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Account of Purley on Thames Gallantry Should Never Be Forgotten

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Account of Purley on Thames Gallantry Should Never Be Forgotten Account of Purley on Thames Gallantry should never be forgotten The Purley Connection While John Chapman was taking Mrs Eileen Goddard from St Mary’s Avenue to the Royal Berks Hospital on a Volunteer Centre trip, she happened to mention that her husband was one of the crew of X6 – one of the three midget submarines sent to try to cripple the Tirpitz in 1943. He had no idea that we had a Purley connection with an event like this and thought a few more people would like to know about it. A second connection emerged in that John had been in contact with Vernon Coles DSM over the war in the Pacific when he was Chairman of West Berkshire Council. Vernon was born in Tilehurst and was a close friend of Edmund Goddard with whom he had served on X-craft. The Tirpitz The Tirpitz was one of the most powerful battleships ever built. Her role was to attack convoys bringing much needed supplies from America to Britain and Russia. At 41000 tons she outgun- Edmund Goddard [M030508] ned any Royal Navy ship and if allowed to roam the Atlantic she would be a terrible danger to our ships, far more of a menace than any submarine. Churchill christened her ‘The Beast’ and put the country’s best minds to work to see how they could counter the menace. She was commissioned in February 1941, the last and most powerful of the Bismark Class and was sent to Trondheim in Norway in January 1942 to prevent an allied invasion of Norway and to attack the Russian convoys. She was responsi- ble for the destruction of the convoy PQ17 with- out firing a single shot – her mere presence was enough to cause the convoy to scatter letting the individual ships to be picked off by U-boats. Two squadrons of bombers were sent out on the 30th Jan to try to sink her but failed to find her. Two The Tirpitz [M070114] more naval squadrons of torpedo bombers tried again in March without success and more attacks by the RAF in April saw 13 aircraft lost with still no success. The solution the navy came up with was the X-craft, midget submarines with a crew of four whose job it was to slip through the defences and lay huge explosive charges alongside the Tirpitz and, hopefully, get away before they detonated. Six craft were built initially and crews started training in great secret at Loch Cairnbawn on the west coast of Scotland. Training was completed in September 1943 and, towed by more conventional submarines, six boats set out on a 1500 mile journey to Norway. Edmund Goddard Edmund Goddard was born in 1921 and attended Woodlands Preparatory School in Deganwy near Llandudno and St Edwards School Oxford. He joined the Royal Navy in 1941 and was sent to HMS Sutlam in Portsmouth to test his suitability as an Engine Room Artificer. He was given five pieces of rough steel which he had to shape before a panel of officers. Although he took a long time over the task he passed as an ERA 5th Class and was sent on a two weeks Ships' Engineering Course. Over the next few months he spent time fir watching on the roof of the Wren's quarters at Portsmouth - not a nice experience with the Germans dropping bombs all around. He went on to HMS Hornet at Gosport to train on marine engines arriving on Christmas Eve 1941 having been on leave at home at Harpendon, expecting to spend Christmas there when his new orders came by telegram. There was no berth for him aboard Hornet so he went ashore to a local pub and met up with four other sailors who offered to speak to their landlady who agreed to take him in and give him Christmas dinner. On Hornet he was employed on maintenance and learned about motor boats. One day he spotted a request on the notice board for volunteers for submarines. He was getting pretty fed up and bored with his job on Hornet so he asked his Chief Petty Officer and was sent off to HMS Dolphin, the submarine base at Gosport. for tests and a medical and was accepted after two days. Here he received further training including as a navy diver. On one occasion he was used to test a new diving suit and was lowered into the water in it. Unfortunately there was deep mud at that point and he sank into it and they had to get a heavy duty crane to pull him out. The X-craft Midget submarines had been pioneered by the Italian Navy The Royal Navy experimented with X1 and X2 but X3 and X4 were the real prototypes. X3 was built at Hamble by Varley Marine and launched 15th March 1942 and X4 by Portsmouth Dockyard. Eventually the Navy were satisfied they had a workable weapons system and ordered six boats from Vickers Armstrongs in Barrow-in- Furness. They were 51 feet 4 in long, 5 ft 9 inches in beam and had a draught of 5 ft 4 inches. They could dive to a depth of 300 feet and travel at 5.5 knots submerged, propelled by a single Gardner diesel or a Keith-Blackman electric motor with a range of about 80 miles. They had a crew of four, originally just a Commander, Pilot and ERA but a diver was added later. They were armed with two 4,400 lb. explosive charges (Amatol) which were strapped to the sides to be dropped with a time fuse set. Training began in great secrecy in September 1942 and in December 1942 and January 1943 the six X5 class were delivered. These were externally similar to X4 but internally very different, having had a wet-dry cabin installed which enabled a frog-man to enter and exit while submerged. Each X-craft was paired with a conventional submarine which acted as its 'mother' and which towed it to the launch point for a mission and then, hopefully, back to base. Operation Source The attack on the Tirpitz was code-named Operation Source and volunteers were called for for 'hazardous duties' Both Edmund Goddard and Vernon Coles volunteered and were designated the ERAs for X6 and X9 respectively. The requirement was that they had to be under 24, single and qualified as a diver as well as being Engine Room Artificers. Edmund was sent to Scotland for training and here met up with Vernon Coles with whom he was to cement a life-long friendship. Each of the X-craft had two crews, one for passage and one for attack, made up of three officers and an artificer. Because of this, many of the naval formalities between officers and ratings were forgotten and very close bonds built, although the ratings and the officers had separate messes while on training. Training took place at Loch Striven at a base near Strone Point on the western shore. This is about twenty miles due west of Glasgow and far from prying eyes. The training was very hard and quite dangerous. One exercise required the men in full diving gear to vent- ure into the sea with a rope tied to their wrist. If they were OK the signal was to give a short tug on the rope and the officer would let out a bit more. If things were X6 docking at Loch Striven [M001862] not OK the signal was four sharp tugs in quick succes- sion. On this one occasion it was Edmund venturing into the depths with a midshipman holding the rope. He mis-interpreted the emergency signal and merely let out more rope until he was left with just the end. By this time Edmund was in a pretty bad way – no air and close to drowning. By the time the mistake was realised and he was hauled back to the beach he was almost gone, his suit had to be cut off and he had to be resuscitated with oxygen.. The midshipman was packed off to HMS King George V in disgrace. Social Life At the base they were isolated from much of the traditional Navy formalities although one or two officers were sticklers for discipline. The men were billetted at a farm house called Glen Striven House and base HQ was at the Rothesay Hotel. There was very little to do in their rare moments of free time and few roads to anywhere. However being sailors they could make their way by motor boat to Rothesay where there was a cinema or cross the loch to where there was a road to Dunoon. Being ratings they were not allowed access to the duty-free alcohol which the officers enjoyed and had to be content with the watered down standard issues of rum. Although the officers occasionally let the men have some of their beer supplies, on one occasion the men decided to go to the pub. They borrowed a whaler and rowed across the loch and then ran 15 miles to the pub, only to find the landlord calling ‘time’ as they arrived. Deprived of their pleasures they ran 15 miles back only to find the whaler stranded by the receding tide and had to manhandle it over the mud to get back to base. On another occasion they went to a pub in Sandbank where the beer was stored in the yard and guarded by a fierce alsation. They came prepared with kippers which the dog wolfed down and while it was pre-occupied they stole a barrel of beer and smuggled it back to base where the contents were soon distributed among the other men.
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