Home
Waters after the Collapse of France and the Low Countries: Summer
1940
References
Appendix
VII Submarine Organisation 22 May 1940
Patrolgram
3 S/M patrols during subsequent threat of invasion
Map 10 Operations in the North Sea
- Summer 1940
WHEN THE GERMANS
INVADED the Netherlands on 10th May, the attack did not come
without some warning. The concentration of the German Army had
been noticed a week or so earlier and a British naval plan for
destroying the Dutch ports and oil installations, rescuing the
Royal Family and the Government and also laying a large minefield
off the coast was made ready to put into effect. On 5th May
VA(S) directed that the Third Submarine Flotilla and the French
Tenth Submarine Flotilla at Harwich should in future work south
of 55 N with a special attention to the Dutch coast. They would
be reinforced by six training submarines from Portsmouth and
Portland1.
The concentration of submarines off the Netherlands included
Shark,
Snapper,
Seawolf,
Triad, L23,
H44,
H49 and H28 as well as the French Amazone,
Doris, Thetis, Circe and Pasteur.
Their original orders were to report before attacking. There
was considerable confusion with British destroyers evacuating
important people, laying mines and landing demolition parties.
Dutch forces were also operating in the same areas. On 10th
May, submarines were ordered to sink at sight any German shipping
approaching from north of the Texel. Care, however, was to be
taken to identify any submarines before attacking them. This
was to safeguard any Dutch submarines escaping as well as to
protect our own submarines that would be operating very close
together. The purpose of these patrols was to prevent a seaborne
attack by Germany on the Netherlands, but in the event the German
Navy had been so mauled in the Norwegian campaign that no such
operations were even contemplated by them. In four days the
German Army had over-run the Netherlands and the Dutch Army
had capitulated. Cyclops
and Jules Verne with their flotillas were then sent north
from Harwich to Rosyth because of the danger of air attack from
new German airfields in the Netherlands. The training submarines
continued to be based at Harwich and operated from an improvised
shore base at Parkeston Quay2.
In Norway
our forces had invested Narvik and were opposing the northward
advance of the German Army in the Bodo and Mo areas. The Germans
had begun to extend the sea route north through the inner leads
to supply their forces trying to relieve Narvik. Our larger
submarines of the River and T-classes operated on the Norwegian
coast between the Naze and Trondheim. Clyde
(Lieutenant Commander DC lngram RN) patrolled off Stattlandet
from 2nd-17th May where the traffic had to come into the open
sea. On 13th May she sighted a large German ship and chased
her on the surface, opening fire with her gun. In spite of Clyde's
high speed, the ship escaped in a rainsquall. This was the German
merchant raider Thor on her way to the Atlantic. She
put back to Trondheim after this attack, but left again for
the Atlantic in June. Another raider, Widder also broke
out by this route at this time without being sighted by our
patrols. At this time too, Severn
(Lieutenant Commander BW Taylor RN) was sent to patrol off Fro
Havet, the northern entrance to Trondheim to guard the Narvik
expedition's southern flank.
On 16th May,
Truant
(Lieutenant Commander HAV Haggard RN) was despatched to the
far north to guard the Narvik expedition's northern flank3.
She called at Tromso and was sent to patrol a large area
on either side of the North Cape. Here, after a five-hour chase
on 23rd May, she attacked the German merchant ship Alster
escorted by a trawler firing two torpedoes at 6000 yards. Fortunately
she missed as the ship had been captured and was in British
hands, and the trawler was the British Ullswater. However
on the same day she torpedoed and sank the German Preussen
of 8320 tons.
With the Allied
advance to retake Narvik, the crew of the Norwegian submarine
B1 were able to return to her where she had been left
on the bottom in Ofot Fjord. Both B1 and B3 were
then withdrawn to Tromso (on 13th May) so as to make anti U-boat
operations in the Narvik area unrestricted. The opportunity
to service and repair both boats was taken and it was then decided
to use them to patrol the eastern flank in the same way as Truant.
B3 patrolled for five days off Arranger Fjord and B1
followed her off Vardo. Both patrols were uneventful. During
this same period, Narwhal
(Lieutenant Commander RJ Burch RN) laid a field of fifty mines
(on 11th May) in the Trondheim area and two days later Porpoise
(Commander PQ Roberts RN) laid another 48 mines north of Bergen.
On 16th May,
a conference was held by the Admiralty attended by VA(S),
to decide how submarines should be used in the new strategic
situation. The Germans now held most of the coast from Mosjoen
in central Norway to the Belgian frontier with France. Only
the short stretch of Swedish territory about Gotenborg in
the eastern Skagerrak was still neutral. With the land campaign
in France going very badly, there was considered to be a real
danger of a German invasion of the United Kingdom in the not
too distant future. The conference therefore decided that
the principal duty of our submarines in Home waters was now
to be the prevention of invasion. It was also decided that
the best use that could be made of them was for reconnaissance
to give warning of an invasion's approach, rather than to
oppose it with a defensive screen close to our coasts. A defensive
role was not ruled out entirely and could be resorted to once
an invasion was known to be taking place. Reconnaissance,
however, especially in bad weather when aircraft could be
ineffective, was considered to be the best contribution that
submarines could make. Attacks on surface warships and transports
could also be made providing it did not interfere with their
principal task of giving warning of the approach of invasion
forces. To implement this policy, it was decided that five
submarines should patrol in the North Sea between south west
Norway and the German declared area; three or four should
patrol to the west of the declared area and three more between
the declared area and the Dutch coast. With the collapse of
resistance in the Netherlands the concentration of training
submarines at Harwich, which had been there to prevent the
invasion of Holland was no longer necessary and the H-class
were to be sent back to Portsmouth and Portland. To provide
enough submarines for these North Sea anti invasion patrols,
VA(S) proposed to withdraw Truant
and Severn
from Norway, to cease minelaying, and to keep the L-class
for operations rather than send them back for training.
