Читать книгу The Great World War 1914–1945: 1. Lightning Strikes Twice - John Bourne - Страница 16

Jeff Tall

‘It is essential to keep the standard high – nothing can be neglected – it is not a kindness to overlook slackness or mistakes, it is really great cruelty to do so – cruelty to wives and relatives of the man you let off and his shipmates and to yourself. There is no margin for mistakes in submarines; you are either alive or dead’¹ These words, spoken by Admiral Sir Max Horton when Flag Officer Submarines in 1941 to all submarine officers and men in Malta, carry a universal truth for all mariners, not just submariners. To cover the whole breadth of wartime maritime experience in the context of Horton’s exhortation would fill several volumes; however, even the most gnarled sea-dog would probably concede that examination of the British submariner’s story during the World Wars encapsulates his experience sufficiently well to justify this chapter’s narrow focus on the craft and its inhabitants.

Of all the British fighting arms of the two World Wars, the greatest similarities are to be found in the Royal Navy Submarine Service. The platform itself had developed little in the inter-war years and, whatever improvements had been made, the tradition in the Royal Navy of putting the requirements for equipment above the comfort of the crew, prevailed. True, the submarine had become larger, which meant that it now had more torpedo tubes and greater reload capacity; the gun had a longer range and a bigger arsenal; its endurance had been enhanced through more powerful engines and higher fuel storage capacity; communications were now an integral part of submarine warfare; and a ranging form of ASDIC for mine detection had been added to its tactical capability. But all these enhancements called for a higher manning requirement, so there was no relief on the demands for internal space.

Thus, for the men, little had changed. Living conditions were cramped and sanitary arrangements were crude. Minor compensations were the fact that everyone smelled the same, and the daily tot of rum for the sailors (issued on surfacing) was served neat rather than watered down as ‘grog’. Even though by the start of the Second World War the majority of submarines were fitted with Escape Towers and the Davis Submarine Escape Apparatus (DSEA), ‘the war orders were that all escape and other hatches, except the conning-tower hatch, were not only to be clipped internally but also secured by a steel bar externally to prevent a hatch jumping its clips due to depth-charging.’² Thus the chances of escape once sunk were remote in the extreme.

The two areas of specialist operator growth witnessed between the two wars lay in communications and underwater listening. In the First World War, because of the lack of experience in Wireless Telegraphy (W/T) in the Submarine Service, it was necessary to call for volunteers from the ranks of Boy Telegraphists as they left training in HMS Vernon. There were 16 recruited throughout the war, the youngest of whom was 16½, and of these nine perished. There was a single Hydrophone Listener in the later submarines of the era. In the Second World War the W/T staff had grown to four in number, and the Higher Detection (HD) rating occasionally had an assistant, although a Radio Operator was often to be found on the ASDIC set.

In addition the submarines’ modus operandi had changed little. Although they could travel further and stay on patrol longer, they were still weapons of position in that they relied on their targets to come to them, unless the playing field was levelled by mutual physical constraints of restricted waters; they were required in large numbers to be effective; they still relied on the cover of darkness to allow them to charge their batteries, the life blood of the submarine, and conduct their transits; the sextant and astro-navigation still told them where they were (some of the time); the torpedo was still essentially a straight-runner, whose reliability was sometimes in doubt; and the commanding officers still attacked by eye. In the First World War, in addition to being a torpedo boat, the submarine was used as a minelayer, anti-submarine patroller, shore bombardier and, on one famous occasion, a platform from which to launch a ‘special forces’ operation (HMS E11 and a Turkish viaduct). In the Second World War they were used as gun-boats, minelayers, troop-carriers, store-carriers, tankers, navigation beacons to guide surface vessels, rescue stations to pick up downed pilots, reconnaissance units, survey ships, convoy escorts, anti-submarine vessels, power stations to supply electricity ashore, and for landing and taking off agents on enemy soil.

But above all else their primary role was to disrupt enemy supplies by sinking their shipping; they were weapons of attrition. However, unlike the Germans in the two World Wars and the Americans in the Second, who did most of their attacking on the surface at night in the open sea, preying on large convoys and relying upon their low profiles to avoid early detection, in both wars the British had to seek out their targets in heavily defended waters, much of it shallow and richly populated by mines. As a result they conducted most of their attacks submerged by day, or, if circumstances were favourable, by a brief visit to the surface to use the gun. It was constantly dangerous, and the virtually guaranteed outcome of an attack was a ‘bollocking’ either from escorting anti-submarine (A/S) vessels or aircraft. Commander Ben Bryant, who commanded HMS Sealion and Safari between 1939 and 1943, described the submarine as ‘expendable’³, and perhaps the final telling factor of similarity lies in comparison of loss rates for the World Wars. In human terms, the number of men lost was roughly equivalent to the number serving at the start of the conflict (First World War 1,200/1,418, Second World War 3,200/3,383), and in hull terms, losses were approximately 35 per cent of the total that saw active service (First 57, Second 74).

