37' BRITISH SUBMERSIBLE - Weird-lookig WWII midget sub.

[u-5075]

I just came across this while looking for info on rebuilding the Biber for the Gosport, England, Submarine Museum.

There were four main types of midget submarines built by the British in WWII. One was this 37 foot submersible. It looks like a PT or patrol boat with a strange, deep keel. The other three types were the X type, the Chariot and the motorized submersible canoe.

Please go to following URL]http://bcarpent.webspace.fish.co.uk/Enthusiasts.htm[/url]

Go about 1/4th the way down this URL to

"The Sphere October 17, 1947
BUILT 75 MILES FROM THE SEA
THE 37 FOOT SUBMERSIBLE."

There is a drawing of it.
Did this really exist or is this the English answer to Big Foot?

[anonymous]

This is indeed a rare

This is indeed a rare bird. I am not sure but I believe these may have been used along with special SAS 'underwater canoes' in the Pacific (around Singapore?) by the British and Australians. Do a search on the net in that direction perhaps.

I will say one thing, the German Type XXIII to me no longer is the ugliest looking sub I have ever seen. This dubious award now goes to this....'thing'. Reading Shelvoke & Drewry's company history, no wonder this 'thing' looks like a ruddy underwater garbage truck!

Steve

[u-5075]

By the way, if you

[color=#000000]By the way, if you use a Welfreighter as a search term you can get a few more hits.

Here are 3 parts of or complete e-mails of possible interest.
They were obtained from another history buff.

#1
When I was an apprentice there was a model of the craft in the works. This was presented to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, London, and I have recently received the following e-mail, which I feel sure will interest you]

[u-5075]

HERE'S ANOTHER INTERESTING E-MAIL
from

HERE'S ANOTHER INTERESTING E-MAIL
from another interested individual.

To begin with, the existance of the craft had been consigned to history, once the war years were past. Much of the information concerning the design etc. was filed away in "closed" government archives, in the UK. These were intended to remain closed for 100 years. But following the lead taken under the freedom of information acts in the USA and Australia, the information has been down-classified and now is pretty much Public domain.

That said, the operational files, details of trials, prototype work etc, does not seem to be available. To gain an insight into this one has to go to the memoirs of individuals involved, and personal recollections.

Piece by piece I have built up a pretty good chronology of the design process, the testing and trials in the UK during 1943 - 4 , the building programme 1944-5 and the dispersal of some of the craft to operational areas 1944 - 5 .

My late Father was a British Commando Officer who was trained as a special forces canoeist. He was given training in the Welman One man sub, and later was re - recruited by SOE to train with the Welfreighter. In late 1944 he was sent to Australia as officer i /c a Welfreighter Maintenance team comprising 6 personnel. Welfreighters arrived in western Australia, from the UK, in February 1945 for tropical testing. Once in commission my father accompanied the craft north to Darwin, where a maintenance depot for the Services Reconnaissance Department (Special Operations Australia) already existed to support behind the lines activity in the Japanese held Indonesian archipelago, the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. My father was based there , so far as I can judge, until August 1945 when, just as the Japanese surrender was occurring, his group moved north to set up a new base on Morotai (Halmeras).

So far as anyone can determine the craft were judged unsuitable for operational use in the tropics. There is no record that they were ever used.

I am very interested that you should wish to raise the profile of these craft in the USA. Much has been written about the Chariots (Human Torpedoes) Used first by the Italians, but copied by the British and later by the Germans and Japanese. Both the German and Japanese used midget submarines 2, 4 and 6 man craft. The British developed the 4 man X craft, used to disable the Turpitz in a Norwegian Fjord, later further developed to enable accurate reconnaissance of the Normandy coast line by Commando swimmers. Two X craft were used to act as Light beacons to guide the Overlord fleet. Much later the X craft flotilla (12th submarine flotilla R.N.) also travelled to Australia, and using the 5 man XE type, were successful in attacking shipping at Singapore, and cutting Telephone links to Hong Kong. But as I say, much of this is well documented. The Welfreighter story remains a bit of a mystery.

Special Operations Australia fell under the South West Pacific Area HQ. This was commanded by General MacArthur. His 2nd in Command oversaw the running of SIS (Special Instelligence Services... the forerunner of the CIA.) SOA / SRD fell under this chain of command. Nothing happened in the Japanese war without approval of this HQ. It stands to reason that all detail of the existance, the capability, the effectiveness, and the location of Special Forces activity within SWPA would be on record with this HQ. It is fair to suggest that the whole story of the Welfreighter is somewhere within the USA national archive. I suspect the reason that nothing has come to light, so far , is simply that no one has been looking in the right place, or asking the right questions.

[koeze]

As far as I can

As far as I can translate this webpage there should be a Welfreighter in the Imperial War Musuem in Duxfort UK. Maybe anybody that has been there can verify this.

EJK

[u-5075]

PAPERCHASE UPDATE

I didn't have any

PAPERCHASE UPDATE

I didn't have any hits doing a rudamentary search of NARA or the US Archives. [However, they may have something stashed away in some obscure box in some obscure corner.] Then I sent an inquiry to NARA giving them keywords and a two sentence history of this midget sub. Got this response]http://www.awm.gov.au/[/url]

http://www.ozatwar.com

http://www.gunplot.net

A quick check produced some troubles navigating thru these sites. The short version is that I need to play around with these sites and search terms for a couple of days. I've got to do some work on our kitchen and then tonight and tomorrow I'll try to come up with a suggested way to search these sites. Meanwhile, if you want to check out some new-and-different info sources about the war in the Pacific, you can play with these sites.

