Mac Gregory,
Anne Callison from Colorado, USA here. I'm having trouble finding out if Port X, training base for the X Craft, was in Loch Ewe or Loch Awe, Scotland. Any idea or direction on how to ascertain what's right? Your help will be greatly appreciated. This is for a screenplay I'm writing.
Anne Callison
Anne,
The only references that I can find relating to training bases for Midget Subs in WW2 comes from Gleason, James and Waldron, Tom, Midget Submarine, Ballantine Books, Random House, New York, February 1975.
In that book, they report that HMS Titania in Lock Corrie, Scotland acted as a Depot Ship for Jeep or 2 Man Torpedo Training, from late in 1942, and other training in these craft was carried out at Lock Ciarnbawn Scotland, here HMS Bonaventure was the Depot Ship from 1942 to 1944.
It was from this base that the raid on the German Tirpitz was mounted. Later in February of 1945 Bonaventure sailed to Brisbane Australia, with 6 X craft.
Over WW2, the Royal Navy had 11 Submarine Tenders, but only the 2 cited above were involved with Midgets.
I am unable to gather any references to X craft training in Lock Ewe or Lock Awe, or find any reference to Port X.
I am sending another E-Mail with some details of X Craft leaving for the Tirpitz raid in September of 1943.
Tirpitz - Gallery
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/tirpitz/gallery/galltiropersource.html
Sorry I am not able to be definitive for you.
Regards,
Mac. Gregory.
Hello Anne,
Earlier this year you wrote to me about Port X, and I could not be definitive for you.
Attached is an E-Mail from Tom Colville who lives in Scotland, and he gives you the location you were after, you were writing a screen play about X Craft as I recall.
It is great when some one reaches Ahoy, and is able to help.
I do trust it is not too late for your needs.
With best wishes,
Mac. Gregory.
Dear Mac Gregory,
I see you have recently had an enquiry from someone in the USA concerning the location of Port X the midget submarine training base in Scotland in WW2.
The Location for this base was in Loch Striven opposite ( due north from) Rothesay in the Kyles of Bute on the Clyde. Port X base HQ was the Rothesay hotel. Crews were housed in GlenStriven House which had been taken over by the Navy.
In fact the training on the Midget submarines took place from motherships at several locations on the west Coast of Scotland between 1943 and 1944. Loch a' Choire on the north side of Loch Linnhe was used for training of the Chariot crews and for the training of the Welman one man subs. HMS Titania was the mother ship. Loch a' Chairn Bhain ( Cairnbawn) further north about 30 miles from Cape Wrath was used for X craft training and the chariot / welman training. Both HMS Titania and HMS Bonaventure ( later the Clan Davidson) were motherships there.
Training with the SB canoes ( of the type later deployed in the disasterous Rimau raid on Singapore carried out by SRD) was carried out initially on a reservoir at Staines, and later I understand, some training was carried out on Loch Ewe . But this needs more research.
For information on all of this Pamela Mitchell has written two books about the Midget submarine story the most informative is "the Tip of the Spear" ISBN 1872955142 .
There were other mini submarines developed by the SOE in the UK. The most impressive of these was deployed to Australia early in 1945 to the Z special Unit base on Garden Island off Fremantle WA. This was a 37ft experimental craft designed to look like a motor boat but operate for up to 1000 miles on the surface and dive to a maximum of 150 ft. It was crewed by two, but could carry up to 4 passengers / agents and up to one ton of stores. It was developed by the Inter Services Research Bureau ... an offshoot of SOE and was built at Letchworth in England. It was called the Welfreighter.
I have been actively researching this story for many years now. My late father was the SOE Army Commando officer sent to Australia in charge of the mini sub's maintenance team. I can confirm that two craft arrived at Garden Island in February 1945. After short working up trials one of these was transported north to Broome and trials were conducted between there and Darwin in March 1945. The sub ended up at the Lugger Maintenance section base of Z special Unit in Darwin.(The AWM website has a photo P 00365.005, of Army craft at the LMS. The welfreighter is in the middle ground on the right of the photo.) My father remained there with it until August 1945 when he travelled...I presume with the welfreighter in tow.... on a converted MFV HMS Eduardo (MFV 2046) north to Morotai, only arriving after hostilities were ended.
The whole of this affair was and remained Top secret until the mid 1980's . Since 1999 the SOE files relating to the craft...I have recently discovered...have ben available and open for research. A new website is now in place which is specific to this craft and over the next few months the whole story , as we understand it so far, will be put on the site. Up to 20 craft may have been built in total. It is not confirmed that any were ever actually deployed operationally.
Of course if anyone anywhere can add detail or can recall the Welfreighter craft, the personnel or its operation anywhere I would be delighted to hear of this.
I hope this is of interest to you.
Websites such as yours frequently throw up such wonderful bonuses to the research. Thank you.
Best wishes.
Tom Colville ( I live in the NW highlands of Scotland...by the way !)
Hello Tom,
My grateful thanks for your trouble in forwarding all the information about the location of Port X in Scotland. The enquiry was from Anne, a lady from Colorado, US, who wanted the information for a screen play she was writing. It is quite wonderful when the internet plays a significent role in solving a problem separated by thousands of miles.
Your mail was of great interest to me too, as I am particularly interested in the midget subs and their role in WW2. I was a young Sub Lieutenant in the RAN, serving in our heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra, and we were in Sydney Harbour the night the Japanese midgets made their quite daring attack. They were very unlucky not to achieve more success than they did.
In 1947, I spent all of that year in different RN schools in UK undertaking the very first combined Long Course to qualify as a Torpedo Anti-Submarine specialist, and our torpedo firings were carried out at Loch Long on the west coast of Scotland, and our minesweeping on the Firth of Forth. I have great remembrances of our time in Scotland.
Much earlier, when but an 18 year old midshipman, we worked out of both Scapa Flow and the Clyde over 1940/1941.
Once more Tom, thank you.
Best regards,
Mac.
Last night I happened to come across these pages about a site that I had never heard at Keose near Stornoway in the Western Isles. Worth a read.
http://www.hebrideanconnections.com/Details.aspx?subjectid=38913
http://www.hebrideanconnections.com/Details.aspx?subjectid=38002&relationship=associated~with%E2%80%A6&caller=38913
http://www.hebrideanconnections.com/Details.aspx?subjectid=8975
Martin Briscoe
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