So lightning did indeed strike twice on a myriad of occasions in British submarines, but how and why, and what could possibly induce a young man to join a life redolent of sardines in a can and with a high chance of ending up just as dead?

Rudyard Kipling attempted to define the submariner in 1916 when he sought to find the origin of the sobriquet that had become attached to the service, still only in its 15th year of existence:

‘No one knows how the title “The Trade” came to be applied to the Submarine Service. Some say the cruisers invented it because they pretend that submarine officers look like unwashed chauffeurs… others think it sprang forth by itself, which means that it was coined by the lower deck, where they always have a proper name for things. Whatever the truth, the submarine service is now “the trade”; and if you ask them why, they will answer, “What else can you call it? The Trade’s “the Trade” of course!’⁴

A very similar sentiment was expressed by another observer many years later. Following his analysis of the circumstance of every British submarine loss, A. S. Evans concluded that ‘the small dank and foul-smelling interior [of a submarine] crammed with noisy and temperamental machinery, was no place for the faint-hearted; it took first-class men to withstand the unsavoury conditions and to perform skilled work with efficiency and with at least a modicum of cheerfulness.’⁵ So, from the very beginning submariners had to be submarine ‘types’.

In short, there was a submarine ‘type’ who wanted to belong to a ‘trade’, but this is still far too nebulous to lead to an understanding of why men sought to sign up. Perhaps a ready source of recruitment, consistent with the prevailing view that submariners were ‘pirates’, would have been the gaols, as suggested by Lieutenant Commander Williams-Freeman of HMS H9 in 1915 when he wrote, ‘I cannot conceive why they hang a man, when the foulest crime to be seen would be punished two-fold if they gave him life, and put him in submarines!’⁶

A better clue is provided by Captain W. R. Fell, a veteran of the Great War submarine operations and mentor of Charioteers (human torpedomen) and X-craft (miniature submarines) during the Second World War, when he stated:

‘To serve in submarines is to become a member of the strongest, most loyal union of men that exists. During the First War and the 21 years of peace that followed, the Submarine Branch was an integral part of the Royal Navy, subject to its discipline and obeying its laws. But it was still a “private navy”, inordinately proud of its tradition, jealous of its privileges, and, if slightly inclined to be piratical, the most enthusiastic, loyal and happy branch of the Service.

Scores of people ask, “Why did men join submarines and how could they stick in them?” There are many answers to that question. For adventure and fun at the outset; then because of the intense interest, and because of the variety of tasks that must be at one’s fingertips. The submariner must be a navigator, an electrician, a torpedoman, a gunnery type, and even a bit of a plumber. He must know men and get on with them, he must use initiative and tact and learn to enjoy hard living. He must accept responsibility when young, and not misuse it. There is every reason why he should join and delight in joining submarines, but the greatest joy of all is the companionship, unity and feeling that he is one of a team.’⁷

It was not only the officers who felt the strength of the team. Telegraphist William Halter of HMS D4 recounts his experience in 1914:

‘It was an exclusive service because nobody but a submarine rating was allowed in a submarine. We got more pay and a very stiff medical examination. Your character had to be perfect to get in and we were regarded as something a bit special. We went to [HMS] Dolphin for training, messed in the hulk and slept in the Fort [Blockhouse]. Discipline was quite comfortable and after instruction you could lie in the sun on the ramparts; a very different navy altogether. When we got in the boats we were so near the officers… every one was close to each other. No red tape, no falling in and out.’⁸

Certainly the experience of Lieutenant Leslie Ashmore bears out Fell’s words concerning adventure. He relates: ‘I had ambitions to get into some branch of the service that would give more scope to a junior officer. Watchkeeping and coaling were eating into my soul.’ He found himself visiting the shipbuilding firm of Vickers Ltd in Barrow, Britain’s principal builders of submarines and:

‘…the sight of so many of these sleek little craft in various stages of construction seemed to suggest a solution to my yearnings. It was therefore not entirely by chance that I struck an acquaintance ashore with two officers, considerably my seniors, whom I knew from their conversation were submariners standing by HMS E18, which was nearing completion. The attraction of their mysterious trade for me must have been very obvious and I was soon being questioned by the senior of the two, Lieutenant Commander Halahan, captain designate of E18, as to what I was doing and whether I would like to transfer to submarines.

