempting fate for him to simply sit on the edge of the main hatch with his feet dangling inside while he kept a lookout. He would probably fall asleep as the fresh, salty air worked its magic. Instead he closed the main hatch, took up a suitably uncomfortable position leaning over the partially raised induction trunk, and raised his binoculars to his eyes.⁷

In addition to his binoculars, Fraser also carried an ingenious new device that would in theory allow him to communicate directly with the Stygian long before he saw her. The Motorola SCR-536 ‘Handie-Talkie’ (HT) was a relatively new invention that had seen extensive service during the Normandy invasion. A radio transceiver with a range of several miles over water, it was a derivation of the more famous ‘Walkie-Talkie’, though unlike its larger cousin the HT was hand-held rather than back-mounted. It looked like an oversized and boxy green telephone receiver. Fraser pulled out the HT’s long aerial. He depressed a long rubber switch and began to call the Stygian, using the agreed code words. He would repeat this process every few minutes for the rest of the night until he had established contact with the Stygian’s skipper, Guy Clarabut.⁸

*

Aboard the XE-4 and XE-5 nothing was happening. Max Shean’s boat was sitting on the bottom some miles off the Mekong River, the crew trying to rest. He planned to surface the XE-4 about 9.30pm when it would be fully dark and he could begin a standing charge of the batteries before attempting to make his rendezvous with HMS Spearhead.⁹ Once the XE-4 had found the Spearhead, Shean intended to have a short conference with her captain, Lieutenant-Commander Youngman, as it was expected that he would have some updated aerial intelligence concerning Japanese shipping in Saigon. If the RAF or the Americans had identified worthwhile targets there was every chance that Captain Fell would order the XE-4 to head back in towards the Indochinese coast. It was not a thought that Shean relished.

*

Pat Westmacott and his crew aboard the XE-5 were also not going anywhere. They were in position off Hong Kong’s West Lamma Channel but would have to wait out the night of 31 July/1 August until dawn broke and they could start dragging for the telephone cables. The XE-5 was on the bottom, the men resting, enduring a seemingly interminable wait for the sun.¹⁰ It was galling because they knew that if the other missions had gone according to plan, their boats would already be on the way back by now.

*

Tich Fraser thought for a moment that his eyes were playing tricks. He stared hard through the binoculars, adjusting the focus. It was dark, but he could just make out a small craft lying very low in the water some distance away on the starboard bow. His eyes strained to make out any details. After a few minutes Fraser decided that it could be the XE-1.

Fraser ordered a course change, and slowly the XE-3 motored closer to the unidentified craft, Fraser still hopeful that it was Jack Smart and his crew. But as the submarine closed the distance, Fraser could see that it was nothing more than yet another small native fishing boat.¹¹ He hastily ordered a course change and moved away before his submarine was seen. Wherever Jack Smart was, he wasn’t near here.

*

Smart was continuing his vigil topside, scanning the gloom with his binoculars and occasionally using the HT that he had been issued to try to contact HMS Spark. He saw nothing and he heard nothing, just the hum of his own engine and the slap of water against the casing. He would keep at it for however long it took. Getting home was now his only objective.

*

Mick Magennis took out a box of matches and lit his cigarette. He dragged the smoke deeply into his lungs and exhaled with a long, satisfied sigh. Charlie Reed took a proffered cigarette and held a lit match to the end. Soon the XE-3 was filled with the smell of tobacco smoke as the two crewmen puffed away cheerfully. They had been denied this pleasure for a day and a half.

Not long afterwards Kiwi Smith asked Fraser, still in position atop the XE-3’s casing, if Magennis and Reed could get a little fresh air. Both men were feeling sick. After so long without a smoke, the cigarettes had made them feel light-headed and upset their stomachs. Fraser opened the main hatch and allowed each of the men to climb out onto the casing for a few moments, swinging their arms and walking about a bit until their equilibrium was restored. Kiwi Smith also took a brief turn on the deck.¹²

*

Lieutenant Guy Clarabut stood over the chart table in HMS Stygian’s control room. The submarine’s interior was lit with red night lamps. Up top, on the conning tower, lookouts constantly scanned the surrounding water searching for the XE-3.

‘Sir,’ said a naval rating at Clarabut’s elbow, ‘the wireless operator reports that we’ve just picked up a transmission. It’s the XE-3, sir.’

