by gerald hall
“I’m damned glad to see you and the kids, Sweetheart.” Pappy said as he reached out, pulled Polly onto the Cavalier’s cargo deck, put his arms around her and kissed her.
“Well, it certainly took you long enough, Pappy.” Polly said with a momentary frown.
“You know how it is. I tried as hard as I could, but as usual, the brass kept getting in the way. Then there were the Japanese working very hard to make things even more difficult.” Pappy humorously replied.
“I know. We have a lot of catching up to do. But first, I want to get out of here and get into some new clothes. These don’t seem to fit me very well at the moment.” She laughed. But at the same time, tears were beginning to flow from both Pappy and Polly as the children also ran up to hug their father. They all seemed completely oblivious to the other escapees that walked past them into the flying boat for the trip to safety and freedom.
About ten minutes later, the rest of the Australian soldiers quietly came back to the Cavalier. A couple of them were carrying a stretcher with a wounded American soldier on it. As soon as the stretcher was brought inside, the nose cargo door started to be lowered back into flight position.
Even before everyone was strapped down in their seats, the Cavalier was already backing out into the cove using a pair of engines with their propellers angled for reverse thrust. In less than a minute, the flying boat was lifting off of the water and on the way back to Australia.
Pappy Gunn was at the controls of the Cavalier as it flew low over the water. Sitting behind him in the Cavalier’s cockpit, were his wife Polly and his four children. Polly and the children ate some military field rations as though they were delicacies because of the lack of food at the detainment camp that they had escaped from. Pappy’s family never felt closer than during those few hours flying away from Japanese occupied Luzon and towards the safety of northern Australia.
Just as the sun began to peek over the horizon, the Cavalier started its landing run into King Sound. A small crowd of people had already gathered at the Cavalier beaching dock. They knew about Pappy and the plight of his family. As the flying boat finally came to a stop by the dock, the nose door opened up. At the sight of Pappy and his family, the crowd erupted with cheers and applause. Tears were once again began flowing down Pappy’s and Polly’s faces.
Eventually, Pappy Gunn and his family made their way over to Harold Cavill’s office. Harold had promised Pappy a few months earlier that he would do all that he could to help get Pappy’s family safely out of the Philippines. Pappy wanted them to meet the man who did the most to help get Pappy’s family out of harm’s way.
Harold was already standing at the door when Pappy and his family walked up.
“Hello, Pappy. I am glad to finally get to meet your family. I trust that everything worked out alright during the flight.” Harold said.
“Hello, Mister Cavill. I just wanted to come by and thank you for everything that you have done to help me save my family. If there is anything that you need help with, just let me know.”
“Pappy, I am just glad that I was able to help. I know that you still left behind a lot of friends, American and Philippine alike, back there under Japanese occupation. So we all have a lot of work to do. I will continue to do all that I can until this damned war and all of the others have ended.”
“Amen to that, Mister Cavill.” Polly interjected as she continued to wrap her arm around Pappy.
Chapter Eleven:
Cavill Shipyards
Derby, Western Australia
June 11, 1942
Commander Edwin Sampson stood at the edge of the pier when the first submarine of the class slid out of the covered construction building down the ways into the waters of King Sound. In most aspects, this launching of a naval vessel was quite ordinary except for the extreme secrecy that Harold Cavill had imposed upon the entire construction of this boat. Harold stood there next to the Australian Navy officer and watched as the submarine slid into the water and was quickly corralled by a trio of small tugboats.
“I must say, Mister Cavill. This is a most unusual submarine. It is a large boat certainly as well. How much more remains to be done to complete its construction?”
“Nothing, Commander. It is ready for sea trials presently. It is larger than any submarine in the Commonwealth except for the Royal Navy’s Thames-class boats. This submarine displaces approximately two thousand metric tons while surfaced and over twenty-five hundred tons submerged. But it is as agile as any fleet submarine in existence.”
“Where are the submarine’s deck guns? I don’t see any gun armament at all except for what appear to be light automatic cannons in small turrets at the ends of the conning tower.” An incredulous Commander Sampson asked.
“This submarine doesn’t have any deck guns. The light cannon are there for antiaircraft fire only in case that the boat is surprised on the surface by an enemy aircraft. Otherwise, the submarine is designed to do most of its patrolling and all of its fighting while underwater. It has six torpedo tubes in the bow and a large number of reloads for that purpose.”
“Why eliminate the deck gun altogether? There are some targets that aren’t worth the cost of a torpedo.”
“This vessel has been designed to maximize its underwater speed and range. That required eliminating everything on the outer hull that would increase resistance while underwater, including deck guns and many external fittings. If the target is too small to justify the use of a torpedo, the twenty-five millimeter automatic cannons in the conning tower will be adequate, I’m sure. This boat has much larger prey to be hunting out there in the ocean in any event.” Harold proudly said.
“Where did you get the idea for this design, Mister Cavill?”
