One of the first 'X Craft', on trials around Scotland.
This class of vessel was built, during World War Two, for attacking enemy warships moored in protected anchorages,
particularly the German battleship Tirpitz. They were towed to the vicinity of the
target, usually by submarine, then released.
Some early boats were built for trials and training purposes before the X5 series were built for operations.
Vickers Ltd of Barrow, the traditional submarine builders, were overwhelmed with work replacing losses; there had
to be a great deal of secrecy surrounding the programme, and manufacturers had to be 'off the beaten track' of German
bombers. The companies selected were Markham's of Chesterfield, Broadbents of Huddersfield, and Marshall's of Gainsborough.
The extent to which the secrets of the programme had been meticulously guarded were typified by the construction of X4,
constructed in early 1942. Half was constructed in Hull, and the other half in Bursledon, Hampshire, with the assembly undertaken in
Portsmouth Harbour.
The X-Craft training was conducted in Loch Striven, an isolated Loch in the West of Scotland, on their depot Ship, HMS
Bonaventure which shared the water with HMS Malaya, an obsolete WW1 Battleship which was used as a training
target. The support staff were accommodated ashore near Port Bannatyne in HMS Varbel,
both commanded by Commander (later Captain) W.E. Banks DSC RN - previously the
C.O. of HMS Firedrake. Lt Cdr JF
Beaufoy-Brown DSC RN, formerly of Unity and Taku, was CO of HMS Varbel
II, and Training Officer, Midget Submarines, 1943-1945, including operational
training and preparation of X Craft for Operation SOURCE, the attack on the
German battleship TIRPITZ, Altenfjord, Norway, Sep 1943, Operation GUIDANCE,
the sinking by X Craft of German merchant ship BARENFELS, Apr 1944, and
Operation HECKLE, the destruction of a floating dock, Laksvaag, Bergen,
Norway, Sep 1944.
The training was rugged and
thorough, with the crews exercised in every aspect of an operation, including cutting through nets, and some 'escape and
evasion' for the personnel. It also included each X-craft being subjected to depth charge explosions to familiarise the
crews with what it was like being under attack. Nerves of steel were essential for their own protection as well as that
of their fellow men. This training carried a price, with two men losing their lives through accident.
A slightly gung-ho film, 'Above Us the Waves', starring the ubiquitous John Mills, was made shortly after the war and
purports to tell the story of the X craft's development and the raid on Tirpitz. Not a bad attempt, though more
modern film technology could have improved it a lot.
Another film was produced around 1968, called 'Submarine X-1', this
time starring the American James Caan -- all very odd but, in those days, if you wanted to sell a film in the USA you had to
have an American 'star', so Caan's character became a Canadian for the sake of 'box office'. So many discrepancies in medals,
rates, number of boats and - most wildly - the depiction of three midget submarines transiting the North Sea to Norway underwater
and in close formation! Yet there were some very accurate models and miniatures used and there were enough realistic touches
that you couldn't help think that they had lost a great chance to depict the raid on Tirpitz with some authenticity.
The original X-Craft - X-1 to X-4 - were never used for operations. X-5 to X-10 were used in the attack on
Tirpitz, none of them surviving. These were followed by the six XT class boats -
designed for training purposes only and with less complicated equipment.
Next came the X-20 series of six boats (X-20 to X-25): X20 and X23 were used for beach reconnaissance
on the coast of Normandy (Operation Postage Able), followed shortly afterwards by the arduous duty of acting as markers
for the first landing craft on D-Day, codenamed Operation Gambit.
X24 saw action at Bergen and at Normandy, while X22 was damaged in a collision.
