大象传媒

CHARIOTEER 鈥� MARK ONE

Introduction

Amongst the odder weapons devised in WW2, one of the strangest was the chariot. It was the Italians who had first devised this underwater craft, based on the torpedo. Rather than firing it from a tube, and letting it keep to its swift course as set, the chariot 鈥� similarly shaped - was steered to its destination by two divers, who straddled the tube. The diver in front 鈥� in effect the pilot - could manoeuvre the chariot, for he had a joystick, much like the control for an aircraft, connected with the rudder, and could steer right or left;, he could also alter depth, and take the chariot deeper or bring it to the surface again. There could be obstacles to get through, or over or under, hence the need for a second diver; he was also involved in manoeuvering under the enemy vessel 鈥� and gave a sense of comradeship.

The advantage of this innovation is that the explosive warhead, mounted at the front of the chariot, could be attached to enemy warships at anchor, and set to explode several hours later, leaving the possibility for the divers to regain the safety of the vessel from which they had set out, such a submarine or a fast gunboat. Several Italian chariots wreaked havoc in the harbour at Alexandria in 1941, sinking or severely damaging several heavy units of the British fleet; one of them was captured, and formed the basis for developing something similar for use by the Royal Navy too.

It was for service on such strange craft that volunteers were asked for. Initially secrecy was of paramount importance, and the officers and men who put down their names had no idea what form of warfare they were to be trained in: it was simply described as especially hazardous service. Their training began with helmet diving in Portsmouth harbour, and then oxygen diving nearby. Oxygen had to be used to give the charioteers mobility, so as to come up from depths swiftly, without getting the bends 鈥� caused by nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream.

After several weeks of diving training, the volunteers 鈥� those who had not been eliminated for want of skill or confidence underwater 鈥� were sent up to a secluded loch in the west of Scotland for training: to Loch Corrie, a two mile inlet from Loch Linnhe, opposite Oban, and in territory that in wartime had been declared out of bounds to civilians, other than those who lived there. The first batch got there in March 1943; I had begun training with that group in January, but broken a leg, which had to heal. So I joined the second batch, completed my training, and arrived with them two months later, to be based on a merchant ship drawn into Navy service for the war, named HMS Titania 鈥� or 鈥淭ites鈥�, as we affectionately dubbed her.

The passages that follow are taken from a fuller account of the experiences that I underwent as a charioteer in WW2, and aim to give an impression of what it felt like to engage in this form of training. We were all keen to be given an operation 鈥� perhaps being dropped by motor gunboat by night in some Norwegian fjord, with a German cruiser as our target. A couple of attempts had already been made to complete such attacks, but misfortune had dogged their efforts; nevertheless the Navy persisted in training charioteers for such ends, in the hope that we would eventually meet with success.

Chariot training for real

Training for us members of the second batch began the following morning. We knew how to handle the oxygen diving gear already; the new element was the chariots themselves. Jock Shaw, our principal training officer, was taking no risks and started us off the baby way. All we had to do was to get into our diving suits, vent out by going down the shot-rope a little way, and then climb aboard the chariot and get the feel. Naturally the older hands from the first batch, such as Strugnell and Eldridge and Ede, were around to give us rookies lots of advice on techniques of chariot handling.
鈥楶iece of cake, old boy,鈥� summed up what Strugnell had to say.
'Don't lie flat in the water to mount her,鈥� Eldridge warned. 'You'll lose O2 from your bag easy as wink if you do.鈥�
鈥楶ush the jeep under instead!鈥� Ede declared. Jeeps were the name we had given to chariots. 鈥楾hen swing your leg across and let the buoyancy bring her up underneath you.鈥�
That made a lot of sense, and when my turn came round I followed Ede's advice. So did my Number Two, who turned out to be a Petty Officer called Pearcy. Astride the craft at last, by manipulating the simple controls I backed aft from the pontoon, then switched the jeep to ahead, and followed the skiff at no more than three knots, bearing away from Tites.

