The Midgets - a breed of their own

Now we are in the nuclear age and we think in terms of Fleet submarines displacing 4,000 tons and Polaris armed submarines displacing 7,000 tons, it is very difficult to think of a submarine one could load on to a railway wagon, cover with tarpaulin sheets and haul away to some remote place in Scotland, there to run trials in the utmost secrecy.

The sad, mad word seeming to move at an increasingly fast speed, it is also somewhat difficult to remember that midget submarines were built at Barrow around 1954.

Now of course, you all remember the Shrimp, the Stickleback the Minnow and the Sprat. They were the last the Royal Navy had and a few years afterwards the X-craft Unit was disbanded.

The midget submarines achieved prominence in World War 2. They could carry limpet mines or heavier ground mines.

Their effectiveness was fully proven during the conflict and while brave men sacrificed their lives, we have to count the disabling of the German Tirpitz in Altenfjord the disabling of the Japanese cruiser Takao in Singapore, the damage to a floating dock in Bergen and the cutting of underwater telephone cables in the South China Sea.

It was midget submarines which marked the approaches to the landing beaches of D-Day. They were highly versatile and powerful submersibles, yet their cost was small and they required a crew of only four or five. Barrow built quite a number of them, and as the older generation of Barrovian well knows, they were built and dispatched from the Shipyard in secrecy. Local railway men considered it a matter of some pride to have been involved in transporting the results of Barrow craftsmen's handiwork. Perhaps all the secrecy was reflecting itself. No matter, like so many things in the war years it was a team effort.

Much risk

There were various breeds of midget in the different World War 2 navies. They included British and Italian Chariots (or Human Torpedoes), German Marten Newt, Beaver, and Seal craft, Japanese torpedo launchers and the British X-craft.

All of these achieved their aim to a greater or lesser degree. Only the British X-craft however, were independent in the operational area. All the others were in some way constrained by circumstances. For example if the tide was found to be unfavourable or if intelligence had erred, the mission was usually aborted, it was seldom possible to change the plan and re-attack.

Furthermore, all except the X-craft had to be launched within a few miles of the enemy, the parent vessel risked much and would risk more now. The X-craft were released by the towing submarines a long way from their targets, they had a range of several hundred miles and their chances of success and evasion were much higher than their smaller relations.

What were these X-craft like? The post-war British shrimp class now scrapped or sold, displaced some 35 tons on the surface. Its 50-foot length was divided into four compartments: the battery compartment forward, the wet-and-dry chamber or diving lock which also contained the head (or toilet) and served as an access hatch, the control room and right aft, the propulsion unit. Headroom was about six feet.

Rail load

Each craft could be hauled up a slipway and quickly parted into three sections if required for maintenance. The complete craft was small enough to be loaded onto a railway truck, and rail was, in fact, the best method of transport from one base to another.

It gave rise to some unlikely situations. The crew travelled with their craft and soon found that footplate men were a congenial lot, quite willing to meet the submariners' eccentric wishes. Trains were known to stop in order to allow the crew to hunt pheasants, hold parties in favourite hostelries en route, and make various purchases to ensure their well being when the train was under way.

It was not always easy to persuade the railway police that a crew, returning from one of these sorties to a. marshalling yard in the middle of England, were rejoining their submarine on a railway siding. The other more warlike, method of transport - towing - was understandably less popular. A passage crew of four manned the craft during a tow and were relieved by the operational crew only when the tow was slipped at the edge of the operational area.

The task of the passage crew was envied by none. Even though the tow could be made at an average speed of about ten knots, with the parent submarine and X-craft both submerged, it could last for many days The passage crew had, during this time, to exist in appalling discomfort while making sure that everything was in perfect condition for the operational crew of five (the extra member was needed as a diver), who, on course had most of the excitement and rewards.

Naturally the operational crew also had most of the .hazards, but the passage crew were not entirely without these. If for instance, the heavy tow rope parted, its weight could take the craft rapidly to the bottom. In tow, the craft oscillated, gently up or down through a hundred feet or more, it was unwise to try towing submerged in shallow water.

Eventually the planesman learned to recognise whether an oscillation was normal or whether it signified that the trim or hydroplanes were wrongly set. Inexperienced operators made continual adjustments older hands touched the controls perhaps only once made one small adjustment to indicate that hitherto the trim had been in error but was now satisfactory in his care.

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An X5 Class midget submarine being "launched" into Buccleuch Dock

No contact

Every two hours the towing submarine called the passage crew by telephone - if the telephone worked. Its cable was made up in the tow rope a few contortions of the latter when leaving the harbour were enough to ensure that communications would be nonexistent for the remainder of the tow.

This, to say the least, was tiresome. Life for the passage crew then became a series of surprises. Every six hours the midget was brought up to "guff through," changing the stale air by raising the induction mast and running the engine for ten minutes, or longer if the battery and air bottles had to be recharged.

In rough weather this was an especially miserable period. On passage, time soon ceased to have any meaning. This was merciful under the circumstances. The two men on watch were supposed to be relieved by the others every two hours, but sometimes they stayed on watch in a sort of stupor for three, four, or even six hours.

This was principally because they had padded seats and were relatively comfortable; off watch there was only the engine to lean against or the periscope to coil around although some craft had a primitive and wholly inadequate bunk. Any real sleep was almost impossible.

Glue pot

There were electrical insulations to be checked, equipment to be tested, bilges to be dried, machinery to be greased and oiled, records to be written up, the whole craft to be kept scrupulously clean (a matter of particular pride) and the food - such as it was - to be prepared. There was of course no galley. A carpenter's glue-pot in the control room served as a double boiler, an electric kettle provided hot water.

For the first 24 hours of a long tow some attempt was made to cook meals. That is to say the first four tins which came to hand were emptied into the glue-pot, stirred and heated. The resulting potmess was eaten.

They were an independent band of men who crewed the boats and there are plenty of authentic and intriguing accounts of their exploits. Their aim in attack was to move unseen, release their ground mines or release a diver to attach limpet mines and then recover him. After that it was a matter of getting away as quickly as possible. And as many found, one could not rely upon everything going right.

How many X-craft were built? Barrow certainly constructed 18 but the two prototypes - X3 and X4 - were built by Varley Marine in 1942. From 1942 until 1944 Vickers built 12 X-craft and six XT-craft (training boats).

A Chesterfield firm and a Gainsborough firm built 12 XE-craft, all used in the Far East. Of all these boats X-5, X-6, X-7, X-8, X-9, X-10, X-22 and XE-11 were lost. Eleven XE-craft survived. Vickers record that the X-craft built in 1942-43 six in number - were all lost in the attack on the Tirpitz.

They happen to be the first six in the list above Vickers also built XE craft in 1943, and HMS XE-22 was lost in collision in the Pentland Firth in February 1944. HMS XE-24 was preserved at Gosport, at least for a time. Then came the HM midget submarines X-51 (Minnow), X-52 (Stickleback), X-53 (Shrimp), and X-54 (Sprat) in 1954. They wrote the final chapter of a long gallant story.

Reproduced from
Ulverston News (1976)

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