EXTREME HAZARDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 October 1943, Page 3

EXTREME HAZARDS

FACED BY ATTACKING SUBMARINES ADMIRALTY GIVES DETAILS NO DOUBT ABOUT DAMAGE TO TIRPITZ (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.45 a.m.) RUGBY, October 11. An Admiralty communique states that the attack by midget submarines on the Tirpitz involved hazards of the first order. The attack was made on September 22. Two days later a German communique announced that an attack by submarines of the smallest type had been repulsed and prisoners taken. Insufficient evidence was available at the time to assess the result of the attack as operations were still proceeding. An interrogation of the crews of the midget submarines which took part in the exploit and subsequent photographic reconnaissance now leave no doubt, despite enemy claims to the contrary, that the attack met with success. .All the photographs faken after the attack show that the Tirpitz, which has not moved from her anchorage, is surrounded by thick oil, which covered the fiord where she lay and extended over two miles from the berth. Personnel who took part in the operation report that on September 22, while still in the immediate vicinity of the anchorage, they heard a series of very heavy detonations at the time expected for units to be attacking. The three British midget submarines which so far have not returned from the operations must be presumed lost, but in vie.w of the German claim that prisoners were taken, it is not unlikely that some of

the personnel of these vessels are in enemy hands. To give some idea of the magnitude of the difficulties of this remarkable achievement, it must be remembered that the Alton Fiord, in which the Tirpitz lay, was I,oo'o miles from the nearest British base. The midget submarines were set the task of penetrating a highly-defended base, where enemy ships thought themselves safe. They had to pass through minefields guarding the approaches to the anchorage and, after negotiating intricate fiords always vigilantly patrolled by the enemy, they had to carry out their attack in strongly protected and confined waters where the ships were moored. Finally, to regain their base, the same obstacles had to be overcome. The names of the commanding officers of the midget, submarines which did not return from this very gallant enterprise, and who undoubtedly pressed home their attack to the full, are Lieutenant D. Cameron, R.N.R., Lieutenant Henry Creet, R.N.V.R., and Lieutenant B. C. G. Place, D.S.C., R.N.