The C-in-C
Home Fleet had not been represented at the Admiralty conference,
so its decisions were sent to him for his information. He
did not agree with the conclusions of the conference and wished
to resume operations in the Kattegat and Skagerrak and off
Trondheim, Bergen and Stavanger. He also wished to continue
submarine minelaying. Although C-in-C's proposals would help
him in his operations in Norway, with the constant daylight
in the north and very short nights further south, they were
scarcely practicable. The Admiralty ruled that the conference
decisions must stand and the only concession made was that,
in fact, minelaying continued although no promise was made
on that score. In war, however, matters seldom go as planned
and during the summer months patrols were often conducted
in the way C-in-C wished rather than as laid down by the Admiralty
conference. Some changes in the disposition of submarines
took place to meet the new situation and these can be seen
in Appendix
VII. It will be seen that Maidstone
replaced Cyclops
in the Third Flotilla and that a new shore base was set up
at Dundee for the Ninth Flotilla (Captain JG Roper RN), the
purpose of which was to look after the submarines of our Allies.
This shore base used the docks of the commercial port to berth
the submarines. Accommodation was in a building that was formerly
an orphanage and the workshops and stores were in a jam factory
near the harbour.
At the end
of May there were some fifteen submarines on patrol. Severn
was still in Fro Havet north of Trondheim while Trident
and Triton
were on the south west coast of Norway south of Egeroy and
off Lister. The area between southern Norway and the German
declared mined area was patrolled by Taku
and Salmon,
while Triad and the Dutch O13 were on the way
to the same area. Rubis and Narwhal
were laying mines; Rubis (Capitaine de Corvette G Cabanier)
was returning from Haugesund where on 27th May she laid 32
mines sinking the small ship Kyvig of 763 tons. Narwhal
was on her way to Jaederens where on 3rd June she laid her
fifty mines in the shipping route but it appears, without
success. Further south the remaining six submarines were disposed
to cover the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk.
Sunfish
(Lieutenant Commander JE Slaughter RN) and Sealion
(Lieutenant Commander B Bryant DSC RN) were in the southern
North Sea near the Brown Ridge, and Seawolf
(Lieutenant Commander JW Studholme RN) and Snapper
(Lieutenant WDA King DSO RN) were off the coast of Holland.
Finally H44
(Lieutenant ED Norman RN) and H49
(Lieutenant MA Langley RN) were in the Channel north of Dieppe.
Towards the
end of May, the serious situation in France led to the return
of most of the French submarines to their country. Only the
minelayer Rubis decided to join the Free French and
to fight on. She remained based at Dundee in the Ninth Flotilla.
The British submarines were, however, reinforced by nine submarines
of the Royal Netherlands Navy, which had escaped or were stationed
abroad. O9 and O10 were elderly and equivalent
to our H-class and were allocated for training. O13
was operational and ready for action but O21, O22,
O23 and O24 were brand new and needed some work
on them before they could be operational. O14 and O15
were in the West Indies.
The Polish
submarine Orzel had sailed from Rosyth for patrol on
23rd May. She was to take up a position to the north west
of the German declared area. On 2nd June she was moved into
the entrance to the Skagerrak. Orzel did not return
and the Germans claimed a direct hit on one of our submarines
by a bomb from one of their aircraft on 25th May. This may
have been the cause of her loss. However, during March, April
and May, the German Navy had laid a number of new minefields
north of their declared area. They did not declare these minefields
and were not legally required to do so as they had declared
the whole North Sea as dangerous from mines. We now know that
Orzel's track passed through one of these recently
laid minefields and that this must be considered as a likely
cause of her loss. Early in June, O13 left for her
first patrol in the North Sea and was never heard of again.
Her track too passed through the same minefield and this was
probably the cause of her loss as well4.
The sinking of these two Allied submarines with all hands
including their Commanding Officers, Kapitan J Grudzinski
and Luitenant ter zee le KI EH Vorster was a serious blow.
With them went two British liaison officers and four men.
Early in the
morning of 4th June, a powerful German squadron consisting of
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Hipper and four
large destroyers left Kiel and passing through the Kattegat
and round the southern end of the Skagerrak minefield they set
a course well out from the Norwegian coast, and so reached the
open sea. Unfortunately both Trident
and Triton
had left their positions off the Norwegian coast for Rosyth
and Orzel and O13 had almost certainly by this
time been sunk. This left Triad and Taku
north of the declared area but they did not see the enemy
ships. Operation 'Juno' as the German sortie was called, had
been planned by the German Naval Staff to assist their forces
in the Narvik area by opening up traffic in the leads north
of Trondheim, and by making an attack on the British base and
on shipping in the Harstad area. The British had no inkling
of this sortie from intelligence or air reconnaissance and in
the afternoon of 8th June the force encountered the aircraft
carrier Glorious by chance and sank her. Scharnhorst,
however, was torpedoed and damaged by the destroyer Acasta
of the Glorious' escort and the German squadron at once
abandoned further operations and returned to Trondheim arriving
there next day. During the action, Glorious was hit early
in her wireless room and made no enemy report, and it was not
until the morning of 9th June that the British realized that
the German squadron was at sea. Air reconnaissance located them
in Trondheim in the morning of 10th June. The same day the undamaged
Gneisenau and Hipper put to sea again and were
sighted and reported by Clyde
who was on patrol off Fro Havet. They had intended to continue
their attacks on the evacuation convoys from Narvik but realising
that they were too late they returned to Trondheim. Here the
German squadron was attacked by the Royal Air Force and by aircraft
from Ark Royal and Scharnhorst was hit again by
a 500 lb. bomb.
