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Night attack

All the chariot training we had done so far had been in daylight, but any real operation would have to be carried out at night, under cover of darkness, and in all probability during hours when there was no moon. We had practised all the principal forms of activity required for an attack such as getting through anti-submarine nets, and over, round or under anti-torpedo netting, as well as the manoeuvres up to and under the ship. Now we had to do the same, but in darkness.

Our training routine changed completely. Working hours switched from being in the daytime to evening and night, through to two or three in the morning or later, sometimes stretching till well after dawn on those short northern summer nights. Then we would turn in, and sleep, if deck noises would let us, through to lunch time, followed by a lazy afternoon on board or perhaps ashore. We would set to work on preparing the chariots and the diving gear after tea, so that we could begin the training session as soon after dinner as was required to get the most difficult part of the attack at least in during darkness.

To begin with we had to get used to depth keeping by instruments only. Underwater it was extremely dark; only the phosphorescent glow from the dials in front of me gave a slight luminescence. Even at ten feet, on a moonless night, we couldn't see the surface above our heads. So there was no way of checking direction from the set of the waves, or the ripples stirred up by the wind. It felt quite eerie to be whirring along underwater in total blackness, not entirely certain whether the compass was playing tricks with our heading, and taking us off course, or round in a wide arc. But fortunately the depth gauges worked well, and in any case our eardrums told us soon enough whether we going up or down. It was quite impossible to see ahead to the nose of the warhead, and thus you didn't know when it might suddenly hit something, especially when you were running close to the shore. More than once the first thing you knew was an echoing clang as the nose struck a boulder underwater, and the jeep would buck wildly as it scraped along the obstacle, pointing you in quite the wrong direction, and threatening to make you break surface and thus give away your whereabouts.

The problem in getting through the anti-submarine nets in darkness was finding them.. The holes gaping in the only net that we had to practise on were by now so large that I drove through three or four times before Pearcy and I were able to find some netting to cut. Doing everything by feel was a good deal slower, and demanded a careful sequencing of actions to make sure the pressure cutter lead went through the right diamond - the same one as the chariot was wedged in — so as to ensure there would be no snarl ups when it glided through. Everything had to be thought through afresh, and tactile checking done twice to certify there were no errors about the next strand to be cut. Far more frequently we had to nudge each other to signal the completion of the next stage of the operation.

We could see each other dimly at a foot or two's distance; further away we had to guess what the other was about by the noises, such as the flow of high pressure air through the pipe: that would mean Pearcy was cutting the next strand. And above all it was essential for him to hang on to the chariot as it began to glide through, so as not to get left behind, hanging on the net.

There were similarly new ways of acting to develop to handle the torpedo nets. It was very hard to estimate whether the amount lying on the bottom was not too great for the Number Two to lift. In the end I think I chose a place deeper down than we had tried in daylight. But of course I knew the depths for this net, and could aim at the right spot guided by the depth gauge; on a real operation that would not be possible. When it came to jumping the net at a point between two buoys, the difficulties were much greater. It was impossible to pick out a gap from underneath, as we couldn't see in the blackness. It was very hard to attack from a hundred yards away, dive, and then know when to give the jeep sudden bow-up angle to bring us out just at the net itself, let alone at a spot between two buoys where there was enough sag to let us slip over and down again the other side. I remember having to try four or five times before managing to strike lucky; it seemed to me to be a risky manoeuvre to try in an enemy harbour, and extremely likely to draw attention, what with the risk of clanging, and the unwonted motion to the line of buoys. I resolved that in action I would always go under an AT net, or else round one side, next to the shore.

