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Text originally published in 1956 under the same title.
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Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.
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BY SEA AND BY STEALTH
by
Burke Wilkinson
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
TO
HENRY HARRISON PROCTOR
Lieutenant Commander, U.S.N.R.
1908-1948
brother-in-law and friend
AUTHORS FOREWORD
EARLY in World War II there were rumours of spy landings on the island of Nantucket off the New England coast. The United States Navy needed an Intelligence officer theresomeone with both legal and local knowledge. The story goes that such a man was commissioned, but that when his orders came through he found himself ordered to Madagascar as Naval Attach and Observer instead. The story goes on that the Navys only comment at what appeared to be a case of rather off-hand personnel work was that one island was about like another and he would probably do all right.
The point is that the Navy was correct. In wartime newly recruited civilians had to learn special skills at speed, and it was a tribute to the service that it turned out the men it did under the pressures that existed.
My own case was not unlike that of the officer sent to Madagascar. Because my last name began with W and all the W s from a certain training course were selected for Harbour Defence School, I became an expert in the installation of submarine and torpedo nets. Because the British were ahead of us in this special field, I was sent to the Admiralty on a liaison post to find out what progress was being made. Because the measure we were especially trying to protect against was surprise attack by surface and underwater craft, I had perforce to study enemy activity in this field. And because the Royal Navy, unlike the U.S. Navy, was acutely interested in small submarines as an offensive weapon, I found myself reporting on measure as well as countermeasureand occasionally taking a ride in these cramped and claustrophobic craft.
This book is the sum of my experience and observation. It forms, in essence, a loosely connected account of small-craft surprise attack in World War II. Several of the celebrated enemy attacks, such as that of the Italian frogman De La Penne at Alexandria and that of Gunther Prien, the German U-Boat ace, at Scapa Flow, I have had the privilege of describing in full and accurate detail for the first time. My accounts appeared in various American and European magazines. But in recent years, since these articles first appeared, a considerable amount of new material has come to the surface. And I have had the opportunity to meet and talk with many of the survivors of this lonely and devious form of warfare. So the chapters have been brought up to date with fresh materialmaterial which will, I hope, clarify some of the myths that have accumulated and lay some of the ghosts. Several chapters have never before appeared in print.
Part One deals strictly with small-craft attack.
Part Two tells the story of two successful German operationsone by full-size submarine and one by invasionin which the element of surprise was exploited. It also investigates the relatively unknown field of harbour defence, and examines hazards we may still have to face in this matter of surprise attack.
On a recent trip to Rome, I uncovered certain material about the Alexandria raid which expands (and in part refutes) a previous version told by that great maker and interpreter of history, Sir Winston Churchill.
The purpose of this informal book is to entertain and also to alert. The individual exploits carry their own compulsion, as tales of great courage almost always do. I have varied my style in an attempt to tell each in the way best suited to the narrativefrom the heroic mould of the episode in Oslofjord to the cryptic, understated mood of the chapter on the British foray against the German battleship Tirpitz .
***
Man has always been fascinated by the waters beneath the seatheir strange beauty, the shadowy life which inhabits them, and the unrivalled opportunity they afford for attacking his fellow man with impunity. If the dangers of such attacks in the future are brought home to the reader, this modest collection will, I hope, have served its double purpose.
B. W.
MAPS
Of the Tanker Olterra
Operation Frankton
The Lair of Tirpitz
Sinking of H.M.S. Royal Oak
PART I Small-Craft Attack in World War II
CHAPTER I Too Little Too Late
DURING the final German collapse in the spring of 1945, advanced parties of Allied army and navy officers were astonished at the scores upon scores of midget submarines which they found in the German ports. Some were waterborne, ready for attack, in Bremerhaven and Wilhelmshaven. Others, rigged for launching, were mounted on trailers and parked in fields. Dozens were still on the ways in various stages of construction. From the numbers of the craft and the skill of their design it was evident that the Germans, in the waning days of the war, were setting great store by these curious craft.
Even today the part that sneak attack played in the European war is little known. First of all let me define the term: for the purposes of this chapter, it comprehends attack by midget submarine, explosive boat, limpet-carrying swimmer, and two-man torpedo.
The Italians had been first in the field with a good record for small-boat raids in the first war. By both temperament and geographical position they were well suited to this form of warfare. It appealed to their love of individual glory, of the colourful and theatrical. It also appealed to a certain love of the devious bred by those long centuries when Italy was overrun by the armies of Europe and the Italians were forced to live literally by their wits. Moreover the mild, nearly tideless waters of the Mediterranean have always been ideal hunting grounds for the swimmer and two-man torpedo whose major natural enemies are cold water and swift currents.
In World War I the Italians chalked up a total of 47,600 tons of Austrian battleship, by motorboat and swimmer attack. The tactical situation in 1915 was a peculiar one. The deeply serrated coastline of Dalmatia was ideal for Austrian offensive purposes by sea. Whenever the Austrians chose, their fleet could attack the flat, exposed Italian coast with a good prospect of surprise. Yet they themselves were inviolate in their rock-girt, deep-water anchorages behind protective layers of islands. There were only two alternatives for the Allies: either to keep a vast fleet on constant patrol or to ferret the enemy out of his lair by small craft. They chose the latter course.