The use of
Trondheim as a base for the German main units attracted the
attention of our submarines as bees to a honey pot, and the
anti-invasion posture decreed by the Admiralty conference of
16th May was forgotten. C-in-C Home Fleet had in any case pointed
out that Norwegian ports were as likely to be used for an invasion
of the United Kingdom as any others in Europe. Submarine patrols
therefore tended to move north as C-in-C desired, and to be
placed off Stattlandet and other places on the Norwegian coast.
This was in spite of the short nights, which by now were only
half as long as was required to charge a submarine's batteries
fully. Three submarines had left early in the month to lay mines
on the Norwegian coast. Rubis laid her 32 mines off Hjeltefjord
in the Bergen area on 9th June and these accounted for two small
Norwegian ships, Snorrei of 277 tons and Sverre Sigurson
of 1081 tons. Narwhal
laid fifty mines on 12th June off Utsira Light and sank Jaederen
of 908 tons and the minesweeper M11. Porpoise
had already left Blyth on 8th June to lay her mines off Kristiansund,
south of Trondheim5
and this operation, like those for Rubis and Narwhal,
had been planned before the German main units came north. On
12th June Porpoise,
just short of her destination, was attacked by a U-boat, but
the torpedo missed her at short range. Next day off Ramsoy Porpoise
sighted Hipper but could not get closer than nine miles.
On 14th June she laid her mines off Ramsoy Fjord. This field
was of fifty moored contact mines and it eventually sank the
minesweeper M5. Very early on 16th June, Porpoise
was caught on the surface and bombed as she was diving by one
of Gneisenau's ship-borne aircraft. She was badly shaken
but not damaged6.
A similar attack, which Porpoise
also survived, took place three days later. On 16th June,
well to the south, off Egersund, Tetrarch
(Lieutenant Commander RG Mills RN) fired four torpedoes at a
range of 1500 yards at a tanker escorted by four or five E-boats.
Two torpedoes hit sinking Samland of 8000 tons. Samland
was breaking out into the Atlantic as a tender to the armed
merchant raiders Thor and Kormoran.
Scharnhorst
had to return to Germany for repairs after being hit by the
Acasta's torpedo and the 500 lb. bomb. It was decided
that she should sail south with most of the available destroyers
on 20th June and that Gneisenau, Hipper and the
destroyer Karl Galster should create a diversion to the
northwest on the same day. The Gneisenau force was sighted
in rough weather and poor visibility by Clyde
well out to sea. Clyde
fired a full salvo of six torpedoes at a range of 4000 yards
and one of them hit Gneisenau aft. Clyde
was counter attacked by Karl Galster but this was ineffective
and the German force returned at once to Trondheim. Clyde
then made an enemy report. Shortly afterwards, Porpoise
to the south of Trondheim, also in bad weather, caught a glimpse
of a German destroyer and it now seems certain that she was
one of Scharnhorst's escorts. Porpoise
then heard Clyde
trying to make her enemy report and relayed it so that the Admiralty
and C-in-C Home Fleet received it in the early hours of 21st
June. In the late forenoon of 21st June, Scharnhorst, with
five destroyers was sighted by the Royal Air Force off Sogne
Fjord steering to the southward. Scharnhorst was not
sighted again in the bad visibility, although by this time VA(S)
had deployed eight submarines in addition to Clyde
and Porpoise,
on the Norwegian coast and to the southward.7
Scharnhorst reached Kiel on 23rd without further
incident. VA(S) then adjusted the position of his submarines
to try to intercept Gneisenau should she also attempt
to return to Germany for repairs. Severn,
intended to relieve Clyde,
was ordered to remain off Utsira. Wilk was to patrol
south of Lister and Sunfish
was ordered from the Dutch coast into the Heligoland Bight.
Three other submarines were still on patrol in the North Sea;
Truant
about to relieve Porpoise
south of Trondheim, Tribune
off Stattlandet and Salmon
off Egersund.
While the
operations against the German Fleet by our submarines were in
progress on the Norwegian coast, events elsewhere had moved
very quickly. Narvik, indeed the whole of Norway, had been evacuated
by the Allies and, by 5th June our armies had been re-embarked
at Dunkirk. The German armies crossed the Somme on 26th May
and Paris fell on 14th June. On 17th June the French asked the
Germans for an armistice. The remains of the British Expeditionary
Force were embarked at various French west coast ports, the
final lift being from Bayonne and St Jean de Luz on 25th June.
