Special Boat Service, whose members are drawn largely from the Royal Marines
Britain's commando frogman force is now the
Special Boat Service (SBS), whose members are drawn largely from the
Royal Marines. They perform various operations on land as well as in the water. Until the late 1990s, all members of the
Special Air Service (SAS)
Boat Troop were trained as commando
frogmen.
In 1909 the British designer Commander Godfrey Herbert received a patent for a
manned torpedo. During
World War I, it was rejected by the
War Office as impracticable and unsafe.
Instead, in the inter-war period the Italian Navy successfully trained the special frogmen corps
Decima Flottiglia MAS equipped with a new and powerful craft: a slow speed human torpedo (SLC: siluro a lenta corsa, best known as maiale). Italian manned torpedoes were first used against Britain in 1941 when
Italian commando frogmen, some riding manned torpedoes, attacked British naval bases at
Malta,
Gibraltar and
Alexandria. In the last operation six Italian frogmen rode three SLC's into the harbour and damaged the British battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, and the tanker Sagona (the six frogmen were then captured). After these operations had shown how powerful and effective this weapon was the
Royal Navy was convinced to create their own programme. This was also fictionalised in the 1958 film The Silent Enemy.
1942
April: The British Navy formed the "Experimental Submarine Flotilla", initially based at
Portsmouth. It was led by Commanders G.M. Sladen and W.R. "Tiny" Fell, who began to train frogmen in secret. The Navy called their manned torpedoes
Chariots. Many of their frogmen's breathing sets' oxygen cylinders were German pilots' oxygen cylinders recovered from shot-down German
Luftwaffe planes. Those first breathing sets may have been modified
Davis Submarine Escape Sets; their
full face diving masks were the type intended for the
Siebe Gorman Salvus. But in later operations different designs were used, leading to a full face diving mask with one big face window. One version had a flip-up single window for both eyes to let the user get
binoculars to his eyes when on the surface. They used bulky thick diving suits called
Sladen suits.
1942 June: The Experimental Submarine Flotilla moved to "Port ZD" (Port D) at
Keose on
Loch Erisort in Scotland.[1] Their first powered manned torpedo was the
Mark I Chariot. Its hull was 21 in (53 cm) in diameter. It could make 2.9
kn (5.4 km/h) and could dive safely to a depth of 20 ft (6.1 m). The nose was a
warhead with 600 pounds of
high explosive. Training was hard. The men often suffered from
oxygen poisoning because of the use of pure oxygen at depth, burst
eardrums and
sinus trouble. The strangeness of the Chariots added to their problems. They were trained to ride and steer for a long time under water, and to then cut through harbour
defence nets. The hardest part was learning to work with the Chariots' warheads.
August: The first group of trained British charioteers moved to Base HHZ on
Loch Cairnbawn in Scotland to train in deeper waters - better matching the Norwegian Fiords, and to simulate attacking bigger better-defended places. One died in training.
26 October: The fishing boat Arthur operated by three Norwegians left Britain with seven British frogmen and two chariots hidden aboard.
28 October: Arthur reached Norway's coast near
Edøya.
30 October: Arthur unloaded the chariots and began to tow them to the target.
31 October: A storm broke the fastening bolts of the chariots, which were lost. The attack was called off.
1 November: The Arthur was scuttled at
Breidvik. The ten members of the operation set off for Sweden in two groups. Nine reached Sweden; Germans captured one and later murdered him in accordance with the illegal
Commando Order.
This operation was later portrayed in the 1955 war film, Above Us the Waves, featuring
John Mills, which was based on Operation Title and the later Operation SourceX-Craft midget submarine attacks on the Tirpitz.
Late November: Britain sent 26 Chariots to
Malta, and they became part of the "
Tenth Submarine Flotilla". Three submarines received containers on their decks to carry the Chariots.
Operation "Principle":
28 November: The British submarine
P-311 carrying 3 Chariots and 10 Charioteers left
Marsamxett on
Malta to attack
La Maddalena on
Sardinia, but struck a
naval mine near Sardinia and sank with all hands.
30 November: The British submarines Thunderbolt, Trooper and Unruffled (P46), left Malta carrying Chariots.
3 January: The submarines
HMS Thunderbolt and
HMS P311 carrying two chariots each and
HMS Trooper carrying three, with their respective crews, left to carry out this operation, the first by Britain involving the use of chariots. P311 was scheduled to attack targets at La Maddalena, while the other two submarines headed for the coast of
Sicily near
Palermo in a
Force 5 wind.
