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As well as carrying out conventional underwater warfare, the
submarine is uniquely suited to undertaking clandestine operations.
With its ability to operate unseen and undetected in hostile waters,
the submarine is an ideal instrument for approaching close inshore
for intelligence gathering or for landing those personnel, such
as agents or special forces, who must carry out their duties in
secret or remain undiscovered for as long as possible. British
submarines have been heavily involved in such activities.
The first beach reconnaissance took place in 1917 when submarine
C17 gathered tidal measurements off the Belgium coast to
aid possible amphibious landings as part of the Third Ypres offensive.
During the Second World War, similar operations began in the Mediterranean
in Spring 1941 with a survey of Rhodes intended to prepare for
a prospective assault of the island. They were carried out by
various special units, including the forerunners of the present
Special Boat Service (SBS) and Combined Operations Pilotage Parties
(COPPs), in two-man collapsible canoes, or "folbots"
launched from submarines offshore. Reconnaissances by submarines
based on Alexandria were carried out against areas of coastline
of North Africa, Greece and Yugoslavia. Boats from the Eighth
Flotilla at Gibraltar surveyed beaches before the Allied invasion
of North Africa in November 1942 and marked landing places on
the night forces went ashore. Similar actions preceded the invasions
of Sicily and Italy in July and September 1943. Several COPPs
also operated in the Far East against the Japanese in 1944 and
1945, reconnoitring beaches and their respective hinterlands on
the coasts of northern Sumatra, Thailand and Malaya.
For three years from early 1941, submarines in the Mediterranean
deployed Special Forces to attack ports, shipping and airfields,
sabotage railways and move agents into and out of hostile territory.
Some of these were specific operations, but SF parties were also
carried on full-length submarine patrols to attack targets of
opportunity, during which time they took orders from the submarine's
commander. In 1944 and 1945, sabotage raids and agent movements
also took place in Malaya and Sumatra. Between March 1941 and
February 1945, submarines carried the Special Forces on 43 separate
operations.
In mid November 1941, Torbay and Talisman landed
Army commandos in an attempt to assassinate Rommel at his Libyan
Headquarters. A year later, men of the Royal Marines Boom Patrol
Detachment were disembarked from Tuna in their Cockle Mk
II canoes to attack Axis shipping in Bordeaux running the British
economic blockade (becoming the Cockleshell Heroes of popular
memory). In September 1944, Porpoise launched a Special
Operations Executive (SOE) attack party on Operation Rimau,
a disastrous raid on shipping at Singapore.
The movement of SOE, Secret Intelligence Service and foreign
agents into and out of occupied countries began soon after the
fall of France in June 1940. Operations were conducted off all
the coasts of France, in the Mediterranean and Far East and continued
sporadically until 1945.
The submarine with the highest profile in clandestine operations
was Seraph, which carried out three very important assignments.
On 19 October 1942, she took Major General Mark Clark, second-in-command
to General Eisenhower for the North African invasion, and a small
party of US officers to Algeria for discussions with the French
Major General Mast to discover the reactions of the Vichy French
to the forthcoming landings. Eight days later, Seraph,
again carrying some American officers, collected the French General
Giraud from southern France. The anti-Vichy Giraud was wanted
by the Americans to take command of all French troops in North
Africa after the invasion to ensure they fought with, and not
against, the Allies. Finally, on 30 April 1943, as part of Operation
Mincemeat, a body dressed as a fictitious Royal Marines
"Major Martin", the supposed victim of an air crash,
was placed into the sea from the submarine off the Spanish port
of Huelva. Papers with the body deceived the Germans, who were
shown the documents by the Spanish authorities, into believing
that the imminent Allied invasion would come in Greece and not
Sicily. This action became the subject of the book and film, The
Man Who Never Was.
Clandestine operations have continued in the post Second World
War era. The vastly improved speed, endurance and range of modern
nuclear-powered submarines, in conjunction with modern swimmer
delivery vehicles which can be attached to the parent boat and
have substantial range themselves, means that special forces can
be deployed to any objective anywhere in the world.
See Images 12 and 13 in the Image
Gallery.
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