The Germans now held practically the whole coast of Europe from
the North Cape to the Spanish frontier. The threat of invasion
was obviously increased and although our submarines in the North
Sea filled the gap between the coast of Norway and the German
declared area, they were also extended northwards to watch Gneisenau
still in Trondheim and to attack the sea route to the north
along the Norwegian coast. The rival claims of anti-invasion
reconnaissance, action against German fleet units in his northern
base at Trondheim and commerce destruction were catered for
as the situation demanded, not only by the positioning of the
patrols but by orders on whether reconnaissance was to come
first and what targets were to be attacked. With the departure
of the French submarines, VA(S) found it necessary to bring
round five training submarines of the H-class8
to Harwich again to help with patrols along the western
side of the German declared area, off the gap to the southward
of the declared area, and along the Dutch coast as far as the
Hook9.
As we have
seen, most of the submarines of the Royal Norwegian Navy were
sunk or captured by the Germans during the invasion. B1
and B3 were, however, still at Tromso and Harstad.
With the decision to withdraw from North Norway made early
in June, the intention was that both these boats should join
the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. B3 set off on
8th June from Harstad but when about 100 miles on her way
suffered a serious battery explosion and had to return to
Alsvag in the Lofotens where she was scuttled. B1 sailed
from Tromso on 12th and arrived safely at Torshavn in the
Faeroe Islands. She went on to Rosyth where she arrived on
18th. She was used for anti-submarine training and operated
from Tobermory and Campbeltown.
Before the
collapse of France, a number of French submarines came across
the Channel to join the Royal Navy. These were the large submarine
cruiser Surcouf that was in full commission and Junon,
Minerve, Ondine, Orion and Creole. These last five
had all been refitting in the French dockyards and had been
towed across. Some of them left machinery behind, they had
no torpedoes, and all needed considerable work to be done
on them before they could be used for operations. Many men
of their crews elected to return to France, so they could
not all have been manned in any case. In the end two of them,
Junon and Minerve, were selected to be put in
an operational state mainly because all their torpedo tubes,
which were of 550mm (21.7") diameter, could be adapted
to fire British 21" torpedoes10.The
rest were paid off into reserve under the Captain(S) Fifth
Submarine Flotilla at Fort Blockhouse11.
Rubis, as has already been told, was in commission
and it was hoped that it would be possible for her to use
the Vickers Mark III mines of which a stock would shortly
become available12.
It was clear
that submarine minelaying was a type of operation that it
was practicable to carry out with the very short nights encountered
in high latitudes. It was possible to close the coast submerged,
make the necessary reconnaissance, lay the mines and then
withdraw all in one day. The intention was therefore to continue
mine-laying and to move the operations further north to cover
the German base at Trondheim. Narwhal
and Porpoise
normally carried out a patrol after laying their mines
but Rubis normally returned to base after each lay.
Rubis (Capitaine de Corvette G Cabanier) laid a field
of 32 mines off the Gripholen on 26th June which sank the
small Norwegian Drangen of 183 tons13
. Narwhal
(Lieutenant Commander RJ Burch RN) on 4th July placed fifty
mines off Trondheim but they did not score. Finally on 29th
July, Porpoise
(Commander PQ Roberts RN) laid a field of fifty mines in the
North Sea to the east of the German declared area, which did
not sink anything. Narwhal
sailed again on 22nd July to lay another field off Trondheim
and then to patrol off Stattlandet. On 23rd July in the afternoon
about 200 miles east by north from Rosyth, she was caught
on the surface by a German Dornier17Z aircraft. The aircraft
was at low altitude and scored a direct hit abaft the conning
tower and two near misses sinking Narwhal
with all hands. She was lost with her Commanding Officer,
Lieutenant Commander RJ Burch DSO RN, five other officers
and 54 men. The sinking of Narwhal
was a serious blow and probably due partly to the Germans
reading our ciphers. After her loss the minelaying campaign
in the North Sea came temporarily to an end. Rubis
had now used up all the mines brought for her from France
in the small surface minelayer Pollux, and after the
loss of Narwhal
it was considered prudent to stop using Porpoise
on the Norwegian coast until there was more darkness.
The patrols
carried out by the H-class from Harwich were somewhat irregular
and depended on the material state of the submarines to a
large extent. Patrols were normally of six days followed by
four in harbour but sometimes lasted for eight or even ten
days. They took place off the coast of the Netherlands generally
in areas to the north and to the west of the Texel. It was
usually possible to keep one and sometimes two submarines
at sea at a time. The object of these patrols in the southern
North Sea was, as before, to protect the country against invasion.
They were kept up throughout the summer and were only stopped
when the threat of invasion declined in mid October. Their
purpose was to give warning of the approach of invasion forces
especially when the weather was bad and air reconnaissance
consequently unreliable. With the rapid change in the weather
to be expected in the North Sea it was not possible to send
the submarines out when the visibility was bad and to withdraw
them when air reconnaissance could be relied upon. They had
to be on station all the time. Co-operation with all the other
anti-invasion forces including the Royal Air Force, surface
ships and the army ashore was close, full instructions on
the subject being issued by the Admiralty on the 10th July.
It was very soon found that the antiquated wireless transmitter
fitted in the H-class was unable to ensure that enemy reports
would get through. The Royal Air Force came to the submarines'
assistance and provided six modern transmitters designed for
use in Wellington bombers, which were fitted by the base staff
at Harwich. The base staff also fitted an echo sounder, which
was essential to navigate in shallow water off a low-lying
coast. The H-class also found that their batteries were scarcely
of sufficient capacity to keep them submerged at slow speed
throughout the long summer days especially if they had been
unable to recharge them fully during the short nights. In
consequence they often had to sit on the bottom and rely on
their hydroplanes to detect the approach of any enemy vessels.
