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As the German fleet would not come out to fight, somehow they would have to be sunk at their moorings. The position of the German fleet, in the Norwegian Fiords, made them a great danger to the Arctic convoys. The three main German ships there were The Scharnhorst, The Leutzo, and The Tirpitz. The 'X-Craft' was the only means of sinking the German ships that was likely to work. X-Craft were midget submarines, which had a crew of four. The X-Craft were based at Loch Cairnbaun, North West Scotland, and the operation to sink the enemy ships involved them being towed, by a big submarine, to a point 24 hours sailing time from the targets. This was a ten-day tow.

The submarine was 51 ft., overall length; the hull was 5ft 9in. in diameter with internal headroom of 4ft 8in. It was powered by a 42-horse power Gardiner Diesel with a range of 1800 nautical miles, approximately the distance from Portsmouth to Gibraltar.

The submarine carried two 2ton explosive charges that would be placed under the bow and stern of the target and detonated by a time fuse, set from inside the submarine. This method could only be employed on the German ships because they were moored fore and aft and did not swing with the tide.

During the training exercises it was realised that there were problems with the towropes. The manila ropes stretched under tension and after anything up to five days, snapped. It was found that the best tow-ropes were the nylon ones used by the RAF for towing gliders, however the RAF were only willing to supply 3 ropes for the attack not the 6 that were needed.

September 11th 1943, the six craft with their passage crew of three men, left Loch Cairnbaun at half hour intervals towed by a large submarine. The transit was expected to take up to 10 days, during which time the X-Craft were submerged and the towing submarine was on the surface. The X-Craft would surface every six hours to take on fresh air and run the engine to charge the batteries.

The X-Craft originally had a passage crew of four, two men on at all times and two men off. This was changed before the operation to a three-man crew.

The nylon towlines, provided by the RAF were attached to X5, X6, and X10. The suspect manila ropes were attached to X7, X8, and X9.

After five days towing, all the manila lines snapped within hours of each other. The line on X9 snapped at the large submarine end and the weight of 500 feet of wet 4-inch rope attached to the bow of the X-Craft, dragged it down to below the safe diving depth and beyond. The crew, Sub. Lt. 'Paddy' Kearan, Able Seaman, 'Darkie' Hart, Stoker, 'Ginger' Hollet were all lost.

While trying to re-attach the tow on X8, the X-Craft 'bumped' the towing submarine and the collision started the clock on one of the two-ton explosive charges. The charge was set at "SAFE". The charge was jettisoned and the two submarines tried to move out of range. However the explosion came much sooner than was hoped for and the shock started the second charge ticking. This was also jettisoned but this also exploded while the X8 was in range. The damage, and loss of charges, meant that X8 was of no further operational use and she was scuttled.

The towrope for X7 was re attached, by carrying a new line to the X7 in a rubber dinghy from the large submarine. The rope lasted two days. As there were no more ropes a steel wire, much shorter than the towrope, was attached and the operational crew took over control of the X-Craft. As the tow was re started it was realised that there was a spiked mine that must have broken from its moorings somewhere, snagged on the wire. As there was no time or room to manoeuvre, Lt. Godfrey Plaice fended it off the hull with his boot. The remaining four craft continued to the slipping area.

Though the Scharnhorst And Leutzo Escaped, Tirpitz was very badly damaged by the charges laid by X6 and X7. The explosion damaged the X7 and killed Sub. Lt. Bill Whittam RNVR and ERA Bill Whitley.

X10 was within 4 Miles of the target when the long tow took its toll on the fabric of the vessel and she was forced to retire damaged.

X5 entered The Fiord but more than that nobody knows. She, and her crew, Lt. 'Henty' Creer RNVR, Sub. Lt. Malcome RNVR, Sub. Lt. Nelson RNVR, ERA Ralph Mortiboys, have not been seen or heard from since then.

The sum total of the operation was 9 men lost, 6 taken prisoner, 3 operational crews and 5 passage crews returned.

2 Victoria Crosses, 4 D.S.O., 1 D.S.C., 1 C.G.M., 3 M.B.E.

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