Down skope

[u-5075]

ITEM #1
Speaking as the one

ITEM #1
Speaking as the one who has done some shredding of some fairly intresting stuff, the really interesting things DO get saved. There was one report in bound book form that was left over from WWII. It was the best reference on one subject, but it was the only one. This book was saved and occassionally, but rarely referred to. Sorry to be vague. Some reports do get stuck in the corner in vaults, then declassified and at some time sent to the US Archives. But really folks, there is a lot of paperwork generated by the military. There is soooo much of it that, if it were all kept the stuff in the bottom/back piles would become so lost and inaccessible that they might have just as well become destroyed. And a lot of those reports were relatively boring and nearly-useless to start out with. [Are you surprised?]

ITEM #2
MORE ON THE PAPERCHASE FROM OUR FRIEND IN ENGLAND.

As I said before, I have been researching this matter for over 20 years.
There are not many people around who have more to add to the story. Many of
those I contacted back in the 1980's are now deceased. That source of
information is almost at an end.

Tha capabilities of the midget submarines would have represented a defence
asset to the USA both during the 2nd world war, but also during the Korean
war, and on into the Cold War. The last x craft left service in the late
1950's. They were replaced....I am confident of that. There is no way that
the Department of Defence would have ignored the issue. In fact Mini sub
warfare always was and probably still is classified, even though the
technology involved has moved on.

There is no point in using Welfreighter as the search term, any more than X
craft, Sleeping Beauty or Welman would appear in file indexes. The
submersibles all are entered in the Naval directorate records in the
Australian Archives. In that the Welfreighter was intended to operate as a
method of covert resupply for behind the lines activity it will appear under
Naval options. This role was taken over in the U.S. by the Navy Seals after
WW2. In the UK the Royal Marines, and the Royal Naval clearance divers took
on the operational roles. Real Clandestine works went to the CIA and the
Foreign Office respectively. All SOE activities fell under Foreign Office
supervision, and disappeared back under the FO umberella when SOE was wound
up in 1945/6. Personnel employed by SOE received various Military
Intelligence designations, under the Foreign Office.

If it was a simple matter of tapping in the 'Welfreighter ' Keyword then it
would never have been so difficult to progress the story. Simple enquiries
about this long forgotten craft, and it's "sister craft "will no longer be
recognised. There remains no one still employed in any archive that could
ever have had reason to read the relevant files, they are probably on micro
film, and quite obscur. Remaining Unread and uncatalogued onto digital
databases, the only way to research them is to access the Unit diaries of
the HQ element involved, and then labour through the communication diaries.
etc. It will not be easy.

The archive you need is a subsection of Naval directory communications with
the Naval Staff at the SWPA HQ. This HQ was in Hollandia (Northern New
Guinea) in 1944. After the recapture of Manilla the HQ returned to the
Phillipines. SOA (SRD) HQ was in Melbourne. The fact that the US navy used
SRD personnel as sabotage crews on US submarines , on operational patrols in
1944/5 reveals the fact that the SWPA HQ co-ordinated its activities with
SOA (SRD) . The fact that the X and XE craft were sanctioned to attack
targets in the last few days of the Japanese war is also evidence. The fact
that the Welfreighters were authorised to move north to Morotai, albeit at
the same moment as the A bombs were being deployed, indicates that some
consideration had been given to their use. It suggests that the technical
problems that had faced the craft on first arrival in Australian waters had
in some sense been resolved. This further deployment could only have
proceeded with SWPA HQ sanction. They had to have been files on the
subject.

I cannot speak for the archivists of the US Navy after the war. But it would
be extraordinary if the trials and experience that surround this method of
covert insertion / operation was simply - as you suggest - "Shredded."There
was, and is too much at stake. Far too many waterside developments around
the world remain open to underwater attack. The events since 9.11 (and of
the last few days on land) have particular echoes of covert warfare. I
cannot believe that history on this matter has been simply disposed of.


Don't expect quick answers....but good luck with your attempts to find out
something more.

[u-5075]

With our appreciation to our

With our appreciation to our friend in England.
GOOD WELFREIGHTER PHOTOS

Go to http://www.awm.gov.au

Click onto Collection Databases
Click onto Collection Search

Use search term Careening Bay.
Here there are photos of submersible canoes
and Welfreighters.

Use search term Lugger maintenance Darwin
In the right foreground (sort of) is a Welfreighter.

Other search terms.
Midget submarines
Special Forces,
Coastwatchers
Special operations
Services Reconnaissance.

Enjoy

[anonymous]

Sorry to spoil a good

Sorry to spoil a good conspiracy theory and a web search but the Welfreighter story is well described in a BOOK

See "Underwater Warriors" by Paul Kemp, publ by Cassell, 1996.

( I have also seen the model at Greenwich, National Maritime Museum.)

The book suggests that it was a poor design - a development of the Welman which nearly drowned Admiral Louis Mountbatten in trials.

Quote - this was " conceived by enthusiastic amateurs working in the cloistered atmosphere of a special forces research establishment." The author contrasts it with the much more professional X craft and Chariots.

Just thinking about it, landing 2 tons of stores on a shore line would be better done using an inflatable than a submarine. (Not another shelving beach - Dohhh!)

[Antoine]

Pierre asked me to host

Pierre asked me to host this picture so I can post it here.