Marine B SBS

by Ian Blake

  ‘You’ve handled an MAS boat?’ he asked Maygan, who shook his head.

  ‘And you, Captain?’

  ‘In the merchant navy we handled anything and everything,’ Larssen said. ‘A couple of years ago I skippered a tug to tow out a German liner from a neutral port.’

  ‘And who will man the guns?’

  ‘Our chaps. They have been taught how to fire German weapons and Italian ones.’

  ‘And the engines?’

  ‘Bryson,’ said Maygan immediately.

  Balbao nodded. ‘A good man, but the Isotta-Fraschinis in this boat are pretty temperamental. They should have been overhauled months ago.’

  He paused and looked at them, and then shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen. I cannot agree.’

  ‘You have no option, Commander.’ Larssen’s hand dropped casually on to the butt of his pistol.

  ‘Oh, but I have, Captain. All my crew have been instructed how to – how do you say? – scuttle the boat if it is necessary. We have a drill, you know, on when to carry this out.’

  Larssen’s hand dropped away. ‘And what drill is that?’

  Balbao laughed. ‘Come, come, Captain. You don’t expect me to tell you that.’

  Stalemate, Tiller thought to himself. He could see Larssen was getting very angry. Balbao leant forward. ‘May I make a suggestion?’

  Larssen nodded.

  ‘I skipper the boat, you man the guns. I see if my chief engineer will come, too. He loves those engines like babies. I don’t think he allows anyone else to touch them. You understand?’

  Larssen looked at Maygan, who shrugged. It was a gesture of resignation more than approval, but Larssen said: ‘If we accept your conditions, how do I know you’ll carry out my orders?’

  Balbao smiled. ‘You don’t.’

  ‘It’s a high-risk operation,’ Larssen warned him.

  Balbao brushed Larssen’s comment aside with a weary wave of his hand. ‘The boat has an emergency steering position in the stern. If we are going to ram one of the destroyers, we’ll use that for the final run in. We’ll dump the Carley floats over the stern and jump after them and the lieutenant can pick us up in the caique. You must remember I was once a member of the 10th Light Flotilla. I am used to performing such antics.’

  ‘This will delay our move, skipper,’ Tiller said as they left the MAS boat. The bombing and the fall of Piscopi had made Simi untenable as a base for the SBS and orders had come through that Larssen was to move his team to the Turkish mainland as soon as possible. A rudimentary headquarters had been set up for them aboard a schooner which had been moved by stages from Castelrosso. It was in an isolated bay which provided good cover and was rarely visited by the Turkish coastguard. And when they did come they only came to collect their bribes.

  ‘If this op goes wrong there won’t be anything left to move,’ Larssen replied.

  The Stukas came over again at first light and more houses in the port crumbled to dust.

  At midday a high-priority signal came on the radio from Cairo, informing the SBS men that the destroyers would sail that night at an unspecified time. Their destination was Portolago, Leros.

  At dusk the MAS boat and the caique emerged from their hiding-places and went alongside the quay. Tiller, Larssen, Simmonds and Warrington, all wearing shallow-diving suits to protect them from the cold when they abandoned ship, went aboard the MAS boat and the Italian crew filed ashore. Barnesworth went with Maygan in the caique. The caique would stay out of the way behind Seskli; the MAS boat would lie in wait on the island’s seaward side. It wasn’t much of a plan, but they agreed it was the best available.

  They were in position by ten that night. When the destroyers had not appeared by midnight they began to think that they must have taken another course, or had been prevented from sailing for some reason. But ten minutes later Balbao nudged Larssen, handed him his night-glasses, and pointed southwards.

  Larssen adjusted the binoculars and scanned the inky black horizon. At first he could see nothing, then slowly, gradually, two indistinct objects began to form in the lenses. He handed back the glasses to Balbao. ‘That must be them,’ he agreed.

  Balbao ordered slow ahead and the MAS boat crept out from under the lee of the island.

  ‘Would they have radar?’ Larssen asked.

  Balbao shook his head. ‘Remind me to tell you the sorry story of radar and the Italian Navy some time.’