One of the chariots which the Trooper carried was ridden by Sub-Lieutenant Rodney Dove and Leading Seaman Jimmy Freel. As it was launched, a big wave washed it over the submarine, causing the loss of its limpet mines and the gear to attach the warhead to a ship.
The chariots put mines on ships and patrol boats and sank some of them, but none of the mines exploded.
One chariot put its warhead on the Italian cruiser Ulpio Traiano (under construction), and afterwards smaller explosives on four ships. Ulpio Traiano sank.
Dove's chariot (Chariot XVI) put its warhead on the Italian troop ship Viminale (formerly a
liner), by tying it to the
sternpost with ropes, causing severe damage but not sinking it. While being towed from the harbour for repairs, it was torpedoed by a British submarine and damaged again. Later in the year, while en route for repairs for the second attack, it was sunk by American torpedo boats.
Because of bad weather two chariots did not reach the harbour.
All the chariots were lost; either scuttled, through equipment malfunction or human error. One charioteer died in the attack. The British submarine Unruffled recovered two others. Five had to land and were taken prisoner. Two of these prisoners later escaped from guards in Rome and hid in the
Vatican until the Americans
liberated Rome in 1944. Two others, involved in a quite separate operation (see below), escaped from guards in Libya. In the middle of
Tripoli they found a British Army unit and were returned to England.
Dove ended up in a
POW camp at
Bremen in Germany, and got home in May 1945. He received the
DSO. He died on 30 October 2005 aged 84.[4]
This left eight charioteers with two Chariots on Malta.
18 January-19: These two chariots were carried by submarines to attack ships that the Germans were going to use to block
Tripoli harbour. The frogmen arrived too late and a
blockship was sunk in the harbour mouth. None of the men or chariots returned to Malta.
January: At Loch Corrie and
Loch Cairnbawn in Scotland more charioteers were being trained.
16 April: Britain sent 14 new charioteers to Malta. In the days following they sent the new Chariot Mark II, also called the "Terry". Its riders sat back to back. It could manage 4.5 kn (8.3 km/h). The warhead was 1,100 lb (500 kg) of
Torpex high explosive.
June: During this month, the British submarine
HMS Unseen (P51) carried three chariots from Malta to Sicily. The divers
surveyed 100 mi (160 km) of coast, examining beaches to find dangers for armies who would be landing there later.
11 June: The other British charioteers went to Loch Cairnbawn.
Late June: Britain sent six more charioteers to Malta, for an operation to attack
Taranto.
25 June: Mussolini was replaced by
Pietro Badoglio as the head of the Italian government. As a result, the attack on
Taranto was called off, and the British frogmen were all sent to
Scotland. After this, there was only one British chariot attack in the Mediterranean.
July: At Loch Cairnbawn a charioteer died through an accident.
20 September: The British midget submarines known as
X-craft set out to attack the German
Tirpitz and the
Scharnhorst in
Kåfjord in
Norway. The Scharnhorst was absent but the Tirpitz was damaged in the attack.
24 September: Britain sent 4 chariots and 12 charioteers from their Scottish base to
Lunna Voe in
Shetland to train for operations among the Norwegian islands.
14 October: A British
torpedo boat carrying two chariots and four charioteers sailed from Lunna Voe to
Tevik Bay in Norway and landed a man called Job to wait until a German ship came, but German aircraft found the torpedo boat and attacked. The torpedo boat had to flee to Britain badly damaged, and it landed at
Dunbar in Scotland. Four days later another torpedo boat brought Job back to Shetland.
October or November: A British torpedo boat carrying two chariots and four charioteers went from Lunna Voe to Nordfjord in Norway and landed a man to wait until a German ship came. In two days no German ship came, the boat went back to Shetland.
11 November: A British torpedo boat carrying two chariots and four charioteers sailed from
Lunna Voe to Tevik Bay in Norway and landed a man to wait until a German ship came to
Askvoll harbour. In two days no German ship came. It snowed, and they thought that Askvoll harbour would be blocked with ice. As the torpedo boat returned to Shetland it ditched the chariots because of bad weather, and it brought the charioteers back.
31 October: On this day or earlier British and American forces entered
Naples.
October or November: British frogmen went to
Brindisi in Italy where they were combined with those
Italian frogmen who were in the Allied-controlled areas and those Italian frogmen who had been prisoners in Britain, as a single organization.