Op Postage Able:X20 - Lt KR Hudspeth DSC* RANVR and Sub.Lt. B. Enzer RNVR, with the COPP
(Combined Ops Pilotage Party) comprising Lt.Cdr. Nigel Willmott DSO DSC RN, Major Logan Scott-Bowden DSO MC and Sergeant
Bruce Ogden-Smith DCM MM. X20 was to spend four days off the French coast. During the day time was spent in conducting
periscope reconnaissance of the shoreline and taking bottom soundings using the echo-sounder. Each night X20 would
close the beach and Scott-Bowden and Ogden-Smith would swim ashore. Each was weighed down with a shingle bag, brandy flask,
sounding lead, underwater writing pad and pencil, compass, beach gradient reel and stake, .45 revolver, trowel, auger, torch
and bandolier. Soil samples were collected in condoms. The divers went ashore on two nights to survey the beaches at Vierville,
Moulins St Laurent and Colleville in what would become the American 'Omaha' beach. On the third night they were due to go ashore
off the Orne Estuary, but by this stage fatigue (all five men had been living on little more than benzedrine tablets) and the
worsening weather caused Hudspeth to shorten the operation, returning to Dolphin on 21 Jan 1944. Hudspeth received a bar to his DSC.
Op Gambit:X20 - Hudspeth and Enzer, as above, plus ERA L. Tilley, with COPP Lt. Paul Harbud RN,
Sub.Lt. R Harbud RNVR.
X23 - Lt George Honour RNVR, Sub.Lt. J.H. Hodges RNVR, ERA George Vause. COPP - Lt. G. Lyne DSC RN and
Lt. J.G.M. Both RNVR.
For Op Gambit, X20 and X23 arrived in position 4 June and, due to the delay caused by bad weather,
remained in position until 0430 on 6 June (D-Day) when they surfaced, put up the navigational aids, an 18-foot telescopic
mast with a light shining to seaward, a radio beacon and echo sounder tapping out a message for the Minelayers approaching
'Sword' and 'Juno' beaches. (The Americans had been given a demonstration of beach marking techniques by the X-Craft but
had declined their help, trusting the accuracy of their navigation. On the morning of 6 June the American force heading for
'Utah' beach was driven to the west by strong tides and currents and went ashore in the wrong place.)
Another X-20 boat, X-24, made two raids on Bergen, Norway, to sink a floating dock.
X-22 was damaged in a collision with its towing submarine in bad weather in the Pentland Firth.
The XE series of 12 boats had a distinguished war record, particularly in the Far East. See also
XE3, XE-4,5,6.
XE-11 was lost in Loch Striven - Under the command of Lieutenant Aubrey Staples SANF(V), and with her First
Lieutenant, Sub-Lt Bill Morrison RNVR, at the controls, XE11 left Varbel I on 6 March 1945, to exercise in Loch Striven.
That morning she was calibrating instruments, and Staples had taken E.R.A. Les
Swatton, AB JJ Carroll and Stoker E Higgins from
the passage-crews out to gain experience.
They had safely settled and found a trim at 100 feet. Unbeknown to them, the
Boom Defence vessel Norina was stopped in the water directly above. Then they had moved up to ninety feet and stopped, then to 80 feet,
70, 60 and up by intervals fo ten to thirty feet. (Morrison had now gone to the 'Wet and Dry' compartment
(the Diving Chamber) to relieve himself). A gentle touch on the hydroplane controls and up came the craft from twenty
feet to ten. At what exact depth she was when the first crash occurred it is impossible to say. In seconds two great holes
had been rent in her pressure-hull, high on the port side just aft of where the planesman was sitting under the after-hatch.
Water was pouring in and, in spite of all that main air, motor, pumps, and hydroplanes could do, the craft was going deeper.
In no time it was pitch-dark. The fuses had blown.
From the moment of impact Staples was calm. "Blow main ballast!", came his command. "Hydroplanes hard to rise, Full Ahead,
Group Up." There was no hint of panic in his voice, in spite of the almost immediate stern-down angle of fifty to sixty
degrees that the craft assumed.
Bill Morrison was still forward. "Try and open the hatch, Bill," Staples had said. Bill was trying, but with no success.
The clip was off, but the external pressure was too great.
The boat eventually hit the bottom at 210 feet. The pressure inside had more than equalised with that above the hatch
the moment the submarine's descent ceased. The control-room's air had been squeezed up into a small cubic capacity and
with a rush it was finding its way up to the surface via the loosened fore-hatch.
