Carentan (Chasseur 5)

21st December 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the loss of Chasseur 5/Carentan named after the port of Carentan on the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy. She was one of a number of French chasseurs sous-marins or submarine hunters ordered in 1937 and which entered service in the French Navy in 1940. [Images Défense gallery of official photographs of Chasseur 5 taken in early 1940 including remarkable views of a seaplane under tow.]

Along with Chasseurs 6 and 7, 9-11, 41 and 42, Chasseur 5 took part in Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Dunkirk, over May-June 1940. [1] Sixteen Chasseur-class vessels were then stationed in Britain and entered the service of the Royal Navy as fast patrol and escort vessels. Although Chasseurs 6 and 7 were sunk off St. Alban’s Head under the White Ensign in October 1940, as early as July 1940 the Chasseurs began to be turned over to the Free French Navy (FNFL) and to be renamed in FNFL service after French coastal towns. For example, Chasseur 8 re-entered service under the FNFL in April 1941 as Rennes, to be attacked and sunk off the Lizard in one of the ‘tip and run’ raids of July 1942. [2]

Chasseur 5 was similarly renamed Carentan, but in most British records seems to have kept the designation Chasseur 5 with no real consistency over the nomenclature, including HMS Chasseur 5, while French records similarly note the vessel as Chasseur 5 “Carentan”. [3] There is likewise some confusion over when the vessels actually entered Free French service, for example the July 1940 date, or, as some French sources state, in 1943 – the latter following a refit at Marvin’s (Coles) Yard, Cowes, Isle of Wight, where the Free French Chasseurs were stationed from 1940-1945, commanded by the 1st Destroyer Flotilla. The earlier date of 1940 seems more likely given the fact that they were assigned a base at Cowes from 1940, and named as the Chasseur Flotilla of French ships there in January 1942, including Carentan (Ch. 5). [4]

As the war memorial to the Free French Submarine Chasers on the Isle of Wight states, in a bilingual inscription: ‘They were in the fighting line in the Channel, notably in the Cowes blitz, Bruneval and Dieppe raids, Liberation of France.’ [The Cowes blitz took place in May 1942.]

On 21 December 1943 Chasseur 5/Carentan, under Lieutenant de vaisseau Michel Pierre Sauvage, alias Sampson, was assigned to escort HMS Rorqual, a minelaying submarine of the Grampus class which were all named after sea creatures, from Brixham to Portsmouth. As they passed St. Alban’s Head that morning, the sea conditions deteriorated to force 7 (some sources state a SW force 9 gale) and when a huge wave struck her, she capsized.

Contemporary RNLI records state that a ‘strong and increasing south-west wind was blowing, with a heavy sea, and visibility was very poor at times’, while Met Office records show that conditions were consistently southerly force 5 between 0100 and 1300 that day off Portland Bill. These official observations were, however, point-in-time snapshots, and it appears likely, therefore, that the wind got up at mid-morning in the interval between the 0700 and the 1300 reports. [5]

At 10.27 the Swanage coastguard summoned the Swanage lifeboat Thomas Markby to go to the assistance of ‘an escort vessel which had capsized three miles south of Durlston Head.’ Less than 20 minutes later after the launch of the Thomas Markby, she reached what proved to be ‘Chasseur 5, a chaser of the French naval forces’. Rorqual was standing by as three men from Chasseur 5 clung to the capsized keel, and ‘it was only by skilful seamanship that they were rescued’ by the lifeboat. [5]

Rorqual then rescued four more of Chasseur 5‘s crew, but without tools the lifeboat Thomas Markby was unable to assist the remainder of the crew trapped in the vessel, who could be seen through a porthole. Thomas Markby arranged with Rorqual to ‘pump oil on the sea’, the classic ‘pouring oil on troubled waters’ to calm the sea in extremis, and returned to Swanage to land the rescued men and pick up saws and axes to break into the stricken vessel. However, on the return voyage the Thomas Markby was met with the news that Chasseur 5 had sunk with the remaining crew, three of whom were British.

The site of Chasseur 5/Carentan has been identified since the 1960s 1.75 miles SE of Anvil Point, Dorset. It is now a well broken wreck but, with the loss of life involved, it clearly remains a maritime grave with ample evidence of its military purpose, including shells and depth charges still in situ.

Footnotes

[1] Association of Dunkirk Little Ships nd “All Known Ships”, Association of Dunkirk Little Ships website

[2] Fondation de la France Libre 2022 Hommage aux Forces navales françaises libres: Ils ont rejoint la France libre dès juin 1940: Hommage aux jeunes du Guilvinec et de Treffiagat-Léchiagat qui ont refusé la défaite, Fondation de la France Libre, published online

[3] British sources: e.g. RNLI 1943; Catalogue entry for TNA Kew ADM 358/3155 Patrol Vessel Chasseur 5: 21 December 1943; capsized and sunk online, part of the ADM 358 series Casualty Branch: Enquiries into Missing Personnel, 1939-1945 War; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records for the three British crew killed in this loss name the vessel as HMS Chasseur 5. Dive sites reference this vessel as HMS Carentan. French sources: the names of those who perished as recorded on the French Ministry of Defence Morts pour la France portal reference the vessel as chasseur 5 “Carentan”.

[4] April 1943 according to France Libre 2022; operated by the FNFL from July 1940 as Carentan, Images de Défense; Chasseur Flotilla at Cowes, January 1942, Kindell, D nd “British and Other Navies in World War 2 Day-by-Day: Royal Navy Ships, January 1942, Home Waters, Part 2”, naval-history.net

[5] Shovlar, S 1996 Dorset Shipwrecks: A comprehensive guide to the shipwrecks of Purbeck and Poole Bay (Poole: Freestyle Publications Ltd.); Larn R & Larn B 1995 Shipwreck Index of the British Isles: Vol. 1 Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset (London: Lloyd’s of London Press); RNLI 1943 “Services by the Life-boats of the Institution, by Shore-boats and by Auxiliary Rescue-boats during 1943”, Lifeboat Magazine (RNLI: republished online); Met Office 1943 Daily Weather Report December 1943, 21 December 1943 online

[6] RNLI 1943