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This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from London on behalf of Anthony Williams Charles Eldrigde and has been added to the site with his permission. Anthony Williams Charles Eldrigde fully understands the sire's terms and conditions.

I was still at school when the war broke out, already in the ARP. I joined the Home Guard and as a member of the school OTC helped World War One veterans get up to date with tactics and weapon. Still fewer than eighteen joined up in the Navy. I did basic training and saw action in a destroyer in the English Channel.

In December 1942 I was commissioned as a midshipman. At the end of the course one afternoon the class was asked if interested in special service, to muster to meet a Commanders. It suddenly became special and hazardous service. All we could find out was that it would be a good idea if we could swim and that it was something to do with small craft.

We were supposed to go to Greenwich or a fortnight’s finishing course where we were to learn how to become officers and gentlemen… It is debatable whether we ever did become gentlemen.

After a short leave we found ourselves in the home of submariners in HMS Dolphin. We still did not know why but underwent a helmet diving course in Pompy Harbour. It was only later when using a lighter diving dress breathing oxygen from re-breathing set.

What they were trying to do was getting us to breathe in another environment. It was only now that we learned that we were training to become operators of a Chariot, or Jeep, or what is was called in the media, a human torpedo.

At last we saw the real thing, a MK I Chariot. It was 21ft long, had a warhead of 500lb of explosives. The pilot and his assistant sat astride the cylinder behind screens. It was driven by electric batteries with a duration of 6-7 hours. It had trimming pumps to get the machine into a state of neutral buoyancy. With a joystick the pilot was able to steer and dive. It had a compass, clock and depth gauge.

In daylight we learned how to negotiate anti-submarine and torpedo nets. But all Chariot operations were to take place at night. The objective was to place the warhead underneath the target ship, set the clock and return to the transporting submarine or MTB. Night exercises went on night after night, overcoming all sorts of hazards; running out of oxygen, getting lost and ending up with seaweed round screw, battery explosions, suddenly running into patches of fresh water.

In fact, every dive was a hazardous operation whether on exercise or real operation. And up in Scotland there water was so cold you ended up with hands numb, hands and feet numb, and often with blue weals on the body where folds of your suit were pressed onto the skin after running deep to 60ft or when going under an anti-torpedo net.
You could also get oxygen poisoning at any depth below 30ft depending on the individual, how long or what energy was being used.

We became very fit and experienced operators of the Chariot, but there were no operations. An earlier party had gone to the Mediterranean and had successfully sunk two cruisers and a ship. Eventually, after practice in being launched from an MTB in September 1943, a party was sent up to the Shetlands for operations in Norway.

One operation was attempted but the boat got shot up. I was bitterly disappointed when a second was planned but aborted because of snow in Norway.
In 1944, we received a bigger and better MK II. It had a range of 330 miles, 8 hours of oxygen onboard, a warhead of 1100 lbs explosives, and altogether less temperamental. After a visit by the King at Scapa Flo before D-Day, a party was put together. Not for operations in Europe, but for the Far East. We went to Trincomalee, in Ceylon. The water was warm and I enjoyed putting dummy warheads on an aircraft carrier, destroyers and submarines.

An operation was planned, CSO 51. The preparations included a jungle course, escape and evasion, and how to behave under Jap interrogation. We were carried by a T class submarine, HMS Trenchant. A full dress rehearsal was run outside Trincomalee and personnel equipment assembled. This included: a loaded .38 revolver, currency, 20 gold sovereigns, silk maps of Thailand and Malaya, telescope and heliograph, wrist watch and compass, commando type dagger, blood chit and a cyanide capsule.

We sailed in Trenchant on the 20th of October for the 1240 mile trip to Puket in Thailand. We arrived on the 27th and the Captain was able to make a reconnoitre of Puket Harbour through the periscope. The two crews were dressed and were launched at 2200 hours. The course was N45W for six and a half miles going in and S75W for seven miles coming out.

I came under the target, a merchant ship, at 0030. My number two released the warhead and set the clock for 0630. The time was 0045. We got back to the submarine at 0230, a total of four and a half hours away.

At 0630 we were able to see the ship blow up. The other crew had also been successful. This was the only British Chariot operation in which two machines were launched, two warheads placed and fired and the crews recovered. Others in the Med had been successful but were captured or walked back.

Later in the patrol we were depth charged which was not appreciated. The four members of the two crews were awarded medals in early 1945. We developed another device, a motorised submersible canoe, and made preparations for the invasion of Malaya, but this was not needed. After returning to the UK I served in a mine sweeper around Iceland before demobilisation at the end of 1946. Civilian life was not very exciting with a number of food items still rationed.

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