Clarabut smiled and made his way down the narrow corridor to the wireless office. The operator handed him a set of headphones. ‘He’s transmitting now, sir,’ he added, fiddling with a large dial on the front of the wireless equipment.

Clarabut listened. The voice was indistinct and full of static, the signal strength weak, but it was unmistakably Tich Fraser’s voice slowly repeating his call sign and giving some basic navigational information.

Clarabut was both happy and relieved. Fraser had made it. When he had bid farewell to his friend the night before, Clarabut had been unsure of his chances. It had seemed a tall order to infiltrate the Johor Strait and get back out again. But Clarabut had believed in Fraser and now he knew that Fraser had accomplished an extraordinary feat of seamanship. He ordered the operator to reply and continue monitoring the frequency. He also ordered that a message be sent to Captain Fell aboard the Bonaventure in Brunei Bay informing him that the XE-3 was making for its rendezvous.

*

Fraser never heard the reply from the Stygian. He continued to send his message every few minutes in between making visual sweeps with his binoculars, but he had no idea if anyone was listening at the other end. The HT signal was weak. The Stygian could only pick up Fraser’s signal because it was equipped with a powerful receiver. So Fraser continued with his lonely vigil, passing the occasional word with one of his crewmen each time a head appeared at the hatch, but otherwise alone with his thoughts and fears.

*

Jack Smart was facing the same problem as Fraser – the HT didn’t seem to be receiving anything from the Spark. Smart wasn’t unduly worried at this stage. He knew that he still had several miles to travel before he reached the agreed rendezvous area, but it was nonetheless frustrating to keep sending the same message over and over and hear only the low hum of static each time he released the talk button. He decided not to worry; at least, not yet. He would just follow the agreed procedure and hope for the best.

*

‘Stop engine,’ ordered Fraser from his position on top of the casing.

‘Stop engine, aye aye, skipper,’ replied Smith from inside the submarine.

The gentle throb of the diesel died and was replaced by the sounds of waves slapping against the submarine’s hull.

‘It’s almost time, chaps,’ said Fraser through the open main hatch. ‘Come up onto the casing.’

As Smith, Reed and Magennis clambered up the short ladder onto the deck Fraser glanced at his watch. 9.25pm. It wouldn’t be long now. The other three crewmen stretched and gulped in the clean air. They balanced themselves by gripping the induction trunk or each other. Fraser took out a small hand-held marine compass and consulted its luminous face.

‘It will come from over there,’ he said, pointing with one arm in the direction of the Singapore Naval Base several miles away in the darkness. He raised his binoculars and swept the surrounding ocean. All clear. He could afford this little indulgence after so much hardship and danger. The crew deserved to see it.

*

Aboard the XE-1 Smart, Harper, Fishleigh and Pomeroy also stood atop their submarine’s casing. All eyes were fixed on the dark horizon in the direction of Singapore. They waited with bated breath, not knowing what they might see, but just as determined as Fraser and his crew to witness the results of their illicit handiwork. They were not to be disappointed.

*

Lieutenant Clarabut had moved on to the Stygian’s conning tower and was scanning the darkness for the XE-3 alongside the lookouts. Aboard HMS Spark, Lieutenant-Commander Youngman did the same. Both officers knew the approximate time that the two XE-crafts’ explosive charges were set to detonate, and they wanted to witness the show. They also knew that Captain Fell was standing by for news of the attacks and of his little submarines.

*

Fraser and Smart’s crew checked their watches repeatedly as the minutes slowly passed. At 9.30pm all eyes strained into the gloom. Surely it must happen now? But there was nothing. The minutes ticked on. The first stirrings of worry began to descend upon them. Had something gone wrong with the charges or the limpet mines? Had they come all this way for nothing? Had the mission ended in failure?

‘Crikey!’ exclaimed Fraser at 9.33 as a huge far-away flash lit up the sky, followed by another, even larger detonation, an orange and yellow glow illuminating the distant land.¹³ The second explosion lasted a few seconds longer, and soon a great fire could be observed that burned brightly against the horizon. Then the sound hit them. First a crack followed by another much louder bang and then a long rumbling roar, the death rattle of a great and terrible beast.

*

‘Signal from the Stygian, sir,’ said the wireless clerk as he handed the note to Captain Fell, who had been hovering anxiously near the Bonaventure’s radio room for hours.

