Her Majesty’s Submarine Voyager completed her working up and was signed off by the dockyard manager at Vickers-Armstrong before being officially handed over to Commander Ralph Bottomley on the morning of Monday, 24th April. At the same time, he received orders to make ‘all due haste’ to join the 5th Submarine Flotilla based at Gosport.
‘Ye gods,’ he muttered to a young lieutenant called Farraday, who seemed capable enough and who had been assigned as the first lieutenant on the Voyager, ‘I thought I had escaped Gosport.’
‘Did you not care for Hampshire then, sir?’ Farraday asked.
‘I’ve been cooling my heels at HMS Dolphin for far too long. I hoped we might have been assigned duty in the North Sea. Never mind, Number One, we’ll slip on the high tide tomorrow forenoon. Tell the bosun that there will be no shore leave tonight and that I expect the crew to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morrow. We don’t want any mishaps as we leave the dockyard.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ Farraday responded.
At half past eleven the following morning, HMS Voyager slipped out of Barrow-in-Furness with little fuss. A few of the dockyard workers who had broken for lunchbreak that Tuesday gathered on the harbour wall and watched with a deal of pride as the submarine left their care to begin its career as one of Her Majesty’s sea wolves. As soon as she was clear of home waters, Commander Bottomley cleared the bridge, took the submarine down to a comfortable cruising depth, and set course circumnavigating the coast of Northern Ireland and into the Atlantic Ocean where the boat changed direction south-west towards the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores.
Mid-afternoon, and as the submarine headed south-east towards the French coast, the engineering officer came to the control room and mentioned to the captain that he was unhappy with the performance of the electric engines.
‘Had you not noticed this while we were undergoing sea trials?’ Bottomley was frustrated.
‘No, sir, everything seemed on top line, it’s little more than just a hunch, but I think the batteries are discharging too rapidly. It may be something simple like faulty circuitry, but it may be a mechanical fault that will need to be sorted.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ Bottomley enquired.
‘Can we go topside and use the diesels? Just until I have isolated the problem?’ the engineer enquired.
‘Not during daylight.’ Bottomley was adamant. ‘We are off the Irish coast, and the last thing we want is some good Irish nationalist tipping off the Luftwaffe so that we get a warm welcome in the Channel. I’ll take her up tonight when it gets dark if you promise that you will be quiet with your repairs. We wouldn’t want to wake Seamus and his missus, now would we?’
‘Thank you, sir.’ The engineer was satisfied.
Just before 9.20pm, Commander Bottomley brought HMS Voyager to periscope depth and scanned the horizon before surfacing the boat.
Four ratings and the officer of the watch, together with the captain, all crammed onto the small bridge of the submarine made for a cramped space, but as the boat was approaching the north coast of Somerset, Commander Bottomley wanted to be aware of any other vessels in the area before they started to use him as target practice – either by British patrols mistaking the Voyager for a U-boat or by a German raider knowing precisely that the boat was British.
It took until dawn for the engineer to isolate the problem and carry out a running repair before reporting to the captain that the fix should hold until the boat got to Gosport and the naval electricians could replace the defective part.
‘Very good,’ Bottomley said before clearing the bridge as the first fingers of dawn were breaking in the sky and submerging the boat to a safe cruising depth.
*
It took the submarine until the afternoon of Thursday 27th April to navigate to a point off the Lizard in Cornwall, where a wireless communication was received from the coastal forces base at HMS Hornet in Falmouth that there was an exercise taking place in the region of Start Point and that HMS Voyager should navigate a passage to avoid interference, approaching the Solent from the east. The submarine submerged and only resurfaced as it passed Plymouth off the port quarter. A fix was taken on the radio beacon at the Smeaton’s Tower on Plymouth Hoe that served as a coastguard station, and Commander Bottomley adjusted the course slightly to continue towards the Isle of Wight.
Just after four bells of the middle watch, or 0200hrs, the deck party became aware of gunfire off the port quarter to the west of Brixham, which the commander took to be the exercise that was taking place. Those on the bridge were fascinated by the simulated firefight and were wholly unprepared for a German Schnellboot, or E-boat as they were known to British sailors, appearing out of the gloom travelling at high speed towards the French coast. A gunner let off a wayward spray of bullets towards the submarine as the boat sped past.
