In April 1944, in anticipation of successful trials of the craft, plans were made for the employment of Sleeping Beauties against shipping targets in Norwegian waters and preliminary training of a Norwegian instructor was started at Station IX and at Staines reservoir. An extensive operational exercise which included a simulated night attack on a target vessel took place on Loch Corrie near Oban from 8 to 10 May in the presence of a representative from the Admiralty and proved satisfactory. Another Sleeping Beauty was fitted out and delivered in June.35 But delivery of the craft was slow and it was not until a number were transferred to the operational base at Lunna in Shetland in August that operational training by the Norwegian crews was able to start. The planned attacks against targets in Norway were codenamed Operation Salamander and were severely hampered by SIS being unwilling to remove their objections to operations in areas of interest to them. On 9 September 1944 two MSCs were landed from sub-chasers (the 110-ft-long, fast, long-range American vessels loaned to SOE) in the Nordfjord area of Norway to attack shipping in Maaloy in Operation Salamander 2. Having accomplished the difficult preparatory part of the exercise and concealed the equipment, the party was given away by a woman herding cattle on the island and were lucky to escape with their lives. They were recovered by a sub-chaser on 18 September 1944.
In Operation Salamander 5 a party sailed on 13 September 1944 in the fishing vessel Sylvia with the intention of introducing an MSC into Trondheim carried under the keel of the ship. At the last moment news was received of arrests of key agents in the operation, so attention focused on the secondary target. The planned base proved unsatisfactory so the party moved to a different location, only to find that excessive phosphorescence in the water prevented any chance of an unseen attack. The party was obliged to scuttle the Sylvia but they and the MSCs were recovered by a sub-chaser on 30 September 1944.36
In the Far East the India Mission in 1944 ordered twelve Chariots, nine Welmans, twenty-four Welfreighters and forty-eight Sleeping Beauties. In the event, only the Sleeping Beauties were delivered – although there is evidence that a few Welmans and Welfreighters were delivered to Australia at some time. In a raid code-named ‘Rimau’ it was planned to use fifteen of the craft to make simultaneous attacks on six different areas of Singapore harbour. A junk was captured to transport the Sleeping Beauties to the target area but while anchored in Rhio Straits on 10 October it was challenged by a Malay police launch. The leader, Ivan Lyon, a regular army captain in the Gordon Highlanders who had enjoyed great success with Operation Jaywick when his party destroyed or badly damaged seven Japanese ships in Singapore using conventional canoes and limpet mines, thought that they had been unmasked and ordered the party to open fire. With all the police killed the junk and the Sleeping Beauties were scuttled and the party took to their Folboats to escape. They were relentlessly pursued by the Japanese and were all caught or killed. Those who were taken prisoner were executed a month before the end of hostilities.
As mentioned earlier, the Careening Bay Camp near Fremantle had facilities for Sleeping Beauties which included workshops, a degaussing coil and a testing tank. It is interesting to note that the Sleeping Beauty training regime was much the same as at Staines but with more night work, work on anti-submarine netting and with practical experience of attacks on ships, presumably using dummy limpets.
Over 200 Sleeping Beauties were produced before the order was cancelled after VE-day.
The Sleeping Beauties which were delivered to Australia were dumped off Rottnest Island in 1946, although one was restored and passed into the Western Australia Maritime Museum collection.
* A type of inflatable rubber dinghy.
TEN
OPERATIONAL RESEARCH AND TRIALS
When Newitt was appointed Director of Scientific Research in January 1941 he soon recognised the need for an Operational Research and User Trials Section staffed by scientifically or technologically trained people. In the early days of SOE there had been no organised route by which requirements for equipment and weapons were assessed. Nor did items of equipment have to satisfy any formal performance trials before being adopted as an SOE store and issued to Operational Sections. Many of the devices then available had been developed more or less ad hoc by Section D and MI(R) and had in general been tested for basic functioning under laboratory conditions. However, many of the camouflaged explosive and incendiary devices produced by Station XV (see Chapter 7) had not been critically evaluated. They were often unsafe in the hands of untrained operatives and malfunctioned from time to time. Knowledge of the performance of equipment under operational conditions was largely dependent on reports, both written and oral, from agents in the field or during their debriefing. Since few agents were scientifically or technically trained, their reports tended to be coloured by subjective reactions rather than objective analysis. At an early stage in his thinking Newitt had considered the possibility of including a technically trained observer in actual operations but, for a variety of reasons, this was considered inappropriate for SOE activities.
Newitt set up the Operational Research Section to test equipment before issue to agents and check that it was well-designed, safe and effective in use under the severe conditions – cold, wet, darkness and nervous tension – likely to be experienced by operators in the field. At first this was a small, loosely structured section which called on the facilities of Station IX and its staff. It was headed at HQ by Maj Blount and at Station IX by the Trials Officer Maj Holloway, a member of the Research and Development Section. It was his responsibility to arrange ‘field and user trials’ of devices produced by Stations IX, XII and XV. There was no rigid ruling that all devices should pass through his hands, nor were the trials procedures and their scope and nature clearly defined.