Evidently Halahan thought me likely material, for next time he visited the Admiralty, he pulled various strings with the result that I received orders to join the Submarine Depot ship HMS Bonaventure at Newcastle. In those days, entry into the submarine service was as simple as that. There were no organised training classes and the young enthusiast learnt the rudiments of his trade by going to sea as a “makee-learn” in an active service boat.’⁹

Although training became more formal as time progressed, nevertheless learning on one’s feet continued as a basic principle. The 1940 experience of Lieutenant Phil Durham, though not typical, nevertheless underlines the principle. As a midshipman Durham had seen active service in a battleship, an anti-submarine trawler (of which he was second-in-command), a ‘County’ Class cruiser, a destroyer and a battlecruiser, and had earned a Mention in Dispatches, yet his goal remained service in submarines. While awaiting training class, he filled his time by joining the training submarine HMS L26, and spending a fortnight of ‘daily seagoing, diving, gunnery and torpedo practice’, after which he ‘had made drawings of air and electrical systems and was able to trim and handle L26 dived’. His enthusiasm made sense of the ‘bewildering mass of pipes, gauges, dials, levers, switches, hand wheels, air bottles, electrical control boxes for rudder, fore and after planes, and centrally, the aluminium ladder leading to the conning tower and the outside world.’ Like Ashmore his talent was also spotted by a senior officer, in this case the revered Commander Jackie Slaughter, who sent him off to join the recently captured German U570 (HMS Graph) with a warning to the Commanding Officer of Durham’s lack of experience, but suggesting that since he had no knowledge of how a modern British submarine was handled, he had ‘nothing to unlearn in finding out how a U-boat worked.’¹⁰

It was not until the trainee submariner got to sea that the real test of character began. Ashmore described conditions in the ‘C’ Class in 1915 as:

‘…primitive in the extreme. There was one bunk for the Captain, but all the others had to sleep on the deck, there being no room to sling hammocks. When diving, the atmosphere quickly became foul, fumes from the petrol engine adding their quota to the normally fetid air… Sanitary arrangements consisted simply of a bucket passed up through the conning tower on surfacing. The periscope was raised and lowered by hand winch. By the time we had been dived for some 15 or 16 hours it was as much as one could do to operate it.’¹¹

He also declared that ‘during these early patrols I got to know the characters and temperaments of my fellow officers and of the ship’s company in a way and a speed only possible in the cramped space, enforced intimacy, and shared responsibility of a submarine.’¹²

His sentiments concerning the atmosphere were echoed by ‘Stoutfellow’ in the ship’s magazine of HMS Oxley of Second World War vintage:

‘One soon gets used to the smell of feet

Of the bath drain blown on the bathroom wall

Of mildewed socks and of putrid meat

One gets to know and like them all

We get so we hardly notice

The smell of fuel and oil

And from ham and halitosis

No longer disgusted recoil

But there’s just one smell like an angry skunk

That, wafted aft by the breeze

Keeps me tossing in my bunk

The smell of that blasted cheese!’¹³

Add to the smells the daily grind of watchkeeping and the hardships involved in conducting even the simplest functions, and one must begin to wonder if the enthusiasm of Ashmore and Durham (and thousands like them) was not totally misplaced. A letter home from Signalman Gus Britton of HMS Uproar in 1944 summed up the sailor’s life and routine:

‘We have lockers about the size of coffins… and a small table in the fore-ends. Hanging from the ceiling there are about 15 hammocks, so if you want to move around you have to do so in a crouched position… Potatoes and cabbages are piled in one corner and, as it is as damp as Eastney beach, after six days there is the horrible smell of rotting vegetables, and refuse is only ditched at night; and on top of that there is the smell of unwashed bodies… At the moment we are doing about 18 hours dived every day so you can guess that it is pretty thick at night.

What a blessed relief when, at night, comes the order “diving stations” and about 10 minutes later “blow one and six”. The boat shudders as the air goes into the ballast tanks and then up she goes! I am at the bottom of the ladder… and then the captain opens the hatch and up rushes all the foul air just like a fog, and if I did not hang on I would go up with it as well. Beautiful, marvellous air… we are provided with top-notch waterproof gear but the water always seems to find a weak spot to trickle into. Up on the swaying bridge, with a pair of binoculars which you try to keep dry to have a look around between deluges of water, soaked and frozen, you say to yourself, “Why the **** did I join?” Then when you are relieved, you clamber down the ladder, discard all the wet gear and go into the fore-ends, have a cup of cocoa, turn in and, as you fall asleep, you think, “Well it’s not such a bad life after all.”’¹⁴

Halfway through this catalogue of complaint Britton hastily points out to his parents (his father himself a submariner): ‘Before I go any further don’t think that I am complaining because I really love submarines and this sort of life, and I wouldn’t swop it for anything.’