Their efficiency during the summer was greatly increased by
the fitting of an asdic set14.
There were few targets in the area and the patrols were apt
to be monotonous. They did, however, locate an enemy minefield
and were able to plot the enemy searched channel by watching
his minesweepers. The patrols were also of the greatest value
for the training of crews for the large number of new submarines
building, and these elderly submarines acquitted themselves
well.
On 21st June,
H44
(Lieutenant ED Norman RN) sighted a merchant ship that, though
unescorted, was zigzagging. It was daylight and she fired two
torpedoes in a submerged attack at a range of 3500 yards. One
torpedo hit and sank the 3000-ton ship that was later found
to be Danish. A month later on the 18th July, H31
(Lieutenant MD Wanklyn RN) patrolling north west of Terschelling,
encountered three anti-submarine trawlers sweeping in line abreast
one mile apart. She fired a single torpedo at 900 yards at the
centre one and hit, sinking UJ126. In the Channel, H43
(Lieutenant GR Colvin RN) had a somewhat different experience
at this time. She was in the Fifth Flotilla based at Plymouth
and she took an officer of the Guernsey Militia to land in Icart
Bay on the island, which had been occupied by the enemy at the
end of June. This was on the night of 7th/8th June and she picked
him up again three nights later.
If an invasion
of the United Kingdom was actually to occur, Harwich was in
a very exposed position and likely to be over-run early on.
A train was therefore kept ready in a railway siding loaded
with provisions, stores and torpedoes and was available at short
notice to evacuate the base.
In the six
weeks following the torpedoing of Gneisenau, our submarines
persevered in the northern part of the North Sea with an almost
total lack of success and with painful losses. Conditions were
far from easy. The short nights did not give time to re-charge
their batteries and the mere presence of surface or air patrols
could drive the submarines away from the coast. The German Navy
was making great efforts to open up the sea route to north Norway
and had been laying defensive minefields. They were also at
this time decrypting our ciphers and knew where our submarines
were patrolling. The coastal traffic, however, was easy to find
and exposed to attack until it could reach the inshore route
behind the outlying islands, which began between Stavanger and
Bergen. Furthermore there were no complicating restrictions
on attack: there were no neutral territorial waters to worry
about and sink at sight zones meant that virtually anything
that came along could be torpedoed without warning.
We start the
details of this period with a narrow escape on 20th June for
the Polish submarine Wilk. When returning across the
North Sea from patrol and when north west of the German declared
area, she suffered a severe shock aft that lifted the stern
right out of the water. Whether this was a mine, a non-contact
torpedo explosion or, as thought at the time, a collision with
the Netherlands submarine O13, has never been established.
Nevertheless she survived. On the same day Salmon
(Commander EO Bickford DSO RN) attacked a convoy in very
rough weather off Egersund. She fired two torpedoes on a very
broad track at a range of 4000 yards and missed. This was the
first of a dozen or so missed attacks during the next few weeks.
On 22nd June, Tribune
(Lieutenant EF Balston RN) off Skudenes made a night attack
on a merchant vessel with four torpedoes but she fired on the
swing, the target took avoiding action and she too missed. Two
days later Trident
(Lieutenant Commander GM Sladen RN) in Fro Havet fired four
torpedoes in a day attack on a merchant ship escorted by two
destroyers. She was well placed at 1500 yards but a control
mistake with the firing interval caused her to miss ahead. On
25th June Snapper
(Lieutenant WDA King DSO RN) off the south west coast of Norway,
where fortunately misty conditions made up for a lack of darkness,
encountered a convoy of four ships with an air and trawler escort.
She fired three torpedoes at a range of 3000 yards and claimed
two hits. She then fired three more torpedoes at a stopped ship
at 4000 yards but only one torpedo ran and that missed. The
convoy then retired into Skudenes Fjord. Although it seems that
a ship may have been damaged there is no record of any ship
being sunk. In June, Sealion
(Lieutenant Commander B Bryant DSC RN) was again sent into
the Skagerrak on an offensive reconnaissance. The aim was to
find out if it was possible to operate there and to force the
enemy to continue their patrols and escort of convoys in that
area. She sighted many floating mines in the approaches and
found that the sea and air patrols were as strong as ever. Furthermore
there was now practically no night at all. She sighted a tanker
with no less than seven escorts in the twilight at 0100 one
night but her battery was too low to close within torpedo range.
She soon realized that operations under these conditions were
impossible and that it was not going to be easy even to get
out again. She turned back and on 30th June seized an opportunity
to withdraw at speed on the surface. After reporting the situation
Sealion
was ordered to patrol with Snapper
off Stavanger where invasion forces were suspected of gathering.
On 29th June, an aircraft bombed Snapper
at midnight, which fortunately missed. She then decided to surface
and charge her batteries in daylight and to do this every time
an aircraft passed. She was, however, machine gunned by two
Me109 fighters. Aircraft were not the only hazard and two days
later she sighted a periscope and dived as a torpedo exploded
close by. On 3rd July after moving out to seawards she sighted
a tanker escorted by destroyers emerging from the mist. She
used speed to try and close but was heard and counter attacked
and the target turned away. On 30th June Severn
(Lieutenant Commander BW Taylor RN) off Trondheim fired three
torpedoes at a German destroyer at a range of 1500 yards. The
enemy was proceeding at high speed and she missed this difficult
target15.