As the number and variety of explosive and incendiary inventions being produced by Stations IX and XV increased rapidly it became clear that these informal arrangements were inadequate to make certain that the devices concerned worked satisfactorily and were safe in use, packing, transport and storage.
In the period up to August 1943 there had been an increasing awareness that the trials which were undertaken at this time were open to criticism. Their validity could be thrown into doubt by the rather haphazard planning and sometimes relaxed atmosphere under which they were conducted.
One example of a trial of this kind that emphasised the need for properly conducted trials was that of Night Glasses. Baker Street sent Station IX samples of lightweight binoculars fitted with plastic lenses which were being considered as possible equipment for agents. A few days later after dinner in the Mess it was suggested that they might be tried out. It was a reasonably dark night with little moon. The glasses were passed round a group recruited in the bar who were invited to try to identify objects around the garden. No records were kept. Someone commented that no comparison was being made with the Army issue field glasses, so a pair of unspecified binoculars was produced and wholly subjective views were expressed as to the relative merits of the two types. The procedure was carried out with a degree of levity, influenced no doubt by the alcohol consumed earlier. It was clear that no reliable assessment could be made on the basis of these completely unscientific and frivolously conducted tests. Everett was present and decided that this was no way to undertake serious testing, and that a proper trial was needed. So he had made in the workshops four circular white discs some 12 in in diameter on which could be placed black segments of various angles and sizes. Individuals were asked to say at what angles the segments were placed. A properly conducted comparative trial was then carried out and a report submitted to HQ. In the event the lightweight binoculars were found to be inferior. But it was the report of this trial, probably as much as anything, that stimulated the realisation at HQ that there was an urgent need for a properly constituted body to oversee User and Field Trials.
The Trials Sub-Section of the Operational Research Section was set up in August 1943 under the general supervision of Lt Col J.W.
Munn (DB) at HQ. It functioned under the newly appointed User Trials Committee which was chaired by Everett (DB/T) and included representatives from Trials Sub-Section, Training Section, Research Section together with the R&D officers directly concerned with the device in question, and a quality control representative from Station XII. From May 1944 the Production Section of Station XII were invited to send a representative as and when it was thought necessary.
The function of the Trials Committee which met every two to four weeks was to oversee trials on all stores under consideration for adoption by SOE. Many of its members, being representatives of other Sections, could not devote their whole time to trials. The Trials Sub-Section was therefore created as a full-time nucleus of the Trials Committee, and its duties were solely concerned with organising and carrying out trials and submitting its findings to the Committee. Opportunities were provided for all those concerned with a device to be apprised of problems arising in its use, and to express their views on its suitability for use by SOE.
The members of the Trials Sub-Section were initially drawn from Station IX and consisted of three officers. Its numbers increased to a maximum of six officers and two or three NCOs in mid-1944. From June 1944 Lt Crocker OSS was attached as liaison officer with the American Office of Strategic Services. At the end of January 1944 Everett took on the extra duties of the Air Supply Research Section (see Chapter 11) charged with the development and testing of equipment for air supply. He remained Chairman of the User Trials Committee, but the responsibilities of organising and running trials devolved on Dr Moggridge.
One of the first actions of the User Trials Committee was to ensure that an appropriate and well-defined Operational Requirement (OR) was drawn up for each new device, against which the resultant product could be tested. The conditions under which equipment was used were severe and these had to be taken fully into account, both in drawing up the OR and in the subsequent testing. In general there were three basic criteria which all equipment had to satisfy: it had to work reliably, had to be safe in operation by the agent, and had to be easy to produce.
It was intended that the testing should cover all SOE stores, that is, those which were to be included as standard production items. Acceptance of a device as a store was now dependent on its passing a series of clearly defined trials. Moreover, the section regarded itself as an advocate of the end user, committed to assessing the safety of stores under circumstances resembling as closely as possible those to be found in the theatre where they were to be used. They wished to understand the effect of field conditions on the performance of the items and the ease or difficulty the agent experienced in their use in darkness, secrecy and haste.
When research on a device was complete a functional performance trial was conducted on a laboratory sample, upon which a decision was made by DSR on whether to proceed to further development. This led to the subjection of a production prototype to more extensive user trials under conditions replicating as closely as possible those likely to be encountered in the field. Acceptance trials to ensure that the production models met the specification were done on samples selected at random from the first production batches and were the responsibility of the QC Section at Station XII.
The trials programmes covered a full range of aspects including tests of general handling, general functioning, safety, rough usage, tropical storage, waterproofing, etc. And they had to be as close as possible to reality. Thus in some trials the ease of manipulation when blindfolded, wearing gloves or under severe weather conditions was tested either by members of the Section or by volunteers. Moreover, operations such as the application or release of a safety catch or clip had to be silent, while reflective metal surfaces were to be avoided.