Not that surfacing at night, with the promise of the hot meal, a smoke, and the opportunity to ‘ditch gash’ was guaranteed utopia. It could be blowing a gale, and submarines, whatever the era, are wretchedly uncomfortable when on the surface in a storm. The misery was eloquently penned by Lieutenant Geoffrey Larkin RNVR, a human-torpedoman in 1942:

‘I can feel, see and hear for a space

The blindness and the deafness both have gone.

Again I feel a love towards my race

Who recently I hated loud and long.

I feel an urge again to smell and eat

The faintest of a half felt urge to sing.

Strange, since my recent thoughts have been delete

And minus, strike out – leave not anything.

I know this saneness probably will last

And flourish just as long as we remain

At rest. Though still I hope this daily dying’s past,

I feel tomorrow’s dawn will see again

The same insensate blankness – nothingness.

A life of one dimension – of complete

And utter soul destroying hopelessness,

Longing for death and spared that final treat

Now for a while, tho’ ’tis but short and sweet,

I smell and taste, and can appreciate

The beauties of this life, and can create.

When she begins to roll – I terminate.’¹⁵

Those who were sea-sick missed out on the delights of the submarine menu. During the First World War submarines did not carry trained cooks, and kitchen facilities were limited to one hot plate and a ‘fanny’ (water boiler). Submarine comforts (during both wars submariners got the best of provisions that were available) consisted mainly of tinned fare – soup, sausages, bacon, ‘tickler’ jam (even in the 1980s this was always plum-flavoured!), and bottled confections such as fruit. Ironically, fresh vegetables like onions and cabbage, sources of much-needed ‘roughage’, were invariably banned by Commanding Officers because of their residual smell! Bread and potatoes lasted only a few days, but by 1939 most submarines had trained cooks, and they would bake bread overnight for next morning’s breakfast. The range of processed foods available to them had also improved. Tinned sponges – perennially referred to as ‘Mrs B’s’ – became a firm favourite, and ‘pot-mess’, a conglomeration of left-overs, would make a regular appearance on the menu. As patrols became longer, food, like the receipt of mail, played a larger part in the ‘morale factor’ and chef’s creations gave rise to many hours of debate.

Since the most basic of human needs is to relieve one’s bowels, it is unsurprising that the ‘heads’ (or often the lack of them) are a common unifying bond for submariners of all generations. Constipation was a constant companion, but because of the limited diet, lack of exercise and, to begin with at least, sheer embarrassment at having to ‘perform’ in front of an audience, often only a ‘pill’ would sort out the problem. The most famous pills in RN submarine history were those taken onboard HMS E9 in 1914.

Max Horton was engaged on a week’s scouting duty in the Heligoland Bight early in the war, cruising with periscope awash by day and lying ‘doggo’ on the bottom at night.

‘Five or six days of this cramped existence, living mainly on tinned foods, had affected very seriously the digestive apparatus of one of his officers. The latter, seriously perturbed, decided on drastic remedies, and before turning in one night demolished about ‘half a guinea’s worth’ of a certain well-known brand of proprietary medicine. By the early hours of the morning the result of the experiment had passed his most sanguine hopes, but conditions in the confined and stagnant atmosphere lying on the ocean bed are not ideal ones for such shattering effect. That, at any rate, was the view taken by Horton and the rest of the crew. The latter sacrificed their morning beauty sleep without a murmur of protest when their commanding officer decided to rise to the surface an hour before the usual time. All on board were unanimous in expressing an earnest desire to fill the lungs with fresh morning air with as little delay as possible.

The boat rose slowly, Horton’s eye to the periscope. The pleasing sight of the German cruiser Hela was reflected to his delighted gaze as she steamed slowly by, and within two minutes she was sinking, a torpedo in her vitals. It was that box of pills, undervalued at a guinea, that brought Horton to the surface at that propitious moment.’¹⁶

Horton, probably the greatest submariner in our history, strode the two World Wars like a colossus. His renowned attacking and leadership qualities during the First War carved out for him a glittering career and reputation, while his performance as Flag Officer Submarines in 1940–42, then as Commander in Chief Western Approaches 1942–45, earned him a place in the annals of outstanding national military leaders. He was also the first submariner to raise the Service’s battle ensign – The Jolly Roger (JR). After his successful patrol he remembered Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson’s words that ‘all submariners captured in war should be hanged as pirates’¹⁷, and raised the flag on entering harbour to denote his achievement. The practice of flying the JR on returning to home base, now adorned with symbols to depict a variety of activities, became standard practice during the Second World War.