“I based much of it on the Royal Navy’s R-class submarines that were built during the Great War. They were designed to hunt and kill enemy submarines. These boats could also be very effective in attacking surface vessels if necessary. I purchased one of the R-class boats as they were being retired. Then I started to examine the vessel’s technical features. I had my naval architect increase the size of the basic R-class submarine in order to give the vessel significantly greater armament and endurance. My engineers added higher capacity batteries and better underwater sound detection equipment. Finally, I added something that the Dutch had incorporated into their latest submarines. They call the device a ‘schnorkel’. It allows the submarine to remain submerged at periscope depth while continuing to run its diesel engines for movement and the recharging of its batteries. But this submarine is more of a fleet vessel that is designed for long range operations against surface ships.”
What Harold didn’t tell Commander Sampson was that the new submarine had also been partially based on the German Type XXI that had been developed late in the Second World War. There had been some more modern refinements added, but Harold had been very careful not to overtly include technologies that didn’t actually exist during that point of history. But his submarine’s hull actually was more teardrop-shaped than that of the Type XXI, giving Harold’s design even higher underwater speed and agility. The boat still used two propellers, but the shape of the blades was more advanced than existing designs so that they would be quieter and more efficient than their competitors.
The diesel engines inside the submarine were actually turbocharged V-16 versions of the engines used by the tanks also produced by one of Harold’s factories. They operated while the submarine was underwater through the snorkel device that was incorporated in the streamlined conning tower. The engines and a variety of other equipment were all mounted on rubber shock mounts to reduce the submarine’s acoustic signature.
The submarine also had multiple passive hydrophones on its sides as well as the bow sonar to aid in target detection and localization. Of course, the submarine didn’t have the sophisticated computers that twenty-first century attack submarines possessed to process sonar and hydrophone inputs. But Harold had to be very careful not to exceed the stat
e of the art for that time period by any significant amount.
I am also working on another submarine that is even more closely patterned on the R-class.” Harold said while pointing at another of the covered slipways.
“What is special about this vessel, Mister Cavill?” Commander Sampson asked.
“Well, like the R-class, this submarine is designed to hunt and kill enemy submarines. But, unlike the earlier design, this vessel has three times the displacement of the R-class and incorporates all of the latest technology. This allows the submarine to remain on patrol for far longer and is even faster underwater than the submarine that I showed you earlier. The greatest threat to a submarine will very soon be another submarine. This vessel will be that threat to anything that the Japanese or even the Germans have to offer.”
“What else makes this new submarine different than the one that you showed me earlier?”
“It uses a single screw to propel it, like the R-class. It is also even more streamlined than my other design, even to the point of having absolutely no other armament except for the six torpedo tubes in the bow. The diesel engines that power the vessel are far superior to those of the R-class as well as the batteries. It also has a snorkel to allow the submarine to recharge batteries while remaining submerged.
This submarine can sprint underwater to speeds of nearly twenty-five knots. It is virtually silent while cruising at five knots and listening on its array of hydrophones for an enemy submarine. It can travel for more than three hundred miles underwater while silently hunting an enemy submarine as well.”
“These two submarines would be quite revolutionary if you are right, Mister Cavill. I will have to inform the Admiralty about them. However, we haven’t had any operational submarines in our navy for over ten years. I don’t know if we even have anyone in the navy who could operate a submarine.” Commander Sampson noted.
“I’m sure that you still have some old sailors around with some experience in submarines. If not, I’m sure that either the British or the Americans would be able to lend you some experienced personnel to help train a new generation of Australian submariners to man a new generation of submarines.”
“I would imagine so. The Admiralty will want to get these two boats into service against the Japanese as quickly as possible with how things are going at the moment.”
“As I mentioned before, the first submarine is ready for sea trials. We can begin those immediately with a crew of Australian sailors working with technicians from my shipyard who are familiar with the systems onboard this boat.
I will have the other submarine ready for sea trials in another three months. We can do the same process with her as well when the time comes. “Harold proudly explained.
“This is all incredible, especially for someone who has no experience with submarines. I also have to say that I am very impressed with the motor torpedo boats that you have patrolling the area around here. Those vessels are considerably more familiar to me. I am curious about how many have you built?”
“I have four currently operating here, plus I have another four under construction.”
“That is also quite extraordinary, Mister Cavill. What else can you tell me about them?”
Harold smiled for a moment. He knew already that Commander Sampson was part of the Australian Admiralty’s Bureau of Shipbuilding. Harold also suspected that the officer was also there to see if Harold had any other new designs that the Australian Navy would be interested in procuring.
It was time to do a bit of salesmanship. It won’t take too much effort. The Australian Admiralty was already very pleased with their new destroyers that Harold had produced for them. The Australian government had contracted for both of the new submarines shortly after it had seen little more than Harold’s conceptual drawings. Harold had little doubt that Australian officials in Melbourne would feel the same about the new torpedo boats.