Commander Bottomley barked down the speaking tube to the radio operator, ‘Make to Admiralty copied C-in-C Plymouth. Am under attack from E-boats and am engaging. Give our position and send in plain language.’
In honesty, the German vessel’s crew was equally surprised to run across a submarine on the surface. However, as the sub had not opened fire, the Germans may have assumed that it was a U-boat sent to assist in the raid in which the E-boat had been engaged, and the burst of gunfire was the natural reaction of a gunner who was just a little nervy. As the enemy vessel surged past, Commander Bottomley ordered the gun’s crew to stand-to and be prepared for an attack – he knew that Schnellboots usually operated in groups of three or four. Another German boat hurried past before the gun’s crew were ready, and this time, the submarine was left alone; with the third boat, their luck ran out. The E-boat appeared out of the gloom, clearly damaged from the battle off the Devonshire coast. Its engine was misfiring and unable to make the speed of the two previous vessels. On coming across the submarine, the German boat issued a demand for identification, and the reply came in shells fired from the submarine’s three-inch gun. The Germans quickly responded with machine-gun fire and 20mm shells fired from the bow gun.
Commander Ralph Bottomley perished with the rest of those on the submarine’s bridge and the three-inch gun crew, and the submarine was mortally damaged, causing it to sink within four minutes of their initial engagement. There were no survivors.
HMS Voyager became another victim of the Battle of Lyme Bay as it became known, where a flotilla of nine Schnellboots managed to slip past the minimal naval protection and attack American LSTs6 who were engaged in Operation Tiger, killing no less than 946 American servicemen and wounding a further 200.
*
The first indication that anything was wrong came with the unemotional telephone call to Daphne Devine just after she had arrived at Broadway Buildings on the morning of that same day. She was unperturbed to be told that HMS Voyager was overdue in reporting to the submarine flotilla at Gosport. Punctuality had never been one of Ralph’s attributes, but she was slightly concerned that in all of his previous exploits, she had not once been told of his late arrival. She put it down to the fact that it must be because they were now married, and thought little more about it.
Alex received the telephone call from the captain who commanded HMS Dolphin at Gosport to say that Commander Ralph Bottomley was missing. When Alex pressed for details, he was told that the last communication with HMS Voyager had been that the vessel was engaging German E-boats in the English Channel and that nothing had been heard from the submarine since. Moreover, it was now late in arriving at Gosport, and that air-sea rescue had been despatched to the submarine’s last known position.
‘Does anybody know where Daphne is?’ Alex enquired as he put his head around the door of the room that Daphne shared with several others.
‘She’s just running some papers over to the War House,’ Lieutenant John Harrington responded without looking up from what he was doing.
‘Ask her to pop along when she gets back,’ Alex said.
‘Aye aye, sir,’ Lieutenant Harrington responded, causing Alex to bridle slightly at his formality.
It was lunchtime when Alex received the second telephone call from Gosport, saying that Commander Ralph Bottomley’s body had been recovered by air-sea rescue and taken to the naval base at Plymouth. The captain expressed his deep regrets and eulogised that Ralph Bottomley had been an exceptional submarine commander and one with whom he had been proud to serve. He promised to keep Alex updated as circumstances became more apparent.
*
Alex was in a reflective mood when Simon opened Alex’s office door. ‘Come on, old chap,’ Simon sought to chivvy Alex up, ‘bit of a flap on, and Jeffers wants us tout de suite.’ Simon had started to intersperse his conversation with French idioms since he had taken over the French section.
‘What?’ Alex came around from his thoughts. ‘Can’t it wait? I have to talk to Daphne.’
‘Nope.’ Simon was adamant. ‘Straight away, immédiatement, is what he said. He’s been trying to get you on the telephone, but your number was busy.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Alex said distractedly, ‘yes, it’s what I have to talk to Daphne Devine about.’
‘Well,’ Simon said impatiently, ‘hurry up. You know how Jeffers hates being kept waiting.’
Alex grabbed his jacket and followed Simon out of the room and along to Captain Jeffers’ rather more substantial office.
‘Go right on in,’ Miss Willoughby said as Alex and Simon entered her outer office. ‘He’s waiting.’
