The inside of the submarine was dark ... only a single red light enabled the navigator to see his charts. Outside the submarine, all was light... it was midafternoon in Paddy Griffith's dining room. Yes, Leftenant Simon, RN, was perched under Paddy Griffith's dining room table with three other volunteers in a valiant effort to sink the Tirpitz! Paddy was umpire/referee, and we four sailors sat crammed together in our miniature submarine, the X-15, sometime back in 1943. Paddy had placed sheets down to the ground on all four sides of his dining room table, making an enclosed compartment some 12 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 3 feet high. Just right for a midget submarine equipped with: a vacuum cleaner the main engine a sewing machine the air compressor a large salad dish the master compass and numerous other undersea appurtenances. The other participants were Paddy's son, Robert, and two current members of the teaching staff at Sandhurst. I must mention that I placed copies of the REVIEW in the hands of each of these two gentlemen, telling them they MUST read it, because it was my desire to broadcast the news that the military history staff at Sandhurst reads the REVIEW. Back to the X-15. We had a 50 mile journey amongst the fjords and inlets and locks of Scandanavia to where the Tirpitz was based. Leftenant Simon Ace Navigator Of The Seven Seas, briefed the sub's Commander, who briefed ~addy, and off we went on our secret mission. Paddy told us that some six subs had actually been sent out in 1943 on a similar mission ... four were never heard from again, one's crew was captured, and I forget what happened to the last. Paddy, every couple of minutes, would call out a time check indicating that one hour of "submarine time" had gone by. A look at the log book of our first mission is quite informative: 1700 Leave 1800 Blown up by mine It seems that about 3 minutes "real time" into the game (game?), our Commander spotted a mine and ordered us to dive under it. Ordinarily, one might think that standard naval tactics would call for a simple change of course to veer around the mine ... but not so for the ill- fated X-15. Our beloved Captain had other thoughts, and so, in the best tradition of John Wayne et al, he cried out: "Dive! Dive! Dive!" And dive we did. On went the vacuum cleaner as the Chief Engineer plugged it in, and the engines surged - or whatever main engines and vacuum cleaners are wont and we evidently just missed the first mine. Suddenly, with a loud, loud BANG, Paddy dropped what seemed to be three tons of bricks on top of his table (startling Leftenant Simon, hunched just under the point of impact, causing him to cry out "Cheesus Keerist!" or words to that effect), and Paddy stated that we'd struck a second mine. End of game. With one five minute mission under their belts, the crew of the X- 15 set forth again. Our beloved Commander seemed to think that our takeoff point was different than the one Paddy had mentioned in his initial briefing. Consequently, the Commander refused to believe in the navigational information supplied by Leftenant Simon. whose data, it later turned out, proved to be "spot on", as we in the RN would say. Leftenant Simon even surprised himself, so accurate were his navigational data. We had marked on the map a series of four key points, and each time we arrived at one of them (thanks to the navigator's most excellent directions), the Commander couldn't accept the fact that we had actually reached a desired rendezvous. Stubborn fellow. In between times, there were adventures galore. We smashed into submarine nets (Paddy would go "Clang! Scrape! Scrape!"), and our diver - Paddy's son - would exit the sub and cut the net. We were depth charged (another three tons of bricks landing on the dining room table). We were detected on the enemy ASDIC (Paddy would tinkle! tinkle! with a fork on a beer glass), and we had to maintain strict silence as German patrol craft passed overhead. We had a minor revolt in the engine room ("Turn on the engine," shouted the Commander. "You don't have to shout in my ear... you're right next to me," said the Executive Officer. "Just tell me what you want me to do!"). And we even had a casualty ... our diver was flitting around in the water, cutting holes in a submarine net, when WHAM! BAM! BOOM! ... we were depth charged. We waited for the fella to swim back, but finally our beloved Commander said we'd have to carry on. Hard cheese. Never saw the the poor lad again. But, as we military men are wont to say: you've got to break eggs to make an omelet. Of the four-man crew, I had the easiest job. The other three were cramped and hunched and all squnched up, while I lolled on my back in relative comfort, head on a pillow (all good navigators bring their own pillows aboard), humming songs of the sea. One of the others, about three quarters through the game, stated that he was a "bit whoozy" due to the crampiness ... he was permitted to exit the sub to recover. The Commander was the only one permitted an outside look, via his "periscope." This was a cardboard box, cut as shown in the sketch. The Commander; after ordering "Up periscope!" would view the six sides of the hex opening, on each of which would hang a picture of what could be seen at that particular azimuth. Paddy's sketches lacked the verisimilitude of Leonardo ... he'd hang the same sketch up whenever we'd approach a land mass. If you've seen one fjord, you've seen 'em all, was his motto. This was probably the reason our Commander distrusted the navigational data supplied him... each time we came toward land, it appeared to be the one from which we had just departed. Our log book indicates that we started out at 1700, February 19, 1943. We were scheduled to rendezvous with the X-12, a sister ship, at 1730 on February 21, two days later, at Aaroy Island, some ten miles from where the Tirpitz was anchored, before taking off for our final run to penetrate the protective anti-submarine netting. We hit Aaroy Island just about as planned ... and, of course, our Commander refused to believe it WAS Aaroy Island, indeed, that it was an island at all. Captain Sir Doubting Thomas proposed that to prove we had reached an island, we circumnavigate it a la Magellan. At this point, Paddy, listening to the conversation going on in the bowels of the X-15, stepped in and said: "Yes, it is an island. Yes, you have arrived. Yes, you've reached Aaroy Island. Yes, you may proceed." And proceed we did. The Tirpitz was anchored in shallow water; the plan was to sail under and have the diver exit and plant explosives on the sea bottom under the its hull. And did we sink the Tirpitz? In truth, we got an "almost". After our many adventures, our many hours at sea, we reached the Tirpitz's anchorage, cut the surrounding net, sailed under the huge craft, planted our explosives on the sea bed under the vessel, and began to quietly sneak away. And then, instead of hearing a very satisfying BOOM!, we heard the Tirpitz's engines start up, and off she went! ... leaving our explosives behind! Whadda revoltin' development! In short, therefore, while we were not a vast success, we could be classified as a "small success". The result of this entire affair, of course, is that W. Simon is giving up playing with toy soldiers completely. From now on, he's going to participate in Paddy Griffith-type games, crawling under dining room tables and the like. Anyone wanna buy a huge collection of distorted toy soldiers? Back to PW Review April 1990 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1990 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com