On 3rd July
Sealion
off Stavanger in a glassy calm but with heavy rainstorms sighted
a southbound convoy of six ships with nine surface escorts
and a Dornier flying boat overhead. She ran in to close the
range and fired a full salvo of six torpedoes at a range of
6800 yards but the aircraft spotted the torpedo tracks, the
convoy altered course away and all the torpedoes missed. The
Dornier dropped bombs that blew Sealion
upwards and she had to use full speed to avoid breaking surface.
She was then counter attacked by some of the escorts and heavily
depth charged. All her lights were broken, her asdic was put
out of action and her depth gauges were smashed. She dived
deep involuntarily and had to blow main ballast but succeeded
in regaining control and after less than two hours the enemy
lost contact. The German escorts returned to the convoy, which,
while they were away, was attacked by Snapper.
She had crept inside the screen, some of whose units were
stopping at intervals in turn to listen. She fired six torpedoes
at a range of 3000 yards at several ships, which were overlapping.
She was then counter attacked and bombed by a Dornier flying
boat. Two of her torpedoes hit, sinking Cygnus of 1333
tons. This was the only success of this period. It is of interest
that one of this salvo was a Mark
IV torpedo, which indicates that the Mark
VIII torpedoes were being used up rapidly. Up to this
time 330 torpedoes had been fired in action and 150 more had
been lost in the submarines that had been sunk. During this
time some 900 torpedoes had been ordered since the outbreak
of war and another 130 as the reserve part of the torpedo
outfits of new submarines building. Of these the torpedo factories
had probably delivered 500. The general reserve of torpedoes
had, therefore, scarcely increased since the outbreak of war.
Furthermore half of the reserve now consisted of the older
Mark
IV torpedoes, which consequently had to be used, not only
for the older submarines, but for modern boats as well.
Sealion,
later on 3rd July, sighted an unescorted tanker and closed
to 1000 yards. Just as she was about to fire, however, she
lost sight of the target in a rainstorm. She surfaced to chase
but failed to make contact and remained up to re-charge her
battery. At 0245 on 4th July, before the battery was fully
charged she was put down by a surface patrol. Patrols kept
her submerged all day and two attempts to surface next night
were frustrated by aircraft, one of which attacked and put
her steering gear, hydroplanes and compass temporarily out
of action. Sealion,
with the air getting foul and battery low, had to spend a
second day submerged and was only able to do so by using protosorb
and oxygen16
and by lying stopped on a density layer. She was finally able
to surface and charge before midnight on the second day but
many of the crew were sick in the foul air.
During this
period to add to our misfortunes, the armed merchant raider
Pinguin broke out into the Atlantic without being seen
by our submarines and the light cruiser Nurnberg made
her way north from Germany to Trondheim. Shark
(Lieutenant Commander PN Buckley RN), patrolling off Skudenes
on 5th July, had to surface to charge at 2200 when it was
still light. She was attacked while diving and depth charged
by a German aircraft, damaging her rudder and port propeller
and causing a leak in the pressure hull so that she was forced
to surface again. She fought off further air attacks for two
hours until she ran out of ammunition and had many of the
crew killed or wounded. She managed to report her plight by
wireless and ships and aircraft were sent to her assistance.
Before they could get to her, the German minesweepers Ml
803, Ml 806 and Ml 807 arrived and took the crew
prisoner. Shark
sank as soon as one of the enemy ships took her in tow. Her
Commanding Officer was among those taken prisoner. In August
1945 after his return from captivity Lieutenant Commander
Buckley was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his
conduct and in 1946 was Mentioned in Despatches for his services
when a prisoner of war.
Salmon
sailed from Rosyth to relieve Shark
the day before she was sunk, and it is now almost certain
that she struck a mine in a newly laid field north of the
German declared area. Nothing more was heard of her after
leaving Rosyth and she was overdue on 14th July. Salmon
was lost with all hands including her outstanding Commanding
Officer, Commander EO Bickford DSO RN, four other officers
and thirty-six men. Thames
left Dundee on 22nd July for her first patrol. She had been
refitting since the outbreak of war at Plymouth. She was due
to return to her base on 3rd August but never arrived. She
too is known to have passed through the area where these mine-fields
had been laid north of the declared area and a mine was probably
the cause of her loss. She too was sunk with all hands including
her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander WD Dunkerley
RN, five officers and 54 men17.
The Germans say that the torpedo boat Luchs was torpedoed
and sunk by a submarine in this area on 26th July. If so this
must have been the work of Thames.
As she was lost there are, of course, no records of her having
fired torpedoes on this day.
At the time
VA(S) believed that of all the recent losses, Orzel,
Salmon
and Shark
had been sunk by aircraft, O13 by surface anti-submarine
vessels, Thames
by aircraft or possibly mine and Narwhal
from an unknown cause. There is, however, little doubt that
Orzel, O13, Thames
and Salmon
were mined in recently laid fields north of the German declared
area, of which we had no intelligence at all. As a result,
too much credit was given to the enemy air and surface anti-submarine
measures. This contributed to the decision by VA(S) to withdraw
patrols from the coast until the nights became longer unless
there was some important aim to be attained. Reconnaissance
for enemy invasion forces, which was still the principal duty
of our patrols, did not, in any case, require them to be close
to the coast. The simple trick of declaring an area dangerous
to mines and then laying fields just outside it seems to have
been the main reason for our losses. It was perfectly legitimate
as has already been stated and we did not find out about it
until too late.