Special attention was paid to the risk of accidental operation of explosive and incendiary devices. The Trials Committee insisted that designs incorporated a positive safety pin and that it was not possible for the device to operate under rough treatment with the pin in position. Designs and prototypes were scrutinised to ensure that it was not possible for the striker to be retained solely by the safety pin, a circumstance which could prove fatal to a user.
Rough handling tests of generally robust devices were usually in excess of what was expected to be experienced in the field. Thus the AC delay Mk II and the air-armed anti-removal fuse withstood repeated drops from 6 ft on to concrete. On the other hand, fragile devices like the Eureka clock, torches and infra-red lamps were excused the rough handling tests. Tropical storage tests were left to Sqn Ldr Ken Callow, who became an expert in this field. Waterproofing tests were a combination of depth and time of immersion and were generally slightly more severe than the worst possible operational conditions.
It was sometimes difficult to be sure that tests reflected accurately the conditions of actual use. For example, a requirement was identified for an adhesive for attaching an explosive charge to a non-magnetic target where the use of limpets or clams was not possible. Station IX devised a formulation which was successful in sticking a dummy Plasticine charge to wood or metal. But it failed completely when tested using an actual charge of plastic explosive. Fortunately, this shortcoming was identified before the adhesive was accepted as a store. One could imagine the frustration of an agent trying vainly to stick a plastic explosive charge to a locomotive or factory machine with an adhesive which had performed quite satisfactorily with Plasticine.
A somewhat more subtle example of the failure of trials to foresee a difference between the conditions of actual use and those under which the trials had taken place arose in the case of railway demolition. Trials of devices and techniques for destroying railway lines were often carried out at Longmoor in the south of England, where the Army had extensive sections of track and samples of rails used in different European countries. A series of trials were conducted during late December 1943 to establish the appropriate quantity and positioning of explosive charges to cut a French railway line. This happened to coincide with a particularly cold spell of weather when the temperature never rose above freezing. The opportunity was taken of making realistic tests on the ease of fixing charges under such severe conditions. When the instructions resulting from these tests were followed after the D-Day landings it was found that the damage was far less than expected, only the vertical web of the rail being knocked out. What had not been anticipated was that at the temperature of the French summer the ductility of steel was far greater than at – 5°C: the conditions of the trial did not match those in actual use.
Among some of the more extended trials were those on the Spigot Gun (Tree Spigot Mortar). In its earlier forms it had many shortcomings and no less than nineteen trials were conducted on models which had been successively modified to improve its performance and reliability. The bomb was ballistically unstable. In flight the tail precessed around the direction of flight. It might have been expected that the provision of fins on the tail would correct this, but there is no recollection that this was attempted and the model illustrated in the ‘Handbook’ had no fins. The removable sight was also difficult to use – the operator had to peer down on to the graticule while adjusting the spigot and making sure that the clamp was not disturbed as the sight was removed. Moreover, it was difficult to ensure that when the bomb was placed on the spigot the spigot did not sag, either because the clamp had not been sufficiently tightened or the screw had not been inserted firmly in the trunk of the tree. In addition, care had to be taken to fix the mortar to a large enough tree so that the aim was not affected by the wind. If the target was lower than the mortar position then in early models the bomb tended to slide off the spigot and appropriate clips had to be fitted to prevent this.
Relatively few tests investigated the effectiveness of the bomb. It was presumed that the bomb with its 3 lb (1.36 kg) of explosive would put out of action lightly armoured vehicles, but no full-scale tests on actual targets were done. Later in the war when fighting was expected to take place in built-up areas, tests were called for on the e
ffect of the spigot bomb on buildings. A series of trials were done on derelict buildings in the East End of London. The bomb was capable of punching a 3– 4 ft hole in an external brick wall. A much more spectacular result followed from the projection of the bomb through an open window. The explosion in the room lifted the ceiling and pushed all four walls outwards, leading to complete demolition. It was clear that, provided a fixing could be found for the spigot screw, for example in the joints of a wall, this weapon could have a role to play in fighting in built-up areas. Although a considerable number of spigot mortars were despatched to the field, there seem to be no reliable records of their use.
When firearms were the subject of trials, in addition to accuracy, silencing and penetration tests it was necessary to assess the reliability of the ejection of rounds, freedom from ‘double taps’ and ‘runaways’ with automatic weapons, and use with all varieties of ammunition likely to be available to the user with the weapon elevated and depressed. Rough usage tests included contamination with mud and sand and all the time the safety catch had to pass its test. There were no facilities for testing under arctic conditions.
It was not always possible to conduct a fully realistic trial. Thus the best that could be done with the assassination weapon, the Sleeve Gun (see Chapter 8), was for Everett to spend time drinking in the bar with the gun concealed in his jacket sleeve without, he was told, attracting any attention. He then slipped the gun into his hand and fired a round into a conveniently placed sandbag. The silencer was so effective that no-one was aware that the sandbag had been ‘murdered’!
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