Attacking the ship provided its own crop of difficulties too. The darkness underwater at attack depth was so great that it was almost impossible to be sure when you were nearing the ship, though sometimes some slight increase in blackness signalled proximity. But this sense was never so accurate that you could predict the moment when the chariot would strike its nose against he ship's plates, and scrape along them, giving you only two or three seconds to get the magnets clamped on, and so stop yourself being bounced away, uncertain how to steer to get alongside again. It was a very inefficient business, making contact in a chariot. Sometimes you would strike the target too far aft, and be deflected downwards by the rounding of the ship's counter. That could take you right under and beyond, out on the other side, losing contact with the ship entirely. That would mean starting the attack again from a hundred yards or so, with all the business of taking a new compass bearing, and perhaps uncertainty about the accuracy of its reading from that quarter. The best attacks were when we glided in with the bilge keel at head height, and were able to grab it. We could then hand ourselves forward or aft until we were by the engineroom inlet and lay our egg in the best place, releasing the float to mark its location. That didn't often happen, but when it did, we felt exhilarated.

Came the evening of the final training exercise, when we had to demonstrate that we could carry out an operation in its entirety from a rendezvous point well outside the 'harbour', fix the warhead to the target, and get away unseen to rendezvous again with the craft that had brought us. Pearcy and I got into diving rig, making sure that our oxygen bottles were well topped up for the many hours we would be breathing from and into our bags. The slow summer dusk was beginning to fall as we left Tites, accompanied by a skiff with Jock Shaw and a rating in it. We made straight for the loch entrance, half an hour's run distant in the slow chariots, and then turned to starboard to follow the skiff to the pre-arranged point that would serve for a rendezvous. It took well over an hour to get there, running against the incoming tide, for we had to be tested out properly, and endurance would be one of the qualities we would have to rely on in a real attack.

The waves out in Loch Linnhe were more than we had encountered hitherto; quite a long swell was running from the south-west, against us. Our progress was slow, so slow at times that I wondered if we were making any headway. Finally the skiff appeared out of the darkness and came alongside; we had reached the turning point, to begin our attack run.
'All right, Lefty?' I gave the thumbs up.
'See you in about three hours, then.'
I swung the nose of the chariot round and headed along the coast; this time the skiff would not accompany us. We were on our own. The swell took us from aft and hurried us on.

In about twenty minutes I could make out the gap that showed the mouth of the loch. Soon we were in much calmer water, running past the headland, our visors just breasting the surface. I made for the anti-submarine nets, dived, but saw nothing of them, came round again underwater, and passed through them a second time without catching sight of a single wire. The third time round we brushed against a single strand, but too swiftly for Pearcy to catch it. I decided to go straight for the ship; we only had six and a half hours of oxygen to use. Fortunately the attack went well; we struck quite low, and about amidships, so that it didn't long to get underneath the right spot, and, working by feel, to release the warhead and set the 'fuse'. A few seconds later we were away, keeping underwater for a long while to make sure no one saw us; there were look-outs posted on Tites, as there might be on a ship in an enemy harbour.

Three or four hundred yards away I surfaced gently; we were over towards the south-western shore of the loch, in the darkest part: no danger of being seen there. So I steered for the entrance. Already before we were out into Loch Linnhe the waves were getting rougher; the weather was changing for the worse, with the rapidity it often does up on those western coasts. And when we got right out into the larger water, the swell was running as swiftly as before, but sharp waves about four or five feet deep - from crest to trough - were traversing the swell cornerways on. When I turned to make along the coast, the motion was so severe, that I now doubted whether the jeep was making any head way at all, but very gradually the shape of the hills on my right changed. To avoid the motion, and the possibility of seasickness, I dived and proceeded underwater in ten minute stretches, till at last, using the blue light of our torch, we were able to pick up the skiff.

Both craft lost no time in getting home. Dawn was breaking as I stood on the after well deck and was helped off with my gear.
‘Good run, then?’ Ede asked.
‘All clear — but bloody long!’
‘Plant your egg all right?’
‘Yeah — not far from the engineroom intake.’
‘Well, you can kip down now — and so shall I.’
I was asleep within minutes of stretching out on my bunk.

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