In the run up to the
Normandy Landings British Chariots were used to
survey the seabed along Normandy's coast in preparation for the troop landings.
2 June: After the Italians had left the
Axis, the
Italian destroyer Grecale sailed from
Bastia in
Corsica to
La Spezia carrying three speedboats, and
Italian frogmen including
Luigi Durand de la Penne, and two British chariots, to attack the Italian cruisers Bolzano and Gorizia, which had been taken by the Germans after the Italian surrender. The Grecale launched the boats, which then carried the chariots and their charioteers and released them three miles from La Spezia harbour. One chariot began to leak from its float tank and had to be abandoned, but the others sank the Bolzano. This thwarted a German plan to sink the Bolzano and the Gorizia where they would block the harbour entrance. The charioteers did not manage to rendezvous with the motor boats but got ashore and met up with
Italian partisans. In August one successfully crossed the
Arno to reach the Allies, but the other three were captured trying to do the same.
6 June:
Operation Overlord ("D-day"). British frogmen (not using Chariots) demolished many beach obstacles that Germans had set to stop an attacking army. One (Sub-lieutenant Hargreaves) drove an army
tank onto land.[5]
11 September: X-craft repeated their attack on the floating dock Laksevåg at Bergen in Norway and sank it.
27 October-28: The British submarine
Trenchant carried two Mk 2 Chariots (nicknamed "Tiny" and "Slasher"). Crewed by Sidney Woollcott, Sub lieutenant Tony "Lofty" Eldridge (aboard Tiny), Petty Officer Smith, Able Seaman Brown (aboard Slasher) to an attack on
Phuket harbour in
Thailand. They were released 6 mi (9.7 km) out from the harbour. The targets were two Italian liners, the Sumatra (attacked by 'Tiny') and the Volpi (attacked by 'Slasher'), each of approximately 5,000 tons. Both ships were put out of action (their masts were visible in Phuket harbour above the water until the early 1970s when the wrecks were salved). Six hours later, for the only time, the British charioteers rode back to their mothership. On the return journey the Trenchant jettisoned the chariots so it could travel faster, after receiving a report of a
JapaneseMTB in the area. The Trenchant carried the four charioteers back to Trincomalee. There were no further chariot operations in combat.
Special Boat Service, whose members are drawn largely from the Royal Marines
Britain's commando frogman force is now the
Special Boat Service (SBS), whose members are drawn largely from the
Royal Marines. They perform various operations on land as well as in the water. Until the late 1990s, all members of the
Special Air Service (SAS)
Boat Troop were trained as commando
frogmen.
In 1909 the British designer Commander Godfrey Herbert received a patent for a
manned torpedo. During
World War I, it was rejected by the
War Office as impracticable and unsafe.
Instead, in the inter-war period the Italian Navy successfully trained the special frogmen corps
Decima Flottiglia MAS equipped with a new and powerful craft: a slow speed human torpedo (SLC: siluro a lenta corsa, best known as maiale). Italian manned torpedoes were first used against Britain in 1941 when
Italian commando frogmen, some riding manned torpedoes, attacked British naval bases at
Malta,
Gibraltar and
Alexandria. In the last operation six Italian frogmen rode three SLC's into the harbour and damaged the British battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, and the tanker Sagona (the six frogmen were then captured). After these operations had shown how powerful and effective this weapon was the
Royal Navy was convinced to create their own programme. This was also fictionalised in the 1958 film The Silent Enemy.
1942
April: The British Navy formed the "Experimental Submarine Flotilla", initially based at
Portsmouth. It was led by Commanders G.M. Sladen and W.R. "Tiny" Fell, who began to train frogmen in secret. The Navy called their manned torpedoes
Chariots. Many of their frogmen's breathing sets' oxygen cylinders were German pilots' oxygen cylinders recovered from shot-down German
Luftwaffe planes. Those first breathing sets may have been modified
Davis Submarine Escape Sets; their
full face diving masks were the type intended for the
Siebe Gorman Salvus. But in later operations different designs were used, leading to a full face diving mask with one big face window. One version had a flip-up single window for both eyes to let the user get
binoculars to his eyes when on the surface. They used bulky thick diving suits called
Sladen suits.
