大象传媒

Transportation

Chariots, however, needed to be transported to within ten miles or so of their targets; the batteries wouldn't sustain more than twenty miles at the outside, plus the manoeuvering needed for the attack itself. It was thus preferable to have only five miles to do, if circumstances would permit. The question therefore arose: what craft would take the chariots to the target area. For the French channel ports and similar harbours within range of coastal forces such as MTBs (motor torpedo boats) or MGBs (motor gunboats) it was thought we might be transported by surface vessels, but the chariot would have to be carried on the upper deck, and it might not be all that easy getting a chariot off and into the water; it would probably require a drifter, disguised to appear like one of the local French fishing fleet. But that would mean cooperation with the underground movement there, and of the fishermen whose vessel would be being impersonated by the drifter from Britain. It was all rather complicated.

It was therefore argued that it would be far preferable to use submarines to deliver chariots or Welmans to the target area. This had been done for Sicily, but in order to transfer chariot crews from the submarine to the human torpedo, the sub had had to surface to allow the crews to exit via the conning tower, clamber down on to the chariots, and then sit astride while the sub sank down underneath them. Any recovery of the craft was almost out of the question as regards the chariot; only the divers could be got back on board. But if the transfer of a chariot crew could take place underwater, with the sub still submerged, unseen by enemy craft, then the release could take place very much closer to the harbour, and the absence of the chariot be cut down to far fewer hours. The chariot crew and the chariot too could be recovered, and the parent submarine be well away from the target area well in advance of the explosion of the warhead.

It was to check the feasibility of this arrangement that one morning a full-sized submarine nosed her way into Loch Corrie. Most of the ship's company of Tites came out on deck to watch the new arrival draw towards us. Bows on, the sub didn't seem all that large, though her conning tower stood high out of the water. But as she slowly moved abreast of rites, and her great length became evident, we began to appreciate just how massive she was. For this was a T-boat - a T-class submarine, the largest kind in general use in the Royal Navy - though there were a few larger boats of older vintages, or built for special purposes such as mine-laying. Ratings had gathered on her fo'c'stle, and were drawn up in a line for saluting - the usual mark of respect from one ship to another.
We heard the bosun's pipe from the T-boat, and almost at the same moment, on Tites鈥檚 tannoy: 'Attention on the upper deck!'
The whistles sounded again; the commander of the submarine saluted Commander Fell from the conning tower, and he returned it from the port wing of the bridge. The protocol due to rank, having been observed, we were stood at ease, then easy. In just a moment the captain's motor dinghy sped around Titania鈥檚 stern, and made for the submarine. Her skipper climbed down a ladder on the side of the conning tower, stepped out on to the bulge at the sub's side, and leapt nimbly into the dinghy. No doubt he was coming to pay his respects, and to talk over how the test was to be carried out. Meanwhile the first lieutenant of the T-boat had begun turning the sub around through a hundred and eighty degrees, a slow operation in the rather confined waters of the Loch. Finally we heard the rumble of the anchor cable as the links clattered through the hawse pipe.

Later that morning we got the opportunity we had been hoping for: to get aboard the big one. We were ferried over by skiff, all the chariot crews, and their trainers. As the skiff approached the side of the sub, ratings were there to fend us off with boathooks; it was important that the ballast tanks should suffer no damage from the sharp propellers on the outboard motors. I had to leap across from the skiff on to the bulge at the sub's side, and got my feet wet, as did most of my companions; we were in working rig, wearing plimsolls. I swung myself up on to the casing, the metal deck perforated with holes, running fore and aft for most of the length of the boat, and was then signalled up to the conning tower. As I breasted the parapet, I was surprised to see how little room there was for watchkeeping; the bridge was long and narrow, part of it being taken up by the periscope standards. A moment later I was clambering down inside the conning tower, the upper ladder, then the lower one down into the control room on the main inner deck of the sub. I remember a lot of faces, and dials and controls; but our assignation was to be further forward, where the escape chamber lay. It was this we would be using later in the day.

My main impression in the control room of the sub was of lack of space: too many things, and valves and levers and other bits of equipment, and too many people to have enough freedom of movement. As we were led forward, space became even more restricted, and I had to keep my head down to avoid hitting it against cables and ducting overhead. We stopped at a shape I recognised: the escape chamber.
From the outside it looked very much like the chamber we had already practised on under training down in Gosport; and when the T-boat officer swung open the watertight door leading in, and we stepped inside together, a few of us at a time, it looked identical. We checked through the controls and sequences, and made sure we knew emergency drills if anything should go wrong; there appeared to be no problems.