“Why don’t we take a little trip onboard one of them? I think that you will find that seeing the vessel in action will be more enlightening.”
The two men then walked over to a nearby pier where one of the torpedo boats was tied up. They got onboard. Harold then walked over to the boat’s commander and quietly gave him instructions. Then Harold and Commander Simmons walked up to the boat’s bridge. A roar of powerful diesel motors soon followed after the ropes were released that held the boat to the pier.
Harold and his guest stood on the boat’s bridge as it got underway from the pier. The vessel was already doing over ten knots when Harold started to describe the vessel’s various features.
“As you can see Commander, the boat is armed with four twenty-one inch diameter torpedoes as its main ship-killing armament. The torpedoes can be fired in pairs from each side though the forward tubes are enclosed within the sides of the foc’sle to protect them as well as to provide additional reserve buoyancy and storage space for the boat. The aft pair of torpedoes can be replaced by several depth charges for use against enemy submarines. Torpedoes can also be replaced by mines so that the boat can be used for minelaying. Finally, the boat can be used as a coastal submarine chaser by replacing the torpedoes with depth charges.
We are currently armed with a forty-millimeter Bofors automatic cannon mounted on the craft’s stern. It gives us a long range punch against both aerial and surface targets. The mount can carry a heavier gun, if necessary. On the bow, we have a single twenty-millimeter Oerlikon automatic cannon. Like the aft mount, there is space and weight reserved for a heavier weapon. On either side of the bridge, we have twin Browning fifty-caliber heavy machine guns. This gives us a formidable punch against both surface and aerial targets, not to mention the ability to hit targets along the shoreline as needed.
Now, Commander. Please let me show you the heart of this boat.”
They walked down a narrow set of steps inside of the torpedo boat’s hull. Harold continued to point out features of the boat.
“Accommodations are tight with the crew’s bunks being located in the forward part of the hull, but normally patrols are of fairly short duration. The boat is normally operated by a crew of between twenty-five and thirty personnel.”
Harold then led the commander through a narrow passageway aft to the engine room.
“These are the beating hearts of this boat. We have four turbo-supercharged ten-cylinder inline diesel engines, each powering its own propeller. Each engine develops over one-thousand horsepower. Together, they give this boat a maximum speed of well over forty knots.
There is a small gearbox behind each engine that does two things. First, it reduces the propeller speed so that we can use larger and more efficient propeller. Secondly, it has a reverse gear that allows this boat to either come to a complete stop within only a few seconds or to significantly reduce the turning radius by reversing the propellers on one side of the boat as needed.
Because these are diesel engines, unlike the petrol engines used by the Americans, they give this boat a much longer endurance and are far less likely to catch fire in the event of enemy damage.”
“This is a surprisingly potent weapon, Mister Cavill. In fact, your torpedo boat here reminds me a great deal of the designs that the Germans have been building according to some intelligence reports. I am curious about how large your boat here is?”
“This boat displaces approximately one-hundred and ten tons and is just over thirty-two meters in length.”
One thing that Harold didn’t tell the Australian Navy officer was that the boat itself was based on a German Lurssen design. Harold had paid a substantial bribe to officials at the Lurssen yard before the beginning of the war to obtain the latest design changes to ensure that his design would be superior to anything else on the water. Harold had earlier purchased a Lurssen motor boat to test many of the concepts before the construction of the first of the torpedo boats. Another element that Harold did not mention was that he had an even more advanced design on the drawing board incorporating hydrofoils that would lift the forward
part of the hull out of the water and increase the boat’s maximum speed to over fifty knots. But that design would not be built for years to come.
The two men walked back on deck and up to the torpedo boat’s bridge. There, they watched as the torpedo boat went through a series of high-speed runs and rapid course changes before returning to the pier.
Commander Sampson finally stepped onto the pier followed by Harold.
“You’ve built quite an extraordinary vessel here. Where do you keep her and her sisters when the sound is at low tide. I understand that the tides here at King Sound are extraordinarily severe.
“We have special wheeled cradles that we sail the boats onto at high tide, then roll the cradles up higher onto the shore for storage before low tide begins. The cradles also allow us to do maintenance to the boats’ hulls much more easily as well. Then we refloat the boats during the next high tide.”
“Mister Cavill, I will recommend that we purchase some of these motor torpedo boats of yours in addition to the submarines and other vessels that you have already built for us here.”
“Thank you, Commander. I’m sure that your people will put them to good use. However, I would ask that you keep the details about my submarines under the strictest confidence. That information would be invaluable to any enemies, if they were to somehow acquire it.”
“I fully understand, Mister Cavill. I will relay that back to the Admiralty as well.”
The two men were walking back from the pier back towards Harold’s office when the commander noticed a squad of aborigine men in uniform marching past them, each carrying a very unusual looking rifle. Over their uniforms, each man wore what appeared to be a sort of heavy vest that had multiple hand grenades and ammunition pouches attached to it.