  He ordered an increase in the MAS boat’s speed and told Larssen that he planned to get as close as possible to the destroyers without being detected and then, and only then, open fire on them. He would run the MAS boat parallel with the two warships, swing round the stern of the second one, and then choose which one to ram.

  After a few minutes it was possible to see the two shapes without the night-glasses. It was soon apparent from the changing angle of approach that they were moving at about fifteen knots, and were moving slightly away from the MAS boat.

  Their speed and course made Balbao decide it would be better to approach them from behind and swing round ahead of them. The MAS boat’s engines throbbed powerfully and it was less than a mile away when a shaded signalling lamp from the leading destroyer started to flick out a message to the MAS boat.

  ‘He wants to know who we are,’ chuckled Balbao. ‘We’ll soon let him know.’

  When the signal was ignored the destroyer opened fire with a single shot from its aft four-inch gun. The shell whirred overhead and fell into the water beyond the MAS boat. Calmly, Balbao ordered full speed ahead and the MAS boat leapt forward, its hull vibrating, its engines gurgling and thrumming. A second shell fell short and when a third narrowly missed the MAS boat Balbao shouted ‘fire, fire, fire,’ into the intercom which connected the bridge with the twin Bredas’ crew.

  The 20mm tracer arced towards the second destroyer and tiny fireballs danced on its upperworks. A fourth salvo from the destroyer’s stern four-inch gun went high over the MAS boat and Tiller, who was working the forward machine-gun with Larssen, realized the MAS boat was now so close to the destroyers that their gun crews could not depress the main armament sufficiently to hit it.

  Then the MAS boat was running parallel with the second destroyer and its Breda was raking its deck and bridge. Larssen and Tiller opened up with the machine-gun on the destroyer’s open gun position on a circular platform behind its second funnel. They could see the gun crew, who were running to close up with their weapon, scatter and fall.

  Then, in a surge of speed that Tiller calculated must have exceeded forty knots, the MAS boat began drawing ahead of the destroyers. He managed to get in one final burst, at the destroyer’s bridge, and saw its glass screen shatter.

  ‘Taking target on starboard, repeat starboard, side,’ Balbao shouted into the intercom and the Breda’s crew began frantically peddling the guns from port to starboard as the MAS boat swerved across the path of the second destroyer and through the wake of the first.

  Larssen and Tiller swung the machine-gun round and opened fire, spraying the first destroyer’s superstructure with bullets. Then the twin Bredas opened up, too, and Tiller could see that the 20mm shells were causing some damage.

  After a few seconds Balbao brought the MAS boat round to starboard so that it was running parallel with the target and 200 yards from it. Again they saw the sparks as the Bredas’ shells smashed into the destroyer at what was virtually point-blank range.

  Balbao now slowed to the speed of the leading destroyer so that the Bredas could rake it from stern to stem. Then he increased speed again and, once it was ahead of the destroyer, swung the MAS boat away to port.

  A parachute flare blossomed in the sky and lit the ink-black waters with a pale glow. But the MAS boat, now streaking away at right angles from the leading destroyer, was out of the circle of light that it created before the destroyer’s guns could be brought to bear on it.

  ‘Now what?’ Larssen shouted into the intercom; ‘They’ll be ready for us the next time. We w
on’t get away with that again.’

  Balbao shouted back: ‘I shall make a run at them so that they will think we are going to use our torpedoes. That will force them to turn this way to make the smallest possible target.’

  Another parachute flare lit the sky where the destroyers supposed the MAS boat to be but Balbao had already altered course again. Tiller admired the cool skill with which the Italian was handling the MAS boat and, as he had predicted, the destroyers now both swung to port.

  They were now dim outlines again, about two miles distant, moving westwards at about twenty knots, while the MAS boat was moving slowly eastwards.

  ‘I am going to turn to port to ram the nearest destroyer,’ Balbao told Larssen through the intercom. ‘There is not enough fuel to do anything else. I slow down. Then you abandon ship.’

  The SBS men moved aft and when the MAS boat slowed the two Carley floats were thrown overboard and Tiller and the other SBS men followed them, dropping backwards into the foaming wake of the MAS boat. Larssen watched them go before he turned and climbed on to the bridge to join Balbao. He was not about to miss the most exciting part of the action.