However, back to basics; there are numerous stories from both World Wars about some submariners’ total aversion to using the heads, but few took it to the extremes of Lieutenant Commander Robert Halahan, Commanding Officer of HMS E18. Leslie Ashmore tells the story:

‘For Halahan I had great respect and affection. He inspired considerable devotion amongst his juniors and repaid it by resolute and fearless leadership. He had one idiosyncrasy, I remember, which used to cause us some anxiety. He could never bring himself to submit to the uncomfortable complications involved in the use of the submarine’s rather intricate sanitary arrangements. He therefore insisted, no matter where we were, in taking the boat to the surface every morning so that he might exercise his natural functions in a simpler way over the side.’¹⁸

One day the inevitable happened and they were ‘bounced’ by a German airship. The Captain scrambled down the ladder ‘pantalone en bas’ and the boat escaped with a minor pounding.

However, the inability to handle ‘intricate sanitary arrangements’ that resulted in exploding heads discharge bottles did take their toll on the unsuspecting or the untrained, either at best by providing the operator ‘with his own back’, or, as on two sad occasions, death. This poem, from HMS Torbay’s ‘Periscope Standard’ in 1944, warns of the worst case:

‘This is the tale of Joe McGee

Who couldn’t work our WC.

He didn’t realise when to vent

Nor did he know just what flush meant.

And so, with pressure ninety pounds

(Accompanied by explosive sounds)

He pushed on the lever “Hard a’ blow”

With hull valve shut (cor stone a crow!)

A second later Joe was seen

Impaled upon the Fruit Machine

Where, there unto this day he sticks…

Grim warning to those men whose tricks

With submerged heads, with hands unskilled

Come close each day to being killed.

All because they do not know

When to flush and when to blow.’¹⁹

Living was hard enough, but to this must be added the strain of being under attack. Ben Bryant again:

‘The swish, swish of the propellers of the hunter passing overhead, the waiting for the explosion of the charges as they sank slowly down. Had they been dropped at the right moment? Were they set to the right depth? The knowledge that there is no escape, that you must just wait for it. Then the shattering roar, the lights going out, the controls going slack as the power is cut, and the paint raining down. Then silence and the faint sounds of running water where a gland has started to trickle. It seems magnified one hundredfold – a serious leak is what you dread. For a few there is something to do, to make good the damage, provide alternative methods of control; others just have to wait for the next attack… For the CO being under attack was an absorbing business, you had far too much to think about to have time to be frightened. I always imagined it was very much worse for the crew, though most of them were kept pretty busy in controlling the boat as you twisted and turned, speeding up and slowing down. However, they never seemed to mind though critical interest was taken in the performance of the chaps up top – all of whom, judging by the remarks, had not only been born out of wedlock, but, blessed with amazing stamina, were credited with an almost continuous indulgence in the sexual act.’²⁰

A typical attack of the Second War was survived by HMS Sahib, although dozens were not. By now A/S escorts of all nations were fitted with the sound-ranging device known as ASDIC, the pulses of which, according to Commander Edward Young, ‘were as though someone was gently tapping on the outside of the pressure hull. I thought of Blind Pew’s stick in Treasure Island.’²¹ The Captain, Lieutenant John Bromage²², starts the narrative after he had successfully attacked an escorted Italian convoy:

‘Sahib was at 300 feet. The Climene took up position on the starboard quarter and maintained contact without difficulty in the perfect conditions… quite suddenly hydrophone effect [propeller cavitation], which was clearly audible to the naked ear in the control room, started up directly overhead. Very shortly afterwards the ASDIC office reported the unmistakable sound of depth-charges hitting the water.’

The helmsman, Leading Seaman Bobby Briard, takes up the story:

‘As was usual in these circumstances, I just gripped the wheel a little tighter and stared unblinking at the lubbers line in the compass in front of me. The pattern of depth-charges was right on target and it felt as if some giant hand had taken hold of the submarine and was continually slamming it down. The shock waves inside the boat seemed to burst inside my head and dim my sight. The stunned silence that followed the attack was punctured by a sort of hissing roar coming from the engine room. “All compartments report damage to the Control Room.” The Captain’s voice contained a note of urgency. The gyro in front of me was spinning wildly. When I attempted to put correction on the helm, the wheel spun loosely in my hands, I listened to reports coming in.’

