大象传媒

Hidden in a shed

I was serving in B submarines when volunteers were requested for special hazardous underwater services. At the time I didn't know anything about Operation Source, but I decided to volunteer anyway. Lots of rumours were flying around and, when we got to Fort Blockhouse, we had to take a medical, which lasted two or three days, and then we went into the Davis escape tank. We were there for a week, doing longer periods on the bottom, under water, where we played Ludo, or 'Ackers' as it was called in the Navy.

We were ordered to go and see Lieutenant Heslett, the X-craft man, and he took us over to Portsmouth dockyard. We were taken to a shed where this object was being built - although we still had no idea what it was. An armed sentry stood outside and he was given permission to take us into an inner room where there was another sentry. They opened the inner door and that's when we saw this ghastly thing - the X-craft. We looked at one another and said, 'Good heavens, is this it?' Our stomachs turned over. That was X4 - she was just being assembled.

Lives lost in training

The training was dangerous. We lost quite a few people here and there. Taffy Thomas was the first. He was lost from X4, washed out of the WD compartment as it ditched gas, so we didn't find him again. And then Sub-Lieutenant Lock was lost. He was down on the net and it's thought he died of oxygen Pete (oxygen poisoning) - he didn't come back up. Lots of people fell unconscious at different times, getting used to the diving gear.

Once we had confidence in the equipment we began to use it effectively. We had to go down and off the beach on a life-line and we had to stay down as long as we possibly could under water, which was anything up to six hours, and then we were pulled out. You gave four tugs on your life-line as a signal that you were in trouble. Edmund Goddard, who was the ERA of X6, was out there at the same time as me and he was running out of oxygen so he gave four tugs and the midshipman on the other end paid him out more line instead of pulling him up. Eddie then decided to keep pulling the line until the midshipman was left with the end in his hand, at which point he decided there must be something wrong down there. Eddie came out and he was black in the face and unconscious. The midshipman left the job that day and was sent back to general service. Some people were kicked out at that stage. They just couldn't take the training and the strain; we lost quite a few people like that - sent back to big submarines or general service.

Operation Source and adrenalin

As the date for the operation came closer, things became quite exciting. The adrenalin started flowing; everybody was keen to go. The boats were ready, the crews were ready and it was quite something to get together and talk about the same things. Although only four boats made it to the fjord to attack, all the crews were at the same peak. Everybody was excited. But the tow was too long - that could have been planned better. We probably should have sailed from the Shetland not Scotland, because ten days for the passage was a long, long time. Then someone in their wisdom took the fourth man out of the passage crew. When there were four men in the passage crew it was two men doing two hours on watch and two hours off watch, which was sustainable. The two hours off watch allowed you to keep the rope dry, clean and chase all electrical earths, because they were damp these boats.

Our manila tow ropes broke right, left and centre in training, even though they were specially made for the job. The towing submarine and X-craft were in telephone communication, or should have been, at all times - the telephone cable ran up the centre of the tow rope. But the tow rope stretched and the telephone cables didn't, so that was a problem. Then, when we got hold of a nylon tow rope, we had no trouble whatsoever. You can imagine the surprise when there were only three nylon tow ropes available for the final operation; they went to X5, X6 and X10, commanded by Navy captains. We knew very well that we didn't have a tow rope which would last any more than five days but we were told not to worry because the towing submarine had a spare cable. It's all very well to change a tow rope when you're on a canoe lake at Portsmouth, but when you're out in the middle of the North Sea getting close to the Arctic Circle it's quite a problem - you've only got 18 inches free board above the water line. Godfrey Place (CO of an X-craft) achieved it. He had his broken tow rope replaced, then his second tow rope only lasted two days and he finished by towing with a steel cable and he still got there on time. That was a remarkable effort. X8 and X9 were lost purely through the breaking of the tow ropes.

Celebrations before the attack

The morning we left - about 4am - we saw the manila tow ropes and we weren't quite so enthusiastic. We were envious of the other boats with nylon tow ropes. The night before, the officers had a glorious banquet with all the bigwigs in the ward room, but we, the engine room RTFs, had to go into a cowshed ashore with a barrel of beer and that's where we celebrated.

We were given a survival pack, which included money and maps, compasses, and little packs of hacksaw blades and files, which had to be hid in different parts of the body in case we got ashore. We also were taught a secret code to use if we were taken prisoner so we could send messages back to this country in the POW mail, although we were strictly ordered not to use Red Cross mail for this purpose. Whether anyone used it or not, I don't know. We were also taught methods of breaking out of prison camps by Commander Newton, Royal Navy, who'd already escaped from a prison camp in Italy.

We had a pistol each too, a Luger, and we went up to Mount Quinage [sic], up to the snowline, and I saw a grouse there, which I aimed at but it looked up at me and I didn't have the heart to fire. It was probably the safest grouse anywhere in the world, because I would have missed it even if I had fired. That was our experience of getting used to firing Luger pistols. Lovely things. Mine belonged to a doctor from the Midlands somewhere - he didn't get that back, of course, as it's on the bottom of the ocean.

The Tirpitz disabled

I honestly thought the Tirpitz would have been blown sky high and if everything had gone to plan she probably would have been, what with 12 tonnes of explosive under her - that would have broken her back without a doubt. But the real problem was the tow ropes. I lost three very close friends. Three dedicated people - Ginger Hollett in particular. He and I were the only two engine room people in the crews and he was a bubbly fellow, full of life and always working, doing something for the betterment of the boat.

Our flotilla was wiped out completely, all six boats had gone. We had nothing left. When we got back, they asked us if we'd go again, but all three captains put their views forward very strongly, so things changed. Six new boats were built inland and we went down to Markham in Chesterfield to get our new boat, X22. But that's another story.

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