  Balbao called for full power and told his chief engineer to abandon ship. The seconds ticked away, the destroyers to port of them were approaching fast.

  ‘Time to move to the emergency steering position,’ Larssen shouted at Balbao above the sound of the engines. Balbao shouted back: ‘You abandon ship. Now.’

  ‘What about you?’ Larssen shouted. ‘Go aft now.’

  ‘Go!’ Balbao shouted. ‘I follow you.’ He drew himself up and saluted Larssen. ‘Memento Audare Semper, Captain. Remember always to dare. Now go!’

  Larssen ran aft with the chief engineer. They threw over another Carley float and followed it. The water stunned Larssen for a moment, but then he grabbed the Carley float, climbed on to it, and dragged the engineer aboard it, too.

  They watched as the MAS boat converged with the approaching destroyers. Another parachute flare lit the water and the nearest destroyer’s searchlights flicked on. The MAS boat was caught in a pool of light and both enemy vessels opened up simultaneously with all their armament. Tracer arced across it as it sped unerringly towards the nearest destroyer.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, why doesn’t he jump?’ Larssen bawled, seeing the MAS boat was about to hit its target. ‘Jump, you fool, jump.’

  The MAS boat was about 200 yards from the nearest destroyer when two four-inch shells hit it above the water-line and there was an ear-splitting explosion. One moment the MAS boat was there, travelling at forty knots in the middle of the pool of light created by the flare and the searchlights, and the next there was just smoke and debris.

  The flare dowsed itself in the water and the searchlights swung and scanned the debris, and were then turned off, and the dark shapes of the destroyers quickly faded into the night.

  Larssen looked at his wrist compass and then began signalling with his shaded torch towards the island. Half an hour later they saw the outline of the caique approaching them, and they were quickly hauled aboard. Ten minutes later they saw the signals from the other Carley floats and their occupants, too, were hauled aboard.

  ‘What happened?’ Maygan asked Larssen as they turned for Simi.

  ‘God knows,’ said Larssen tiredly, ‘except it didn’t work.’

  ‘And Balbao?’

  Larssen turned to the Italian engineer. ‘Your commander, why didn’t he use the emergency steering position?’

  The engineer looked at him blankly. ‘You must be mistaken, signore. There was no emergency steering position.’

  The Stukas were back again the following morning, circling round Simi port like vultures. There was very little left for them to destroy, but their shrieking descent on it, followed by the scream of their bombs plummeting down, was slowly wearing down the psychological resistance of the defenders. It was impossible to sleep, or even rest, and the air was filled with dust.

  The Italian garrison as well as the local inhabitants had mostly fled by now, and only the bravest attempted to fire on the Stukas as they swooped down out of the sky.

  In the cellar of the detachment’s headquarters Larssen was using the radio himself to report with an enciphered signal to Beirut that their latest operation had failed. Beirut signalled back their regrets and asked what Larssen proposed to do now. Attack the destroyers at Portolago, replied Larssen, but he had yet to finalize his plans. Keep us informed, Beirut signalled, your operation is being given the highest priority. A photo-reconnaissance flight is being mounted today on Portolago and an ML will bring you the results tonight. Good luck.

  Larssen took off the headphones and slammed them down on the table in disgust. ‘How like the top brass,’ he said irritably. ‘They give us impossible jobs to do and then just wish us luck. You’d have thought they could have got rid of the two bloody destroyers themselves. Or found another way of taking off the garrison from Samos. Jesus, are we winning this war or not?’

  Above them another bomb exploded, the concussion of it shaking the cellar.

  ‘That’s your answer, skipper,’ said Tiller grimly.

  Larssen sat down and spread out the chart of Leros in front of him. ‘What do we know about Portolago?’

  ‘As you can see, it is the most southerly of the three bays on the western side of the island,’ said Maygan, ‘and is the largest. It runs north-east south-west and is about a mile long. It almost cuts the island in two. Steep hillsides run down to it on either side. Not an easy place to attack.’

