Sink the Takao!
British XE craft in action in the Pacific
Many people walk into Chatham Dockyard Slip No.3 and regard the miniature submarine on display in passing and the information display but don’t look any deeper into what it is and where the XE craft fit into the Second World War narrative, especially with Operations Struggle, Sabre and Foil.
The XE craft was an evolution of the X Craft miniature submarine which was famously used against the Tirpitz during Operation Source in September 1943 and other operations including off the beaches of D-Day. I’ll definitely be writing about them at some point in the future but in the mean time do feel free to check out the amazing Rachel Lance’s book Chamber Divers which details the scientists who made underwater breathing possible and how it would the effect D-Day.
With the successes of the X-Craft during the European theatre it was decided that there was a definite niche for them to fill in the Pacific so modifications to the design was needed. The submarines measured 52 feet long with a 5 ft 75“ beam and 5’ 3” draught and were powered by a Gardiner 4LK diesel engine similar to a London Bus’s -but unlike the Biber (which used an Opel Blitz engine) these were actually safe.
The XE craft differed from the X craft mainly by the addition of an air conditioning unit to help keep the crew cool in the tropical Far Eastern waters and to fight the humidity that would build up condencing the water to provide extra drinking water. There was also a refrigerator to try and keep food aboard fresh.
They would be manned by a crew of four to five consisting of the Lieutenant, a second officer, an Engineer, a leading seaman and an optional additional diver with at least one of the crew already acting as a trained diver. There were also small differences including a rounded bull nose which would allow an external stowage point for ropes, limpet mines and other sundries as well as the three spring-loaded “legs” which were used to help the craft to have positive buoyancy when coming up under a target.
They carried two side charges with two tons of amatol and six limpet mines for attachment by a diver.
By the Spring of 1945 there were twelve XE craft either built or under construction for deployment to the Far East. Six were to be assigned to the depot ship Bonaventure as a “senior flotilla” whilst the others would come out piecemeal over time to reinforce the flotilla or replace operational losses.
The first six (XE-1 to XE-6) were assigned to Bonaventure under Captain William “Tiny” Fell as the 14th Submarine Flotilla (an offshoot of the 12th so they could skip the 13th) and left Bannatyne on 21st February 1945 in an uneventful journey across the Atlantic to the West Indies and beyond a couple of U-boat scares it was very uneventful and the crews indulge in physical exercise and swimming in the two jury rigged on deck pools. Any hopes of shore leave were dashed when they arrived at Trinidad as secrecy was so paramount that the Bonaventure had to anchor out of sight of land and at a point where they could be buffeted by the waves and no one was allowed off ship. Same thing happened either side of the Panama Canal and when they reached San Diego in California this became even more painful with American women within sight, offers for visits to Los Angeles, Hollywood and the Californian coast all having to be turned down. By now it would be fair to say that the crews were tired of the Bonaventure!
On arrival at Pearl Harbour this was rescinded and the men were allowed to use the rest camps and enjoy Hawaii and they enjoyed the hospitality of the locals but news came from Chester Nimitz, the US Naval C-in-C.
The X Craft were not to be used.
The Americans had lumped X-Craft into the same boat as Bibers, Japanese mini subs which were short range and other suicidal style weapons and preferred more conventional craft. Obviously this knocked the wind out of their sails and though they were originally sent to the Admiral islands they were redirected to Brisbane and a few weeks later they moved up to Townsville and for them the war was over.
Or was it?
Fell flew to Sydney to speak to the British Admiralty’s Command based there but Admiral Fraser could only give permission for them to travel to Melbourne to work in the fleet’s train but also gave Fell permission to seek out the American Command and appeal to them.
Unable to organise a journey up to the Philippines, Fell, hitchhiked and bagsied flights but he found Admiral James Fife, the US head of submarines, at Subic Bay.
We sat on his veranda drinking cups of coffee, and he listened for hours while I used every argument I could think of for making use of us. At the end he showed the most astonishing grasp of what I had said and in words that somehow softened the blow, and making his reasons seem so sane, he explained that we were too late. Two months earlier he could have used us and two years earlier he needed desperately something just like us, but now we were “stale.” In these unhappy circumstances our friendship began, and the more I saw of this man in the next few months the more my feelings were strengthened that I had met the most sincere, the straightest, and the ablest of men.
With the fate of the flotilla pretty much sealed Fell got wind of an operational need for the destruction of the telephone cables from Singapore to Tokyo via Hong Kong which would cut them off and make attacking the cities easier as well as forcing the Japanese to use wireless which could be intercepted. The problem was that someone would need to find the submerged cables and cut them. This was a perfect use for the X-Craft and Fell very quickly threw the Flotilla’s hat into the ring. Interest piqued and Fell was told that if they could prove they were up to the task then the job would be theirs.
There were two problems which the team were ready to tackle, First they needed to find a way to find the cables on the sea bottom and then they needed to be able to cut them. The crews immediately started training and the second problem was quickly resolved with the net cutters they already carried being enlarged slightly. The finding the cable was more difficult and after a lot of thought they came to the idea of a grapnel and towing method to dredge behind the submarine coupled with a search pattern.
During the training Bruce Ezner, the Commander of XE-6 and Lieutenant David Carey, the First Lieutenant of XE-3 were killed working at depths of forty to forty-five feet recreating the work their divers would have to work in and trying to find the perfect shape grapnel. Their actual cause of death is unknown and there are many different factors including one of the countless predators in Australian waters but it could also be oxygen poisoning or drowning but with neither body being recovered no one can be certain. There is a memorial for them in Queensland.
Fell returned to Fife to report their training successes though and he was confident that his flotilla could definitely carry out the work. Fife’s staff looked at the flotilla’s abilities and identified some other targets including two Japanese cruisers in the Singapore strait. Thought these two vessels were not in a great way they provided a lot of firepower which would provide problems for the planned attack on Malaya and Singapore and for any shipping in the region.
The Cable cutting missions, Operation Sabre (cutting the cable from Hong Kong to Saigon) and Foil (cutting the cable between Hong Kong and Singapore)
XE-4 under Lt M. H. Shean was to carry out Operation Sabre at Saigon.
XE-5 under Lt H. P. Westmacott was to carry out Operation Foil at Hong Kong.
XE-1 under Lt J. E. Smart and XE-3 under Lt J. E. Fraser were to attack the two cruisers in Singapore.
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