The withdrawal
from the coast was ordered in the middle of August and before
this decision was made, our submarines continued their operations
against great difficulties and dangers with determination but
with extraordinarily little success. On 3rd July Seawolf
(Lieutenant Commander JW Studholme DSC RN) landed an agent near
Lindesnes and on 8th July Sealion,
still on patrol near Skudenes, tried to finish off a wrecked
merchant ship with a coaster alongside but the single torpedo
she fired had a gyro failure and missed. Meanwhile another armed
raider left Germany by the Skagerrak and keeping well out to
sea made for the Arctic. With Russian connivance she made her
way by the Northeast Passage to the Pacific. She was not seen
by any of our submarines. On 9th July, Triad in Fro Havet
fired two torpedoes singly at an antisubmarine trawler and both
missed, probably because of a shallow depth setting in a heavy
swell. Next day the Seawolf
off the south coast of Norway fired three torpedoes at another
anti-submarine trawler but missed although the range was only
1100 yards. Fortunately neither of these attacks led to any
effective counter attack. Snapper
off Stavanger Fjord in late July found the night slightly longer
but there was a full moon to make charging difficult. Air patrols
were too frequent to try and charge her battery between them
and she was bombed by a seaplane, which fortunately missed.
On 24th July
the damaged Gneisenau escorted by Nurnberg and
some destroyers, slipped unseen out of Trondheim and returned
by the Skagerrak to Kiel. Here she was under repair until 18th
December 1940. Next day Hipper also put to sea and made
a sweep into the Arctic Ocean hoping to catch some British merchant
ships from Petsamo. She sighted nothing and returned to Germany
too some time after 9th August. None of these movements were
sighted by any of our submarines or, for that matter, by air
reconnaissance or detected by our intelligence services.
From mid July
to early August, our submarines made a number of contacts with
U-boats in the North Sea. By this time the Germans had resumed
U-boat operations in the Atlantic and these sightings were all
by chance on the U-boat passage routes. On 15th July Tetrarch
(Lieutenant Commander RG Mills RN) on her way back from the
Fejeosen area fired three torpedoes at a range of 2500 yards
at a U-boat in daylight, but the U-boat saw the tracks and avoided
them. On 22nd July, Clyde
returning from Stattlandet fired a full salvo of six torpedoes
at a range of 1500 yards at what she thought was a U-boat. Fortunately
she had badly underestimated the speed and the torpedoes missed
astern for it was Truant.
On 29th July Sealion
in the Skagerrak entrance fired two torpedoes at a range
of 3000 yards after a U-boat (probably U62), which surfaced
close under her stern. The track, however, was very broad and
she missed. An attempt to retrieve matters with the gun was
also unsuccessful. On 1st August, the tables were turned and
Spearfish,
on passage across the North Sea, was torpedoed and sunk by U34.
She was lost with all hands (except for one rating who was picked
up by the enemy) including Lieutenant Commander JH Forbes DSO
RN, her successful Commanding Officer with four officers and
35 men. Finally on successive days on 1st and 2nd August, the
Dutch submarines O21 (Luitenant ter zee le KI JF van
DuIm RNN) and O22 (Luitenant ter zee le KI JW Ort RNN)
who had joined our patrols in the middle of the North Sea, both
attacked U-boats in daylight but both missed. The ranges were
1600 and 4000 yards, and each submarine fired only two torpedoes.
These attacks, however, caused anxiety in the German U-boat
command and in early August they changed the route used by U-boats
when transiting the North Sea. This, however, made no difference,
as the British had not discerned that there was a U-boat route
and in fact had disposed their submarines for anti-invasion
reconnaissance and anti-shipping rather than anti U-boat purposes.
In early August,
just before VA(S) had decided to withdraw from the coast, several
attacks on shipping, resulting in one success, were made. On
4th August Swordfish
(Lieutenant PJ Cowell RN) off the Dutch coast, in a night
surface attack in a heavy sea, missed a small merchant ship
with three torpedoes. The range was 4000 yards and the submarine
was yawing badly while firing. Later the same day in the same
area, Sturgeon
(Lieutenant GDA Gregory DSO RN) in a day submerged attack fired
six torpedoes at a convoy of two small merchant ships with three
escorts. She fired three torpedoes at each ship of the convoy
on a rather broad track and all missed. Finally on this same
day off the south west coast of Norway, Sealion
(Lieutenant Commander B Bryant DSC RN) fired two torpedoes at
Toran of 3318 tons hitting her amidships and sinking
her. Two days later Sealion
off Kristiansand attacked a convoy of two large and one small
merchant ships escorted by seven anti-submarine craft and trawlers.
She closed at speed and succeeded in penetrating the screen
but found herself between the columns of the convoy that was
zigzagging. She fired three torpedoes with a ninety degree angled
shot and followed this up with a single torpedo on a very late
track. Two torpedoes failed to run and the other two missed
and the third ship of the convoy ran over the top of her and
smashed both her periscopes and damaged her periscope standards
and bridge. She had been unable to dive deep in time because
of a density layer. Sealion
got back to base under her own power and was sent to Swan Hunter
of Newcastle for repairs and for a refit of which she was much
in need.