  ‘What do you think, Tiger?’

  ‘Looks like a job for Billy and me,’ Tiller said evenly, suppressing a surge of excitement. ‘Provided, of course, someone can get us there and back.’

  ‘That’s not going to be easy,’ said Maygan. ‘Though I’m sure I could find a way of doing it.’

  Larssen shook his head. ‘We need you to move everyone to the mainland, Andrew, while we’re away. No, we’ll see how important the bigwigs really think this operation is. We’ll tell them we need the ML for the operation.’

  Larssen scribbled a note on a signals pad and handed it to the radio operator who had just come on duty. He enciphered it and then sent it out in Morse. He received a reply almost immediately and handed it to Larssen.

  ‘That’s quick,’ said Larssen. ‘They must mean business.’

  The signal confirmed that Larssen could have the motor launch for the operation and that it would be with them before dawn the next morning provided the photo-reconnaissance flight was successful.

  The ML arrived that same night, having had a clear run from Paphos. Its captain was a cheerful young RNVR lieutenant, a pre-war sailing friend of Maygan’s who knew the Dodecanese well from cruising among them before the war. He handed over a thick brown envelope to Larssen, who sliced it open with his commando knife.

  The aerial photographs were clear and detailed, and the analysis of them by the RAF interpretation unit at Akrotiri was especially detailed. The first point Tiller noticed was that a boom protected the harbour mouth. One arm of it extended from two places on the southern headland to a single point about halfway across the harbour. Inshore of this single point they could make out what must have been a boom patrol boat. The other half of the boom extended in a straight line from the northern headland to within about 200 yards of the anchored patrol boat.

  ‘That’s not going to be easy to negotiate,’ Barnesworth commented.

  ‘Balls, Billy,’ Tiller said. He could already feel the adrenalin pumping through him. ‘We used to skip over obstacles like that every night in the Solent.’

  On the northern side of the harbour and about a thousand yards from the entrance a largish ship was anchored under the lee of the cliffs. The interpretation unit identified this as the German ammunition ship Anita, which had just arrived as part of a convoy from Piraeus.

  At the far end of the bay was another anchored part of the convoy, identified as a supply ship called the Carola, and
an F-lighter, a shallow-draft craft similar to a Siebel ferry which was used by the Germans for supplying their garrisons on the islands. Astern of the Carola were anchored a variety of small, unidentifiable craft. On the opposite side of the bay to the ammunition ship was the naval base, with a slipway, sheds, floating dock and seaplane hangars. Larssen pointed to the naval base and said: ‘There they are.’

  The others crowded round. The pilot had taken a series of oblique photographs of the two destroyers as they lay at anchor close to the naval base. The stereoscopic lenses showed up every detail of their superstructure, which looked undamaged despite the hail of fire from the MAS boat’s Bredas. As they pored over the photographs another signal came in from Beirut saying that ‘operational contingencies’ required the detachment to sink the Anita and, if possible, Carola and the F-lighter, as well as the two destroyers.

  ‘The cockle doesn’t normally carry more than eight limpets,’ said Tiller. ‘This lot will all need three each. That’s a hell of a lot of extra weight.’

  ‘You’ll be in and out in a couple of hours,’ said Larssen. ‘You’ll just have to leave most of the equipment behind.’

  ‘We won’t be able to use the compass with that number aboard,’ Tiller objected. ‘We won’t have time to swing it, and we only have a compass compensator for eight.’

  ‘I’ll make sure you’re dropped in the right place,’ said Denvers, the ML skipper, reassuringly, ‘and I’ll give you the dead-reckoning course to steer.’

  They went through the list of equipment but decided that if the extra limpets had to be carried then everything was expendable except the water, primus and the twenty-four-hour ration packs.

  ‘I don’t know why Cairo don’t tell us to recapture the island while we’re at it,’ grumbled Barnesworth.

  ‘They will, Billy, they will,’ Larssen said with a grin. ‘Just give them time. They probably haven’t even realized yet that the Krauts are in residence there. Now, Bob, we want to arrive no later than midnight. Can you do that in one run during the hours of darkness?’