1942 June: The Experimental Submarine Flotilla moved to "Port ZD" (Port D) at
Keose on
Loch Erisort in Scotland.[1] Their first powered manned torpedo was the
Mark I Chariot. Its hull was 21 in (53 cm) in diameter. It could make 2.9
kn (5.4 km/h) and could dive safely to a depth of 20 ft (6.1 m). The nose was a
warhead with 600 pounds of
high explosive. Training was hard. The men often suffered from
oxygen poisoning because of the use of pure oxygen at depth, burst
eardrums and
sinus trouble. The strangeness of the Chariots added to their problems. They were trained to ride and steer for a long time under water, and to then cut through harbour
defence nets. The hardest part was learning to work with the Chariots' warheads.
August: The first group of trained British charioteers moved to Base HHZ on
Loch Cairnbawn in Scotland to train in deeper waters - better matching the Norwegian Fiords, and to simulate attacking bigger better-defended places. One died in training.
26 October: The fishing boat Arthur operated by three Norwegians left Britain with seven British frogmen and two chariots hidden aboard.
28 October: Arthur reached Norway's coast near
Edøya.
30 October: Arthur unloaded the chariots and began to tow them to the target.
31 October: A storm broke the fastening bolts of the chariots, which were lost. The attack was called off.
1 November: The Arthur was scuttled at
Breidvik. The ten members of the operation set off for Sweden in two groups. Nine reached Sweden; Germans captured one and later murdered him in accordance with the illegal
Commando Order.
This operation was later portrayed in the 1955 war film, Above Us the Waves, featuring
John Mills, which was based on Operation Title and the later Operation SourceX-Craft midget submarine attacks on the Tirpitz.
Late November: Britain sent 26 Chariots to
Malta, and they became part of the "
Tenth Submarine Flotilla". Three submarines received containers on their decks to carry the Chariots.
Operation "Principle":
28 November: The British submarine
P-311 carrying 3 Chariots and 10 Charioteers left
Marsamxett on
Malta to attack
La Maddalena on
Sardinia, but struck a
naval mine near Sardinia and sank with all hands.
30 November: The British submarines Thunderbolt, Trooper and Unruffled (P46), left Malta carrying Chariots.
3 January: The submarines
HMS Thunderbolt and
HMS P311 carrying two chariots each and
HMS Trooper carrying three, with their respective crews, left to carry out this operation, the first by Britain involving the use of chariots. P311 was scheduled to attack targets at La Maddalena, while the other two submarines headed for the coast of
Sicily near
Palermo in a
Force 5 wind.
One of the chariots which the Trooper carried was ridden by Sub-Lieutenant Rodney Dove and Leading Seaman Jimmy Freel. As it was launched, a big wave washed it over the submarine, causing the loss of its limpet mines and the gear to attach the warhead to a ship.
The chariots put mines on ships and patrol boats and sank some of them, but none of the mines exploded.
One chariot put its warhead on the Italian cruiser Ulpio Traiano (under construction), and afterwards smaller explosives on four ships. Ulpio Traiano sank.
Dove's chariot (Chariot XVI) put its warhead on the Italian troop ship Viminale (formerly a
liner), by tying it to the
sternpost with ropes, causing severe damage but not sinking it. While being towed from the harbour for repairs, it was torpedoed by a British submarine and damaged again. Later in the year, while en route for repairs for the second attack, it was sunk by American torpedo boats.
Because of bad weather two chariots did not reach the harbour.
All the chariots were lost; either scuttled, through equipment malfunction or human error. One charioteer died in the attack. The British submarine Unruffled recovered two others. Five had to land and were taken prisoner. Two of these prisoners later escaped from guards in Rome and hid in the
Vatican until the Americans
liberated Rome in 1944. Two others, involved in a quite separate operation (see below), escaped from guards in Libya. In the middle of
Tripoli they found a British Army unit and were returned to England.
Dove ended up in a
POW camp at
Bremen in Germany, and got home in May 1945. He received the
DSO. He died on 30 October 2005 aged 84.[4]
This left eight charioteers with two Chariots on Malta.
18 January-19: These two chariots were carried by submarines to attack ships that the Germans were going to use to block
Tripoli harbour. The frogmen arrived too late and a
blockship was sunk in the harbour mouth. None of the men or chariots returned to Malta.
January: At Loch Corrie and
Loch Cairnbawn in Scotland more charioteers were being trained.
16 April: Britain sent 14 new charioteers to Malta. In the days following they sent the new Chariot Mark II, also called the "Terry". Its riders sat back to back. It could manage 4.5 kn (8.3 km/h). The warhead was 1,100 lb (500 kg) of
Torpex high explosive.
