Fremantle's Submarines by Michael Sturma

Author:Michael Sturma [Sturma, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612518619
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

CHAPTER 15

ADJUSTMENTS AND SPECIAL MISSIONS

While the move to Fremantle vastly improved the quality of their leave, British submariners soon discovered that their patrols also became more arduous. From Ceylon, the British patrols had been relatively brief, generally short-leg cruises to the Straits of Malacca. With the move to Fremantle, the British submarines often had to travel more than two thousand miles just to reach their assigned areas, and patrols of six weeks or longer became common. Tantalus’ first patrol from Western Australia, under the command of Hugh Mackenzie, was conducted in the Java Sea and South China Sea during October to December 1944 and lasted fifty-two days, at the time the longest patrol made by a British submarine during the Second World War.1

British submariners faced not only longer journeys to their patrol areas but also some new hazards. Whereas Lombok Strait offered a menacing prospect for U.S. submarine crews traveling to their stations, it posed an even greater danger for British and Dutch boats. The slower speeds of their submarines meant that they were usually unable to traverse the strait submerged, while on the surface they faced greater difficulties outrunning Japanese patrol craft. Encountering antisubmarine vessels, the crew of HMS Sirdar submerged and ran the submarine on its batteries, only to discover when they surfaced hours later that due to the strong currents they had hardly moved.2 Most submarine skippers opted to go through the strait at night on the surface, dodging any Japanese naval craft. Captain David Syme, an Australian commando who traveled on HMS Telemachus, described the tension as they waited submerged off Lombok Strait to make a nighttime passage: “This was our first taste of real sub life and not one of us liked it—13 hours under water with the air getting fouler and fouler, no smoking and the light so poor we’re unable to read, all showed us this was not a picnic.”3

The run through Lombok Strait developed an unenviable reputation among the British, as explained by HMS Trenchant’s wireless operator Edwin Young in his diary: “The apparent fool-hardy attempt to go through the straits instead of around the coast means a saving of everything, time, fuel, food, water, precious engines, but leaves the lives—not considered so precious—open to grave risks.”4 For those submarines successfully negotiating Lombok Strait on the way to patrol areas, there was still the daunting prospect of the return voyage. Having made it through on HMS Stoic’s first patrol from Fremantle, one crewman professed, “[W]e felt as though two iron portals had clanged behind us for, before we could return to the friendliness of Australian shores, we would once more have to run this gauntlet of guns, radar stations and patrols.”5 When HMS Sirdar, under the command of Tony Spender, attempted to pass south through the strait on its homeward journey, it encountered a tricky northerly current as well as Japanese destroyers and air patrols. After being narrowly missed by a bomb, Spender elected to return to Fremantle by taking a longer route through Ombai Strait on the north side of Timor.

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