UNRIVALLED COURAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26693, 12 February 1948, Page 7

UNRIVALLED COURAGE

Midget Submarines’ Attack on Tirpitz New Zealand Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 11. Of the three midget submarines comprising the attacking force which damaged the German battleship Tirpitz in Alten Fiord, Norway, on September 22, 1943, it has now been disclosed that the one commanded by the Australian-born Lieutenant Henry Creer penetrated the enemy’s heavily protected anchorage before being destroyed. The midget’s actual fate is a mystery. No bodies, personal gear, or survivors were found and it was never proved whether it laid charges and was on the way out or was waiting to attack when destroyed.

Rear-admiral C. B. Barry, then commanding the Royal Navy’s submarines, wrote, in a despatch published in the London Gazette to-day: “From the position in which the wrecked craft was found it is clear that the crew showed courage of the highest order and lived up to the highest traditions of the service.” The other two commanders, Lieutenants Cameron and Place, were awarded the Victoria Cross. All four in Lieutenant Cameron’s submarine, and Lieu-’ tenant Place and one other of his crew survived, thus the attack cost half of the midgets’ personnel totalling 1,2. The British midgets did not use torpedoes; they placed charges each weighing two tons directly under the target. Admiral Barry’s reconstruction of the attack, supported by evidence obtained after the war, disclosed a story of cold, calculated courage unrivalled throughout the w r ar. All three commanders had incredible escapes between the time the midgets slipped from the mother submarines and the time they reached the innermost fiord in which the Tirpitz was anchored behind formidable defences. Lieutenant Cameron took His midget through the net defence in broad daylight on the surface following a small coaster through the net gate. The Germans sighted the midget, which dived. They next spotted it while aground and thought it was a porpoise, but before they discovered their mistake the midget again dived underwater. The next time the Germans saw the midget it was right- alongside the Tirpitz. Lieutenant Cameron destroyed his secret equipment, released the charges and scuttled the midget. The Germans rescued him and his crew just before the midget sank. Lieutenant Place’s craft was caught in the nets, but he extricated it and deposited its two charges. It was afterwards several times entangled in the nets. Depth charges and the explosion of the British charges severely damaged it. Lieutenant Place surfaced it an hour afterwards and stepped on board a pontoon but the midget sank before the other three members of the crew could leave it. One of the three surfaced three hours later by the escape apparatus. Meanwhile Lieutenant Cameron and his crew on board the Tirpitz anxiously looked at their watches as the time approached for the charges to explode. The Germans treated them well, and they were drinking hot coffee and schnapps as the charges went off and lifted the battleship .five or six feet out of the water. Panic reigned on board the Tirpitz for a short time after he explosion, which killed between 50 and 60 of the crew and put the Tirpitz out of action for seven months. The Germans expressed great admiration for the bravery and enterpi'ise of the midget’s crews. The despatch gives no details of the midgets, but Reuter says that Jane’s Fighting Ships listed 12 such vessels in the Royal Navy at the end of the war. Each is 53 feet long with a displacement of 30 tons.

Wing Commander Alan Deere, D. 5.0., D.F.C., D.F.C. (United States), French Croix de Guerre with palm), formerly of Wanganui, and one of New Zealand’s most famous fighter pilots, who will leave Malta on February 17 in a Lancaster for Ohakea. He expects to arrive about February 23. He will be only five days in New Zealand and intends to spend them in Wanganui, which he has not seen since he joined the Royal Air Force before the war on a short-service commission.