As the pressure equalised Bill Morrison was able to force the escape hatch open
and pulled ERA Les Swatton out in the bubble that took them to the surface. (In
the memory of the late Les Swatton, as passed to his family, Bill had become
unconscious by this time, and it was Les that opened the hatch and pulled Bill
out by his hair. Bill later gave Les a cigarette case inscribed "With
Gratitude, H. Morrison")
The boom-defence vessel that hit XE-11 had seen the beginning as well as the end of the tragedy. XE-11
had drifted out of her exercise area to where a new line of buoys was being laid. In coming up to ten feet she had met
the bows of the boom vessel just as the latter was starting her engines after having laid a buoy. Therefore, as she had
been lying with engines stopped, there had been no warning water-noises to be heard by the craft.
The three others - Lt Staples, Able Seaman Carroll, and Stoker Higgins - were
dead. The craft was raised some two or three days later. Each of the dead
men was wearing his DSEA set, but presumably they had all died from oxygen
poisoning before they could complete the orthodox escape-routine. The dead were
buried in Rothesay cemetery, after the boat had been quickly salvaged.
All the original X-Craft were lost or scrapped by 1945, but five X-20 series remained, with ten XE-Class and six
XT-Craft (built for training). The immediate post-war reduction of naval forces saw all scrapped except for XE7,
XE8, XE9 and XE12. (The XE Craft of the '14th Flotilla' in the Far East at the end of the war -
XE3, XE4, XE5 and XE6 - were simply dumped on a jetty at Sydney to rust and bought by a
scrap merchant.)
In 1950 XE7 went across the Atlantic to the USA to show off her capabilities; this spurred the
USN to try out their own midget programme, culminating in a trials unit, the X1, driven by hydrogen peroxide.
in the UK, four replacement boats, the X-50 series, were built in 1951/2. These craft were also given names - X51 was
Stickleback, X52 was Shrimp, X53 was Sprat and X54 was Minnow. The plans for their
deployment included the possibility of laying nuclear mines in Soviet harbours - outside the scope of this website.
The Stickleback was sold to Sweden for trials in the Baltic, and renamed Spiggen. In 1977 she returned
to the UK for preservation and display. Interesting
story from 1956.
(left) X52, or Shrimp
The British X-Craft unit was finally disbanded in 1958.
X24 was preserved at HMS Dolphin, Gosport,
and is still there at the Submarine Museum.
The facts and figures for X-craft from X5 were:
- Displacement: 27 tons surfaced; 29.5 tons submerged
- Length: 15.7m (51ft 7ins)
- Beam: 1.8m (5ft 9.5ins)
- Propulsion: Gardner diesel engine Single electric motor. 42hp surfaced, 30hp submerged
- Speed: 6.5 kts (surfaced), (5 knots dived)
- Range With charges: 1,100 miles at 4.5 knots surfaced, 85 miles at 2 knots submerged.
- Surface range without charges was 1,400 miles. Gradual improvements in range for newer boats.
- Armament: 2 x 3570lb charges of Amatol (high explosive) Limpet mines (in later craft)
- Crew 3 men (passage) 4 men (operational)
- Nos. delivered: 14 X-craft, 11 XE-craft, (slightly bigger with air conditioning), 6 XT-craft (for training)
- Fuel Approx. 1 ton
- See The Tirpitz Raid
Individual AttacksX6
X7
X5
X10
The success of the X-craft attack on Tirpitz, albeit at great sacrifice, led to two operations by X24
on attacks in Bergen harbour, Norway, in 1944, and, with the example of successes in Europe in mind, they were called on for tasks in the
Far East. The most outstanding successes were achieved by XE3, commanded by Lt. I.E. (Titch)
Fraser, VC, RNR.; and XE4 and XE5 .
It is worth recording that, during the war, the following awards and decorations were won by X- and XE-Craft submariners:
James Magennis VC was born in West Belfast and served in the Royal Navy in World
War II.
He was the only person from Northern Ireland to win the Victoria Cross, the only
naval rating with a VC to survive the war and the only person in naval history
to exit a submarine in a diving suit, perform a military operation and return to
the same submarine.
Yet while honoured in his adopted town of Bradford, England, he was made to feel
unwelcome and virtually forgotten in his home town of Belfast. The author
rescues Magennis from obscurity in a book that begins with Magennis's life in
West Belfast in the 1920s and 1930s. Magennis escaped Belfast's poverty by
joining the Royal Navy in 1935.