Simon opened the door to the inner sanctum without knocking, and he and Alex entered to find Jeffers sitting at his desk with a worried expression clouding his face.
‘Come on in and take a seat.’ Jeffers waited for them to do so before continuing. ‘There was a God-Almighty cock-up last night,’ Jeffers stated, and both Alex and Simon looked concerned.
‘A pack of E-boats managed to breach naval defences in south Devonshire and attack a planned exercise which the Americans were carrying out at a place called…’ he opened a file on his desk, ‘Slapton. Many American servicemen engaged in an exercise related to Operation Overlord were killed, and much of their equipment on some sort of transport ships was lost to the sea. There will have to be an inquiry, as security for this exercise was tight.’ Both Alex and Simon understood that if ‘security was tight’, only the whole county would know about it, and Jeffers picked up on their thought waves. ‘No, I mean really tight. Since their briefing, the troops involved had been isolated, and only a few senior officers knew it was occurring. I only got to hear about it through a chance remark that Charles Phipps made the other day, and even then, I did not know the details of Operation Tiger. The upshot is that we have to make sure that we are watertight.’
As with so many military disasters, the first action in the aftermath was a general battening down of hatches to make sure that your department could not in any way be blamed for anything before the blame-shifting began. As even Simon had not been aware of Operation Tiger, it seemed unlikely that any responsibility was going to land at the door of MI3, but it was equally important to ensure that none of the field agents were aware of anything untoward, or whether there was any intelligence that they had that might aid the inquiry.
‘Any of our chaps involved,’ Simon asked, ‘or was it just an American show?’
‘It seems these transports were being chaperoned by a Royal Navy corvette, HMS Azalea, and several MTBs7.’
‘A corvette and some MTBs hardly seems enough,’ Alex stated.
‘Apparently, an S-class destroyer, HMS Scimitar, was also down for escort duty but had been accidentally rammed by one of the American transports and was on her way back to Plymouth when the attack happened.’
‘But none of our chaps were killed,’ Simon persisted.
‘Not directly,’ Jeffers continued, ‘but air-sea rescue was scrambled to try and locate an overdue submarine in the vicinity, and they came across the crew of one of the E-boats bobbing about in a dinghy, who told the tale of being sunk by a submarine, which they also destroyed. The air-sea rescue chaps also recovered several bodies from a British submarine.’
‘Aha, any idea which submarine?’ Simon asked.
‘HMS Voyager,’ Alex responded, and Simon looked at his friend in awe. ‘Daphne Devine’s husband was its commander, and I just got the news before this meeting that his body had been recovered. I must go and break the news to her.’
A sombre silence had descended on the room as Alex left to find Daphne, which he did at her desk opposite Lieutenant John Harrington.
‘Daphne?’ Alex asked. ‘Have you got a moment?’
‘Not really,’ she replied. ‘I collected a whole sheaf of signals from the War Office while I was delivering yesterday’s back to them. Seems there was a bit of a flap on last night, and I have lots to get through.’
‘It’ll wait,’ Alex said gently. ‘Come on through to my office.’
*
To say that Daphne took the news well would be stretching the truth a little too far, but she was far more stoic than Alex would have imagined.
With tears welling in her eyes, she said, ‘I just knew this would happen one day. Why could the bloody fool not have stayed as an instructor in Gosport? He had a cushy number and was doing so much good in preparing new submariners. Why did he yearn so much for danger? I begged him not to take this new command. I knew his luck would not last, but would he listen? Oh, God, what am I to do now?’
Alex handed over a clean handkerchief with which she dabbed her eyes. ‘I’ll arrange a car to take you home to collect some things and then down to Plymouth. Take all the time that you need, but at these times, I think it is probably better to keep yourself busy, so when you have things squared away, we’ll be waiting for you back here.’