Bromage continues:

‘I had ordered “full ahead group up” [high speed] when the very loud HE was directly overhead, and as a consequence by the time the depth-charges exploded the salvo must have been astern of the submarine. Nevertheless the result inside the boat was dramatic. A valve had been blown clean off the ship’s side leaving a one and a half inch diameter hole through which water entered like a steel bar. No little Dutch boy could have put a stop to that! The pressure hull itself was leaking in the fore-ends, and under the after ends bilge.’

Briard concludes:

‘The Captain’s face was still expressionless but his words, when they came, seemed to hold infinite regret. “I’m sorry lads… stand by to abandon ship.’²³

Lieutenant Thomas Parkinson, First Lieutenant of HMS J2, in a report to Commodore (S), entitled ominously ‘A submarine has no friends’, provides a slightly different perspective:

‘J2 was depth-charged on the first Monday in August 1917 at about 8am by British Light Forces returning home. The submarine was on the surface proceeding at 15 knots to the patrol area; the weather was perfect and the sea glassy calm. On sighting the ships the boat was dived; had an excellent trim and the Captain commenced an attack. Discovering the ships were British we went to the bottom, 125 feet on the gauge. Between 80 and 90 feet the steering gear jammed, and I was ordered to go aft to investigate. While examining the gear a depth-charge exploded quite near. The crew space filled with a white haze and the hands present, the tables and stools, were lifted clear of the deck. On arriving in the Control Room to make a report on the helm a second charge exploded shaking the boat from stem to stern; she was still sinking slowly. As she grounded a third and last explosion, this being nearer than the preceding two, and the lighting switches were thrown off the board. They were put to the on position… All valves were examined and tightened by wheel spanner. WC and [garbage] ejector locked, Sperry [compass] stopped and every necessary precaution taken against betraying our position. The boat was perfectly tight and nothing was broken. Books, magazines, papers etc were issued to the crew, and many of the older ratings turned in. Hydrophones were used and the listener ordered to make his reports in secret to the Captain so as not to disconcert the younger members of the crew though for a long time the ships could be heard quite plainly through the hull as they passed to and fro. How long they stayed I do not know as I turned in and slept until we went to the surface at 3.30pm. My reason for turning in was to try and convince the crew that all was well. We were up and proceeding to the patrol area at 4.00pm. I cannot praise too highly the conduct of the crew but am of the opinion it was due to the cool quiet manner of the old submarine ratings. The reaction was worse than the actual experience for whilst it was taking place the mind was fully occupied in carrying out the necessary duties knowing that a mistake might lead to destruction… To be depth-charged once is good experience; it adds to the keenness and efficiency of the boat’s crew and shortens the time of a crash dive but it is something that no one could ever get used to. Familiarity would never breed contempt… I consider J2 was not lost for [one of] two reasons (a) The Light Forces were sure we were destroyed or (b) they lost our position.’²⁴

To be sunk by the enemy is one thing, but to be sunk by one’s own forces is the ultimate waste. But J2’s ‘blue on blue’ experience was, regrettably, far from unique in the two World Wars, and such occurrences were generated by a variety of factors. In her case it was poor staff work by either the Light Forces Controllers/Submarine Controllers not operating the submarine in a ‘weapons-tight haven’, or one or other of the forces being out of position. Lack of knowledge of a friendly submarine’s patrol area led to the loss of HMS H5 through ramming by the merchant vessel SS Rutherglen in the Irish Sea in 1918. Because the Admiralty was keen not to dissuade our merchant marine Masters from using one of the few counters to a U-boat attack available to them, the M/V was never informed of the mistaken identity, the usual bounty was paid, and the Master was awarded the DSO. A combination of one submarine being out of its patrol area (remember that accurate navigation was far from guaranteed) and failing to respond quickly enough to the daily recognition signal caused HMS Triton to sink HMS Oxley in 1939. Indeed, even firing the correct signal was no guarantee of immunity from attack, for in 1918 HMS D3’s correct and speedily released recognition flare was taken as flak by a French airship, which responded to the ‘attack’ by sinking the submarine!