The middle part of the book is packed with adventure and history of war at sea,
and finishes with Magennis winning the Victoria Cross in 1945. The closing
chapters bring the reader back to the reality of his return to Belfast where the
political and religious problems had not changed. He was an embarrassment to the
Unionist establishment and unwanted by his fellow Catholics. Forced to leave the
city, Magennis went to England where he was simply accepted as a war hero.
Always a quiet man who never sought glory, he died in obscurity in 1986.
Send £11.95 P&P included (with enclosed address) to:
George Fleming
545a Lisburn Road
Belfast
BT9 7GQ.
For further enquiries contact George Fleming errol9@ntlworld.com
or Telephone
02890 664629.
Welman Craft
As something of an attachment to this article about X-Craft, a mention must go to the
Welman craft miniature submarines. The craft were deemed a flop but were used once
operationally, and recent correspondence with one researcher, Tom Colville, has
shown that the Welman craft had a more interesting career than I first realised.
Some details:
- Displacement: 4,600lb (2,086.5kg) without warhead, (warhead: 1,910lb (540kg).
- Dimensions: Length 20ft 2in (6.1m) (including charge) - 16ft 10in (4.3m) without charge;
Beam 3ft 6in (1.06m); Overall height 5ft 9 in (1.7m).
- Propulsion: One electric motor, 2.5hp. powered by a 40v 220amp/hr battery.
- Speed: 3 knots
- Range (surfaced) 36nm at 4kt.
- Armament: One 540kg charge. (or 600lb Amatol)
- Test depth: 300ft (95m) (but reduced to 100ft after trials)
- Crew: 1
- Delivered 100+
- Mainly built at the Morris car plant at Oxford!
Welmans were initially thought of as ideal for beach reconnaissance. Crews were generally drawn from No2 Commando Royal Marines
(Special Boat Service). Moved eventually up to HMS Bonaventure, the depot ship at Loch Cairnbawn, Scotland, alongside
the X and XE Craft and the Chariots. Early on, W10 was lost in a training accident, alongside HMS Titania at
Holy Loch. In the autumn of 1943 the Combined Ops commander, General Sir Robin Laycock (who took over from Earl Mountbatten)
decided that the Welman was unsuitable for their purposes, so the craft were returned to the Royal Navy. Admiral Sir Lionel Wells,
Flag Officer commanding Orkney and Shetlands, thought they might be useful for attacks on German shipping using coastal waters
inside the Leads off Norway. MTBs of the 30th Flotilla, manned by officers and men of the Royal Norwegian Navy, were making
these raids already and agreed to try the Welmans. On 20 Nov 43 MTB635 and MTB625 left Lunna Voe, Shetlands,
carrying Welmans W45 (Lt C. Johnsen Royal Norwegian Navy), W46 (Lt B. Pedersen, Norwegian Army), W47
(Lt B Marris RNVR) and W48 (Lt J Holmes RN).
They were to attack the Floating Dock in Bergen (eventually sunk in Sept 1944 by X-24) and to attack shipping
in the area. Through various reasons, though not a shortage of courage, the mission failed. Pedersen's W46
encountered a net and was forced to the surface, where she was spotted by a German patrol craft. Pedersen was captured
along with the Welman. This woke up the whole area and the other three were unable to press home their attacks.
Eventually all the other three Welman craft were abandoned and scuttled.
The three operators made their eventual way to the north and were picked up in February 1944 by MTB653.
Pedersen survived the war in a prison camp. One Welman, W46, was in German hands and there are many similarities
between the Welman and the German Biber one-man submarine which entered service in early summer 1944. After the unsuccessful
raid, the Royal Navy concentrated on the X and XE craft, but further trials were
made, particularly in Australia, details of which will soon be found at another
website - details in due course. One
remains at the RN Submarine Museum at Gosport, Hampshire, UK.
I have recently begun to glean information concerning what were known as 'Welfreighters',
from Bob Quinn, a first-hand witness and retired Navy man. Most of the
information has been collated from correspondence between Bob Quinn and Mac
Gregory of the website Ahoy-Mac's
Web, and it also includes some fascinating reminiscences from Bob concerning
Australian SOE ops and the end of the Japanese war. |