Welman
The Welman was a British one-man submarine. It was developed during the Second World War for the Special Operations Executive , a special unit of the British foreign intelligence service , the Secret Intelligence Service , operating behind enemy lines . It was only used once.
commitment
In early 1943, the Royal Navy stationed a Welman submarine on the submarine transporter HMS Titania to test the boat's seaworthiness. Crew training took place at Fort Blockhouse, Plymouth . The crew was recruited from the Royal Navy, the Royal Navy Reserve and special forces (e.g. Special Boat Service ). The smallest submarine was developed by Station IX .
In the fall of 1943, the Combined Ops Commander General Sir Robert Laycock decided that the Welman was unusable for their work. The boat was returned to the Royal Navy. Admiral Sir Lionel Wells, who commanded the defense of the Orkney and Shetland Islands, considered the possibility of attacking German ships in coastal waters off Norway by boat. Motor torpedo boats (MTBs) of the 30th Flotilla, manned by crews from the Royal Norwegian Navy , agreed to use Welmans in an attack on floating docks in the port of Bergen . On November 20, 1943, MTB 635 and MTB 625 left Lunna Voe , Shetland , carrying the Welmans W45 (Lt. C. Johnsen, Royal Norwegian Navy), W46 (Lt. B. Pedersen, Norwegian Army), W47 (Lt. B. Marris, RNVR) and W48 (Lt. J. Holmes, RN) wore. The submarine was launched at the entrance to the fjord . Pedersen's W46 got caught in an anti-submarine net and was forced to surface. There she was discovered by a German patrol boat. Pedersen was captured and survived the war in a German prisoner of war camp. The other submarines used could no longer rely on the surprise effect, were in danger of being intercepted and broke off the attack. The submarine leaders were able to flee north with the help of the Norwegian resistance and were picked up by the torpedo boat MTB653 in February 1944. The failure caused the Royal Navy to concentrate on the X craft and XE craft submarines .
The Wehrmacht fell into the hands of one of the boats in the unsuccessful attack. Similarities were later discovered in the German mini-submarine Biber , which was used against the Allies in 1944.
literature
- Akermann, Paul, Encyclopedia of British Submarines 1901–1955 . Periscope Publishing Ltd. 2002, ISBN 1-904381-05-7 .
- Midget Submarines 1939-1952 , Submariners Association, Barrow in Furness Branch
- Kemp, Paul, Underwater Warriors . Brockhampton Press. ISBN 1-86019-991-7 .