The exercise was to be taken in reverse order, in a sense. For while in an operation we would kit out in diving rig on the sub, leave from the diving chamber, and then return to it after the operation and so get back inboard, this afternoon we would approach the sub in a chariot, and process ourselves in and out of the submarine without getting out of our gear, though we would come off oxygen inside the big sub on stepping out of the escape chamber. We had seen where this would happen; now we had to check over how we would make our approach underwater, and where we would tie the jeep up. The skipper of the sub had designated the area just aft of the conning tower, against the side of the casing. This looked straightforward to us; the only problem was in getting from there to the hatch of the escape chamber further towards the bows. But we reckoned we could pull ourselves along the casing, hooking our fingers in the circular perforations.

After the lunch break, the big sub opened the vents to her ballast tanks, and we watched from Tites as the air rushed out in a throaty bubbling sigh. She began to settle at once; soon the casing was awash, the gun forward of the conning tower disappeared under the water. Within about twenty seconds the water was lapping the parapet of the bridge, and a very few seconds later the whole massive shape had been swallowed up into the depths of Loch Corrie. There the bottom was about seventy feet; the sub was due to lie at that depth for the exercise.

An hour later I was piloting a chariot, with Pearcy behind me, near the head of the loch. On receiving the starting signal from the skiff, I commenced my approach, lining up on the buoy the big sub had floated off to guide chariots back in, as would be done in a real operation. At fifty yards from the buoy I dived, took a good look at the set of the waves to offset compass error, and made for where I thought the big sub must be lying. Down to forty feet, into a green half-light. A jab on the shoulder from Pearcy, and a finger pointing near my visor. The great screws of the sub showed up in the gloom, also the pointed stern. We glided on, slowly, till we reached the casing.
Pearcy reached out and made a grab at the jumping wire, swinging the nose of the chariot in towards the perforated metal; there was a gentle clang. I switched off, and together we dismounted and pulled the jeep along to a spot just aft of the conning tower. I held the craft close in to the casing, while Pearcy lashed her fast. For safety's sake I gave a touch of positive buoyancy; if she did break free, we wanted her to float to the surface.

Then we half kicked and half pulled ourselves along past the conning tower; the sub was motionless on the bottom, but out at sea she might have way on so as to maintain depth, and we would have to fight harder to make our way forward to the escape chamber. Once there, we found the hatch already opened from within, and so slipped inside the opening, not without some difficulty owing to the bulk caused by our bottles of compressed oxygen at our backs, and the big breathing bag on our chests. Once in, we negatived our buoyancy to bring ourselves down to stand on the deck of the chamber. A tap on the glass, and we heard the motors whirring to shut the hatch above us. Then the suction began, pumping water outboard. Soon the level was lapping at out visors, our bags, our waists. We waited till the chamber was emptied out before going over to air.

The door swung open. 'All right?' said the sub officer as we struggled to get inside.
'Fine,' I replied. 'But I can't get through this opening, not without taking off my bottles. And that means the bag too.'
'Don't bother,' he said. 'The others have been having the same problem.'
Just then Jock Shaw appeared. 'All right, Lefty?' I nodded. 'Right, back you go on 02 and make your escape and getaway. To save time, we're not bothering about taking bottles and bags off and putting them on again.'
'So in a real operation, the final dressing up would be in the chamber itself - the bag and bottles would be passed in?'
'That'd be the drill, yes.'
I nodded to Pearcy, and we both expelled natural air from our lungs, leaning forward and bending low to make sure we were getting rid of the harmful nitrogen. The in-breath was on O2, then two more expulsions, with low bending to clear out whatever remained, before resuming the normal diver's breathing into as well as out of the bags. Pearcy gave me the thumbs up, and I tapped once on the glass.

The pumps started up, and we felt the water swirling around our feet. I was glad to feet its coolness creeping up my calves, my thighs; even that minute in the confined air of the sub had started me sweating. Now it was around my chest. I glanced at Pearcy, but clearly all was well. Water filled the rest of the space, and the hatch opened. We wriggled clear, hooking on to the casing to stop ourselves floating clear of the big one, and crawled back aft. The jeep lay snugly parked there. We unlashed her, mounted and kicked clear. It was done.

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