The actual
decision to withdraw submarines from the coast was made on 8th
August. It was made partly, as has already been stated, because
of our heavy losses and also because of our lack of success.
It could not be blamed altogether on the short nights as these
were now lengthening again18.
The fact that there were now other areas in the Mediterranean
and in the Bay of Biscay in which submarines could more profitably
be employed must also have contributed to the decision. The
time has now come to turn to these alternative areas and this
period of endeavour off the coast of Norway draws to one of
periodic finality. Before summarising it, however, there is
one more incident in September which falls naturally into this
period. On 2nd September, Sturgeon
was in the entrance to the Skagerrak with orders to patrol on
a line 070 to 250 from a position 57 N 6 30 E which is about
sixty miles south of the Naze. This position was outside the
Skagerrak minefield and was to guard against ships leaving the
Baltic or the Heligoland Bight. Sturgeon,
apparently finding this duty tedious, decided to use a loophole
in her orders, to seek bigger game. An extension of her patrol
line meant that she could cross the Skagerrak minefield and
patrol off the Skaw. This she did and on 2nd September she sighted
a transport escorted by two torpedo boats and a seaplane. She
fired only two torpedoes at the long range of 6000 yards but
secured a hit. The target, Ponier of 3285 tons caught
fire and subsequently sank. She was carrying troops and the
escorts were too busy rescuing survivors to make a counter attack.
Sturgeon
then returned to her 'proper' patrol position and on 10th
September sighted a large U-boat. She fired six torpedoes at
a range of 7000 yards on a broad track and although she claimed
a probable hit at the time, she actually missed.
The period
covered by this chapter was a difficult one for our submarines.
Seven boats were lost, four by mines, one by a U-boat and
two by aircraft. These casualties were on top of the boats
lost in the Norwegian campaign. At the time their greatest
enemy seemed to be the short nights that made it possible
for any patrol vessel or aircraft, which did not need to have
sophisticated antisubmarine equipment, to drive them from
the convoy routes and at worst to hunt them to exhaustion.
In the Skagerrak the duration of total darkness was five and
a half hours in mid May and three and a third hours in mid
June. Off Trondheim in mid-May it was two and a half hours
while in mid-June it never got dark at all. The most important
success was the torpedoing of Gneisenau, which not
only forced her to abandon her current operation but put her
out of action for six months. It also caused a planned sortie
against commerce in the autumn to be cancelled. The second
important success was the sinking of the tanker Samland
that was trying to break out and supply armed merchant raiders.
Less important successes were the sighting and reporting of
an earlier sortie of Gneisenau and the interception,
albeit unsuccessful, of the armed merchant raider Thor.
Against these achievements, four19
other armed merchant raiders passed through our submarine
patrols without being seen, as did five movements of the German
heavy units. If it is any comfort, most of these ships were
also missed by air reconnaissance, our surface blockade and
indeed by any form of intelligence. Out of twenty-seven torpedo
attacks on the enemy in which 87 torpedoes were fired, six
firings of 19 torpedoes were at enemy warships. As well as
the damage to Gneisenau, these attacks sank the torpedo
boat Luchs and the antisubmarine vessel UJ126.
The five attacks firing 15 torpedoes aimed at U-boats all
missed. Finally the sixteen attacks firing 53 torpedoes on
convoys and merchant ships sank six ships of 27,256 tons20.
The vast majority of the enemy traffic proceeding up the Norwegian
coast got through unscathed. An analysis of these attacks
does show an increase of torpedo failures that were probably
due partly to the use of elderly Mark IV torpedoes and partly
to a lack of training in maintaining them. Some attacks were
missed through control errors and this can be put down to
lack of practice between patrols. The most likely cause of
failure to hit, however, was undoubtedly the determination
of the submarine captains not to miss any chance to sink the
enemy and this often involved firing at long range and from
poor firing positions and even firing as a forlorn hope. In
all 444 mines were laid in this period and these sank the
minesweepers M5 and M11 and five small ships
totalling 3212 tons.
This somewhat
unsuccessful but very difficult and dangerous period for our
submarines, which has been covered by this chapter, was recognised
by the Admiralty with a number of decorations. The first bar
to the Distinguished Service Order for a submarine officer
was awarded to Lieutenant Gregory of Sturgeon
for sinking Ponier in the Skagerrak. Distinguished
Service Orders were bestowed on Lieutenant de Vaisseau Cabanier
of Rubis for his minelaying sorties and also, before
he was lost, on Lieutenant Commander Burch of Narwhal
and also to Lieutenant Balston of Tribune
for his four patrols in this period21.
We have already noted the award of the Distinguished Service
Order at the end of the war to Lieutenant Commander Buckley
of Shark.
Commander Ingram of Clyde
received the Distinguished Service Cross for damaging the
battle cruiser Gneisenau and Lieutenant Commander Mills
of Tetrarch
the same for sinking the raider supply tanker Samland.
Three other submarine captains received the Distinguished
Service Cross for their patrols in this period: Lieutenant
Commander Van der Byl of Taku,
Lieutenant King of Snapper
and Lieutenant Norman of H44.
Lastly Lieutenant Colvin of H43
was Mentioned in Despatches for his skill in landing an
agent in Guernsey.