Fell took the handwritten note scribbled hastily on a signal pad and ran his eyes feverishly over the pencilled words. Then he turned to Commander Graham, his deputy, and grinned fiercely.

‘Follow me, Derek,’ said Fell, heading off to find Admiral Fife.

‘A message from the Stygian, Jimmy,’ said Fell when he had located the American, barely able to control his excitement.

‘Read it to me, Tiny,’ asked Fife.

‘What a bonfire, consider cruiser well distributed over the countryside,’¹⁴ said Fell, reading Lieutenant Clarabut’s message. Fell and Fife shook hands, both grinning from ear to ear. The ‘little guys with a lotta guts’ had got through. Hardly had the congratulations begun when confirmation arrived from another source.

‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said the yeoman of signals, interrupting the two senior officers. ‘A message has just arrived from the Spark, sir.’

Fell took the message from his outstretched hand and read it aloud.

‘Huge explosions from direction of Johor Strait followed by more explosions and fires.’¹⁵ Fell was ecstatic. Thirty-six hours of impatient waiting was over. His men had done it – just as he had promised Fife they would. Now his only worry was whether the two submarines had managed to get out of the strait.

*

The crews of the XE-1 and XE-3 stood transfixed by the pyrotechnic display, mouths open and eyes wide until they started to cheer and embrace one other, laughing, shaking hands and clapping each other on the back in sheer, unabashed joy.¹⁶ They had done it – eight exhausted men in two tiny submarines had done the impossible. It had taken them 43 hours, including over sixteen and a half beneath the water. The Japanese behemoth was no more, her guts torn from her body, her fuel oil spreading around her sinking hull like dark arterial blood.¹⁷ They had done it, and they had managed to escape from right under the enemy’s nose without a single casualty. Compared with the Tirpitz operation it was a triumph, practically a textbook raid.

*

When the British explosives had detonated beneath the Takao at 9.33pm, the great ship had lifted, the entire weight of the vessel, her crew and all of her stores and ammunition being flung upwards before settling back into the water with a groan. The British charges had been designed in such a way that a detonation close by would cause any other charges to also explode. The effect was that of one enormous bomb beneath the Takao.

The force of the explosion sent a powerful shock wave through the interior of the ship, smashing decks and surging through bulkheads and down passageways. Those Japanese sailors inside the ship were violently lifted off their feet and thrown down against unyielding steel or wood surfaces, cracking skulls and breaking limbs.

Flames, smoke and debris burst up on either side of the ship, pluming high into the air before shrapnel started to fall like steel rain over a wide area, Japanese sailors running for cover under the sudden maelstrom. The flashes lit up the entire naval base and the jungle beyond. A wave several feet high surged out from the wrecked ship, threatening to capsize the small craft that were plying the strait, an artificial tsunami. Windows across the naval base imploded as the shock wave swept over the buildings and workshops, while Japanese sailors flung themselves to the ground or ran for their lives. Smaller secondary explosions shook the Takao, as burning tendrils of fuel oil spread out across the Strait from her ruptured tanks in orange pools and rivulets. An air raid siren began to wail mournfully while Japanese damage-control parties raced to try to contain the fires, desperately unravelling hoses, their officers yelling orders in all directions.

The Takao settled slowly into the strait as water flooded into her belly, her bow and stern coming to rest on the shallow bottom where she would remain, no longer able to float on the tide.¹⁸ If not for the shallow water of the strait, she would have submerged entirely. Beneath the waterline, unseen by those ashore, a gaping hole 60 feet long had been punched into her starboard flank by the XE-1 and XE-3’s explosives, flooding the engine room and dozens of compartments. The damage had spread higher throughout the ship. Electrical power was gone, meaning that she could not fire her boilers and move. The lights had shorted, and some of the gun turrets had been lifted from their bearings, leaving them out of commission with their delicate range finders wrecked.¹⁹ The Takao’s days as a fighting ship were well and truly over. She was no longer a threat to anyone, least of all to Lord Mountbatten’s Operation Zipper.

*

Smart, Fraser and the rest of the crews stood and watched until the fires died away and darkness returned once more to the horizon. Then, with contented grins on their oil- and sweat-stained faces, they silently shook hands one last time and clambered once more into the cramped and uncomfortable interiors of their submarines. But they didn’t even notice the conditions now. They had joy in their hearts. They were going home.²⁰