The ‘fog of war’ also left submarines particularly vulnerable to attack from friendly aircraft, and a combination of trigger-happiness by the pilot, poor navigation by the air-navigator and inadequate briefing before departure caused a number of incidents that often resulted in, at worst, the submarine’s loss or, at best, its removal from the operational scene in order to conduct emergency repairs. Lieutenant Rufus Mackenzie, the Commanding Officer of HMS Thrasher in 1941, came under attack by a Royal Navy Swordfish aircraft as he left Alexandria Harbour. His boat suffered significant damage, including the loss of 90 per cent of his battery, and barely made it back to base. Rufus’s punishment to the young airmen was simply to walk them through the submarine – they apparently refused the offer of a drink in the Wardroom after their tour!²⁵

Despite everything they had to suffer, the health of submariners during both wars was, to the onlooker, surprisingly good.²⁶ The-present day submariner would not be surprised, because it is now known that after 24 hours or so, individuals’ germs become immune to each other! It is only on return to harbour and being exposed to others’ ‘foreign bodies’ that submariners must rebuild their bacterial resistance with, in traditional fashion, alcohol proving a first-class catalyst. Indeed, letting off steam was a necessary relief to the pressures of patrol, and the role of the Depot Ship in this context was brought sharply into focus during the First War. The concept of the ‘Mother’ had been introduced from the earliest days of submarining (the first was HMS Hazard in 1902), but by tradition they tended to be hulks, with priority once again being given to workshop facilities rather than the comforts of attached crews. During the early conflict it was recognised that ‘rest and relaxation’, in as ‘hassle-free’ a scenario as possible, was the most beneficial recuperative tonic to get crews ready to go back to sea. It was concluded that a ten-day patrol needed four days rest to restore the balance (this compared with a ratio of 21:7 in the Second War in equivalent waters). Even those men who were showing the signs of neurasthenia were noted to recover rapidly after these few days in stress-free conditions.

In addition to comfortable bunks and good laundry facilities, there was a general call for the adjacency of a soccer pitch so that the crews could take exercise, although one cynical CO remarked that ‘those that took exercise the most, missed it the most’ and he was probably right. Four designated Depot Ships were built between the wars with, in addition to their routine comforts, rest-camps being established at every opportunity, although, hurriedly one should add, without the extremes of pleasure that were provided for German U-boat crews! These rest camps were much more appreciated than soccer pitches, and Leading Telegraphist Arthur Dickison of HMS Safari waxed lyrical about their recuperative qualities.²⁷

Malta under siege and the base of the famous ‘Fighting Tenth’, however, offered few comforts, and in a renowned exchange between Captain Shrimp Simpson and Flag Officer Submarines (Horton), after the former had been taken to task for inviting HMS Turbulent, in the same signal that provided vital routing instructions, ‘to bring plenty of booze’, retorted to his senior:

‘Sir, I would have you know that in all the time I have commanded the Tenth Submarine Flotilla, never have I known anything like the disastrous series of misses that have occurred during the last month. This has coincided with Lazaretto’s supply of refreshment being completely exhausted. The two matters are not disconnected. I consider that anything to relieve the staleness of my overstrained COs is a matter of the most vital importance.’²⁸

Ben Bryant commented: ‘Malta at the end of the siege was dreary; men who are subjected to considerable strain do not readily relax and regain their resilience when all is dull and depressing; they go stale. A stale CO would be that second or two slower, the second or so that makes the difference between success and failure.’²⁹

Bromage’s action in Sahib in speeding up at the crucial moment was an example of the second between life and death. After one aircraft bomb (dropped on the area of torpedo discharge disturbance) and 56 depth-charges, Sahib managed to stagger to the surface, and the crew abandoned ship to be subsequently picked up and made prisoners of war by the Italians.

During each of the World Wars a number of British submariners became prisoners of war: 152 during the First, and 359 during the Second. To read the accounts of the manner in which they survived attack and remained alive to go into captivity is to appreciate the significance of the expression ‘a hair’s breadth’ in war. To put this into context, every 2 feet of depth for a submarine equates to an extra pound per square inch of pressure on the hull, so at the 500-foot depth at which HMS Splendid (Lieutenant Ian McGeoch DSO DSC) began her recovery from a depth-charge attack by the German frigate Hermes that felt as ‘if a gigantic sea-terrier had grabbed the submarine by the scruff of the neck with intent to kill’³⁰, she would have been subjected to 2501b per square inch. For her to reach the surface before flooding water under this tremendous pressure overcame the reserve of buoyancy required to maintain upward momentum, was a miracle, and testimony to McGeoch’s speed of reaction. He and two-thirds of his crew became Italian POWs.

Others who survived from submarines attacked on the surface rather than dived were spared the gut-wrenching minutes of wondering whether the pressure hull would remain sufficiently intact to avoid its becoming their tomb, but their shortened experiences were nevertheless just as terrifying.