*
The catalogue of disaster that flowed from the Slapton incident’s mismanagement became apparent over the next few weeks, and much of it beggared belief. The Royal Navy had been charged with providing two destroyers, three MTBs and two motor gunboats as an escort for the American LSTs; furthermore, a squadron of MTBs was also sent to patrol the Cherbourg area of Normandy, as that is from where most of the Schnellboot or E-boat groups operated. On the evening of 27th April, the MTBs were lured to the Cap du Hague as a group of three E-boats were caught trying to escape the blockade. They were quickly sent scurrying back to Cherbourg, but in the meantime the flotilla of nine E-boats slipped out of Cherbourg and headed eastwards towards the Pointe de Barfleur. As they were level almost with the village of Cosqueville, they turned and headed across the Channel. This is a known fact, as an agent in the area watched them depart Cherbourg and sent a coded message to Bletchley. Unfortunately, it was not decoded in time, or the urgency was not appreciated, and the warning was not sent to the admiral at Plymouth until mid-morning on the twenty-eighth.
Eventually, the E-boats changed course towards Portland Bill and cut across Lyme Bay towards Slapton. They were challenged by a Royal Navy minesweeper but gave the correct response and proceeded otherwise unchallenged. From where did they get the proper reply to the challenge?
One of the American landing craft spotted two fast-moving vessels, but so confident were the Americans in the cover being provided by the Royal Navy, they were assumed to be ‘friendly’ craft, and the alarm was not raised – had it have been, the attack may well have been less successful. According to the Admiralty charts of the time, when the warning came, the convoy’s precise location was given by the navigator on HMS Azalea as approximately twelve miles south of Burton Bradstock and ten miles south-west of Portland Bill, which was incorrect by about forty-five miles. Nobody knew why the navigator was so inaccurate.
The first American vessel to be attacked was an LST with the identification number 507. Although larger than many naval ships and a crew complement larger than most destroyers, these vessels were only dignified by a number, not a name. So, LST-507 was hit by two torpedoes in quick succession that caused the ship to burst into flame, and as the crew started to abandon ship, they were strafed by the machine guns of the attacking E-boat. To give some understanding of the size of these landing crafts, LST-507 had loaded thirteen two-and-a-half-ton trucks, two quarter-ton trucks, a three-quarter-ton truck and twenty-two DUKWs8, affectionately known as ‘Ducks’. It also carried elements of seven US Army companies and a crew of about 169 officers and men. All told, 202 US Army and Navy soldiers and sailors died on that one LST alone.
The Americans had no idea that HMS Scimitar had returned to Plymouth after being damaged by the collision with an LST, as the British and American forces were on different wireless wavelengths. The Royal Navy could not talk to the American commander and vice versa, and although HMS Azalea had received a wireless communication that E-boats were suspected of operating in the area, none of the American commanders received a similar message.
The majority of those that died on Operation Tiger perished because of either drowning or hypothermia. Those who jumped into the sea in full battledress soon discovered that it became cumbersome when wet, dragging the soldier beneath the waves and causing death by drowning. Many of the lifejackets were defective, and many of those that did manage to struggle into one had put it on incorrectly – it seems that only naval personnel had been instructed on how to put on a life jacket. More to the point, the soldiers had not been briefed on what to do if a general alarm sounded, so panic set in as soon as it did.
Nobody had expected a situation to arise on a well-planned exercise that would need soldiers to know what to do if attacked, which breached one of the central tenets of warfare – brief for the expected, plan for the unexpected. There was no plan.
*
The inquiry was a cover-up and kept under wraps. The last thing that the Allies needed was for the Germans to discover that they had nearly wrecked one of the planned exercises designed to get troops ready for the invasion in less than six weeks.
The Royal Navy took some of the blame, the senior military planners reluctantly accepted some also, not least because of the communications issue – field commanders were collectively seen as blameworthy for the lack of discipline from the troops who panicked – but generally, the result of the inquiry was swept under the carpet. The Americans quickly collected bodies that washed up on the foreshore and took them to Brookwood Cemetery not far from Woking in Surrey, where they were checked for identity. Several of those who died at Slapton were privy to sensitive invasion information that would greatly benefit the enemy.
But the niggling worry that festered in Alex’s mind was how did the Germans know that there was an exercise taking place and how was it so easy for them to send a flotilla of E-boats to wreak such carnage?
6 Landing Ship Tanks, or tank landing craft
7 Motor torpedo boats
8 The DUKW was a two-and-a-half-ton six-wheel amphibious truck used in World War II by the US Army and Marine Corps. Its primary purpose was to ferry supplies such as ammunition and equipment from offshore supply ships to coastal supply dumps and fighting units at the beach.