It was a fine spring morning in May. The sun shone on the calm blue-grey waters of Loch Corrie, and through the glass of my visor. If I turned up my head, I could see the white rocks on the shore-line, and the grass and heather on the hillside beyond. In my diving suit, enveloped from head to toe, I felt oddly isolated from what I could see around me; not least by the limitations to the field of vision, for the visor stood out a couple of inches ahead of my eyes, and was itself only about five inches across and two inches up and down. Contact with the water felt more real, since my hands at any rate were bare, and I could feel the pressure of its resistance on my legs, which trailed on either side of the chariot. My thighs registered the whirring action of the motor, as it drove the screw round; I could almost feel the suck of energy from the batteries. The chariot body was about eighteen inches below the surface, pushed down by our combined weight, but the top of the shield ahead of me breasted the water, and created a blunt bow-wave as we drove along towards the loch shore on the starboard side of Tites. Aft of us trailed the safety or marker buoy, a hollow spherical drum attached to about fifteen yards of rope; it was meant to show where we were when we were cruising along below the surface. The trainers in the skiff had to keep track of our movements.

Ten yards or so from the shore we were told to stop by Jock Shaw, the principal trainer. I switched into neutral, then reverse. The way quickly came off the chariot.
'Trim down slowly,' he ordered. 'Use the vent for the main tank, behind you.'
I grasped the lever and pulled up, letting the air escape in long puffs. The chariot began to settle in the water. When only our heads were above, Jock spoke again.
'Now go through the drill we gave you. First pump forward until you feel her nose tilt down; then reverse; and finally get her trimmed even fore and aft.'
I went through this drill; the response of the craft below me was sluggish, but still discernible. Finally I got what I thought was a good fore-and-aft trim; there was no instrument to tell you when it was right.
'Happy at that then?'
I nodded, putting up my thumb to say OK.
'Now I want you to let her gently down to the bottom, that's about ten feet here, and then rise slowly again by putting just enough air into the main tank to get her to the surface. Got the idea?'
Thumb up again.
'Right - away you go.'
I pulled the lever behind me, and the remaining air hissed out; we were settling. My head went under and I glanced down. The bottom looked sandy; no dangerous weeds to contend with. The sunlight played underwater, slight movements on the surface giving a subtle variation to the light green tones around me. Looking up, the underside of the water surface rippled softly; a few yards away I could see the planks of the skiff鈥檚 bottom, and the screw of its outboard motor.

As we sank gently, we both stretched our legs downwards to meet the bottom of the loch; the sand was soft for an inch or so, then firm underneath. It only stirred slightly as our canvas boots sank in. We looked around for a moment; I could hear noises from Tites, perhaps the machinery running, or someone working with a winch. There is a lot of sound underwater, and what comes is magnified into quite different proportions from sound through air, some types of sound amplifying more than others. Satisfied with our contact with the bed of the loch, I turned to my Number Two and gave the thumbs up signal; he responded in the same way. So I guffed gently into the main tank, once 鈥� twice 鈥� The chariot began to lift, and took us up slowly to half visor height.

'All right, jeep?' came Jock Shaw s voice, from that other world.
Thumbs up.
'Same exercise again then, twice.'
Settling again into the underwater world: a wordless world. The senses quite differently stretched; water the essential element, all its ways of behaving now the focus of attention, though with a permanent concomitant awareness of how the breathing apparatus was functioning. Even at ten feet, more oxygen had to be guffed into the breathing bag, which expanded and contracted with each intake and expulsion from my lungs. Up again gently to the surface; we knew that our skill in breaking surface with only the faintest of commotion on the surface of the water could be a matter of life and death, on an operation. For once seen in an enemy harbour, we were highly vulnerable; even a small explosive thrown in the water and detonating there at say twenty yards distance would knock us out. And then whether we floated till we were picked up, limp and inert, or sank right away into the depths and stayed there, would depend on how much buoyancy there was in our bags. So we took the practice seriously.

'Half-buoyancy now!鈥� called out Jock Shaw, as we broke surface. 'And then back to Tites.'
The air flowed swiftly into the main tank between me and Pearcy. My head rose out of the water, up to my neck, until the top of the breathing bag was just lapping the surface. I felt almost disappointed to re-enter the everyday world up there; underneath was so much more stimulating. I felt I belonged down there.

A few minutes later I was bringing in the chariot alongside the pontoon.
'Right, diver!' Strugnell said. 'Along to the ladder and inboard.'
I leaned away from the jeep, lying back in the water, and floated clear. Then handed myself along the machine, past the screw, round the corner of the wooden pontoon, a structure held afloat by empty oildrums under its planking, and round to the wooden vertical ladder. Strugnell and Ede helped me in, hands under my armpits.
'How was it, then?'
My visor was open now, but the tits were still in my mouth, preventing speech. I put my thumbs up.
'There you are,鈥� Strugnell said, 鈥榣ike I told you - a piece of cake ....'

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