June: During this month, the British submarine
HMS Unseen (P51) carried three chariots from Malta to Sicily. The divers
surveyed 100 mi (160 km) of coast, examining beaches to find dangers for armies who would be landing there later.
11 June: The other British charioteers went to Loch Cairnbawn.
Late June: Britain sent six more charioteers to Malta, for an operation to attack
Taranto.
25 June: Mussolini was replaced by
Pietro Badoglio as the head of the Italian government. As a result, the attack on
Taranto was called off, and the British frogmen were all sent to
Scotland. After this, there was only one British chariot attack in the Mediterranean.
July: At Loch Cairnbawn a charioteer died through an accident.
20 September: The British midget submarines known as
X-craft set out to attack the German
Tirpitz and the
Scharnhorst in
Kåfjord in
Norway. The Scharnhorst was absent but the Tirpitz was damaged in the attack.
24 September: Britain sent 4 chariots and 12 charioteers from their Scottish base to
Lunna Voe in
Shetland to train for operations among the Norwegian islands.
14 October: A British
torpedo boat carrying two chariots and four charioteers sailed from Lunna Voe to
Tevik Bay in Norway and landed a man called Job to wait until a German ship came, but German aircraft found the torpedo boat and attacked. The torpedo boat had to flee to Britain badly damaged, and it landed at
Dunbar in Scotland. Four days later another torpedo boat brought Job back to Shetland.
October or November: A British torpedo boat carrying two chariots and four charioteers went from Lunna Voe to Nordfjord in Norway and landed a man to wait until a German ship came. In two days no German ship came, the boat went back to Shetland.
11 November: A British torpedo boat carrying two chariots and four charioteers sailed from
Lunna Voe to Tevik Bay in Norway and landed a man to wait until a German ship came to
Askvoll harbour. In two days no German ship came. It snowed, and they thought that Askvoll harbour would be blocked with ice. As the torpedo boat returned to Shetland it ditched the chariots because of bad weather, and it brought the charioteers back.
31 October: On this day or earlier British and American forces entered
Naples.
October or November: British frogmen went to
Brindisi in Italy where they were combined with those
Italian frogmen who were in the Allied-controlled areas and those Italian frogmen who had been prisoners in Britain, as a single organization.
In the run up to the
Normandy Landings British Chariots were used to
survey the seabed along Normandy's coast in preparation for the troop landings.
2 June: After the Italians had left the
Axis, the
Italian destroyer Grecale sailed from
Bastia in
Corsica to
La Spezia carrying three speedboats, and
Italian frogmen including
Luigi Durand de la Penne, and two British chariots, to attack the Italian cruisers Bolzano and Gorizia, which had been taken by the Germans after the Italian surrender. The Grecale launched the boats, which then carried the chariots and their charioteers and released them three miles from La Spezia harbour. One chariot began to leak from its float tank and had to be abandoned, but the others sank the Bolzano. This thwarted a German plan to sink the Bolzano and the Gorizia where they would block the harbour entrance. The charioteers did not manage to rendezvous with the motor boats but got ashore and met up with
Italian partisans. In August one successfully crossed the
Arno to reach the Allies, but the other three were captured trying to do the same.
6 June:
Operation Overlord ("D-day"). British frogmen (not using Chariots) demolished many beach obstacles that Germans had set to stop an attacking army. One (Sub-lieutenant Hargreaves) drove an army
tank onto land.[5]
11 September: X-craft repeated their attack on the floating dock Laksevåg at Bergen in Norway and sank it.
27 October-28: The British submarine
Trenchant carried two Mk 2 Chariots (nicknamed "Tiny" and "Slasher"). Crewed by Sidney Woollcott, Sub lieutenant Tony "Lofty" Eldridge (aboard Tiny), Petty Officer Smith, Able Seaman Brown (aboard Slasher) to an attack on
Phuket harbour in
Thailand. They were released 6 mi (9.7 km) out from the harbour. The targets were two Italian liners, the Sumatra (attacked by 'Tiny') and the Volpi (attacked by 'Slasher'), each of approximately 5,000 tons. Both ships were put out of action (their masts were visible in Phuket harbour above the water until the early 1970s when the wrecks were salved). Six hours later, for the only time, the British charioteers rode back to their mothership. On the return journey the Trenchant jettisoned the chariots so it could travel faster, after receiving a report of a
JapaneseMTB in the area. The Trenchant carried the four charioteers back to Trincomalee. There were no further chariot operations in combat.