One of the unluckiest submarines to suffer such a fate was HMS E20 in the Sea of Marmara in November 1915. She had been working with HMS H1 as ‘chummy boat’³¹ and although they had both been surprised by the presence of FS Turquoise, they became a threesome. Part of the process of working together, in addition to conducting local water-space management and co-ordinating tasking, was to arrange a rendezvous to agree future tasking. HMS E20 was waiting for Turquoise in the agreed position when, at about 5pm in glassy conditions with a slight haze, the party on the upper deck, enjoying a leisurely smoke, suddenly spotted a periscope soon followed by the wake of a torpedo. The subsequent explosion blew the British submarine in half. Lieutenant AN Tebbs RN, the First Lieutenant, describes how ‘the wire for the heel of the foremast caught my foot and carried me down with the boat to a considerable depth. A rather curious fact was that the air which must have been forced out of the fore-hatch enabled me to take a breath before I actually got to the surface, and before I had got clear of the boat itself.’ Eight other men survived and were picked up by their attacker, U-14, an Austrian-built boat manned mainly by Germans. ‘We were treated with the utmost kindness and courtesy. Everything that could be done for our comfort was done.’ Tebbs was to learn the circumstances of HMS E20’s loss from U-14’s CO:

“‘You have the Frenchman to thank. We knew where you would be this evening from the Turquoise’s chart.” Some ten days previous to our being sunk we had arranged the rendezvous for the 4th/5th, and in the meantime, without informing us, she had attempted to go down the Straits once more, owing I believe, to lack of fuel. His periscope was shot away, and he surrendered his boat… On his chart was found, in writing, the time and place of the intended meeting with us.’³²

Tebbs and his colleagues became Turkish POWs.

The experience of being well-treated once picked up was universal, but until that moment of recovery there was little respite from attack even though the submarine was evidently ‘hors de combat’. McGeoch in Splendid lost 18 men out of his crew of 48 through the continued shelling of the Hermes, and Bromage in Sahib reported that although it was obvious that his submarine was being abandoned, she still came under heavy attack from two escorts and a Ju88 aircraft. After he had been rescued Bromage thanked the CO of Climene for not firing to hit his stricken submarine, but the latter said he had been! What this demonstrates, despite the gracious charm shown by his enemy when Bromage had been rescued, was the determination to sink the hated submarine without regard for the survival of the crew. A similar plight befell HMS E13 when she ran aground in 1914 when attempting to enter the Baltic. Although in the neutral waters of Denmark she was repeatedly attacked by two German destroyers, and her crew fired upon by machine-gun when they attempted to swim to safety. It was only through the intervention of a Danish destroyer that the other half of the crew was not massacred.

In a similar vein, no comparison between the two wars would be complete without a brief mention of two actions that have been branded by some commentators as ‘war crimes’. Each involves British submarine commanding officers. They were those of Herbert in Baralong³³ in 1915 and Miers in Torbay³⁴ in 1942. Both ordered the shooting of apparently unarmed survivors following attacks conducted by them (albeit Herbert was in command of a Q-ship). Their thought processes were very similar to those who pressed home attacks with men in the water – while they remained a perceived threat, and until their contribution could be guaranteed to be at an end, they were subject to the ultimate penalty simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ben Bryant reinforces this message: ‘Submarining is often painted as a brutal game, but submariners are no more brutal than anyone else. Nobody should criticise the submariner unless he himself has been hunted, for it is when harassed that an animal becomes vicious.’³⁵ Both Herbert and Miers had been hunted, and were in the classic mould of submarine commanding officers.

In both wars there could have been few greater responsibilities given to a young man than to command a submarine. Onboard he was a ‘Dictator’ simply because it was his judgement and actions alone that could bring success, failure or death. As Captain Fell, a ‘Captain Teacher’ on two occasions, put it, ‘He has no one to hold his hand, to advise or correct a fatal move. His eye alone can see, and his instinct sense, the correct and only tactic to pursue; on him rests all responsibility.’³⁶ Dictator, yes, full of determination, yes, but as Ben Bryant points out, ‘no man relies more completely upon each and every member of his crew. A good submarine crew is far more than a team; they are as near as possible during attack, a single composite body using the CO as their eye and their director.’³⁷

So perhaps there is after all an explanation of ‘The Trade’, but let a United States Air Force Officer have the last word on the subject. Colonel Bradley Gaylord was on board HMS Seraph for ‘Operation Kingpin’ in 1942 (the pick-up of General Giraud from Vichy France) when he noted in his diary:

‘How could you have claustrophobia among these smiling boys whose easy informality was so apparently a thin cover for the rigid discipline on which every man knows his life depends upon the other fellow. It is so completely infectious. You suddenly realise that here is one of the essential points about war: there is no substitute for good company. The boys in the Submarine Service convey a spirit which quickly explains why they would sooner be in submarines than anywhere else.’³⁸