wrecks in 1942

Diary of the Second World War: May 1943

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The mystery of the ferro-concrete ships in the River Wear

Even for relatively recent wrecks such as those of the Second World War, little is sometimes known. Vessels lost offshore, running without convoy and mined in the dark, sinking without witness, are understandable mysteries. Yet there remain ships lost inshore about which very little is really known, and what remains are fragments of a story.

How much more interesting is that story when it involves some of the most unusual vessels among England’s recorded losses? Here is the intertwined story of the Cretestem, recorded as lost in May 1943, and the Cretehawser, 1942.

Towards the end of the First World War steel was both in short supply and in great demand for shipbuilding to replace tonnage lost to war causes. Among the remedies put into execution towards the end of the war, and into the immediate post-war period, was the construction of ferro-concrete ships as barges and tugs. Ferro-concrete ships had been produced in other countries for some years and the adoption of the technology met a significant need. All such British ships of this era had the prefix Crete- as a nod to their common build material, while the naming pattern demonstrated that they were built under official programmes (much as the prefix War had done for ships built under the War Standard programme). [1]

(The Hughes & Stirling collection shows concrete vessels under construction 1918-19 and can be explored online in the Historic England Archive.)

Historic black & white photograph of men at work in early 20th century working gear, on the bottom and side sections of a concrete ship shored up by scaffolding.
General view of men at work on prefabricated concrete sections for a vessel, once believed to be the Cretemanor, at the Concrete Seacraft Company, Penketh, Fiddlers Ferry, Warrington, 10 September 1918. Historic England Archive, BB96/00023

The idea of a concrete vessel seems counter-intuitive – how can such a thing float? – but float they did, and in fact more ferro-concrete barges would be constructed in the Second World War and see service into the post-war period.  

The histories of Cretehawser and Cretestem are relatively briefly recorded, but seem to go adrift around the late 1930s and their circumstances during the war are also somewhat obscure. We know that Cretestem, 306 tons, was built by the Amble Ferro-Concrete Co. Ltd., launched on 31 October 1919, with machinery by McColl & Pollock of Sunderland, and registered in London on 13 December 1919. [2]

In 1920 Cretestem was still under the aegis of the Shipping Controller, changing hands to the Board of Trade in 1921, thence to the Crete Shipping Co. Ltd., London (Stelp and Leighton Ltd.) in 1922, in whose ownership she is still recorded in 1930. [3]

Cretehawser‘s story was similar, except that she was built by the Wear Concrete Building Co. Ltd. at Southwick, Sunderland, in 1919, with machinery by Central Marine Engine Works, West Hartlepool. [4]

In 1935 Creteboom, Cretehawser and Cretestem were to be broken up by the South Stockton Shipbreaking Co. The marine column in the Shields News noted somewhat disdainfully that ‘Dozens of these concrete tugs and barges were built at the end of the war and shortly afterwards. Although they suited the purpose at that time, they were never successful and the majority have since been disposed of for breaking up.’ A month later they were at R Duck’s on the Tees. [5]

Elsewhere they were much admired. A correspondent to the Edinburgh Evening News stated in 1940 that the Creteboom and Cretestem ‘both did service in the Baltic, where they encountered the arduous tests of frozen waters. The Cretestem also survived a head-on collision.’ The author continued that ‘they spent the last few years prior to 1934 in idleness in the Tyne, were examined in that year and found to be as strong and watertight as ever.’ [6]

Attitudes were just as divided as ever when an announcement was made that concrete ships would once more go into production in 1941, for their ‘saving in steel’ with a photograph of the Cretestem used to illustrate the concrete ships ‘of the last war’. [7]

Cretehawser‘s register was closed in 1936, and Cretestem‘s in 1937. [8] Thereafter the waters are somewhat muddied in the records and it is difficult to disentangle fact from fiction, or at least from stories that have gained traction. In 1937 a Tyneside newspaper correspondent wondered ‘if there are any of the war-time stone coffins still afloat? By stone coffins I refer to the concrete barges and tugs which were built in large numbers during the war period.’ The writer continued: ‘Many readers will recall the tugs Cretehawser, Cretestem, etc., which towed concrete barges from the Tyne to London . . . ‘ [9]

As stated above they weren’t actually very far away after being sold to the South Stockton Shipbreaking Co., but it does illustrate that they were a bit of a mystery locally. It is said variously that Cretehawser was gutted for possible use as an emergency breakwater in 1935, dismantled in 1936, and beached 1936 at South Hylton, and likewise Cretestem was dismantled in 1937. Elsewhere both vessels are recorded as having been bought by the River Wear Commissioners for breakwater use. They were then moored in the South Dock until required. [10]

Thereafter the story of the two ships diverges again. In other sources Cretehawser does not end up at South Hylton, where she now lies, until 1942 when she was damaged in a bombing raid, being towed up the River Wear and beached. [11]

Modern colour photograph of the River Wear in the foreground, with the dark shape of a concrete wreck against the backdrop of the green riverbank on the far side.
Hulk on the Wear – the Cretehawser as she now lies © Richard Webb Creative Commons CC-BY-SA and published on geograph.org.uk

The end for Cretestem is said to have come during a bombing raid on 24 May 1943, when, according to Lloyd’s War Losses, she was sunk by aircraft in Hendon Dock. Damage in Sunderland was extensive and there was significant loss of life. We know that there were a number of high explosive bombs dropped in and around Hendon Dock. Two 250kg high explosive bombs exploded in the Dock outside Monsanto works, and another in the works; a smaller 50kg bomb exploded west of Hudson Dock Bridge [sic] and another one ‘outside No.31 Coal Staith, Hendon Dock.’ [12] The latter may be the coal staith shown alongside the Hendon Dock Swing Bridge that divided the Hendon Dock from the Hudson Dock to the north in historic Ordnance Survey mapping (1919-39) – the staith and bridge can be seen in this aerial photograph of 1928 on Britain from Above. (Check out the pins on the photograph.) ‘Hudson Dock Bridge’ in the bomb report could refer to the Gladstone Swing Bridge to the north of Hudson Dock but this seems unlikely as it is clearly marked as the latter on the OS map, so it must refer either to the Hendon Dock Swing Bridge between the two docks, or the bridge from Hudson Dock to the lock to the east and a direct outlet to the sea.

Whatever the ambiguities, it is clear that Hendon Dock received some damage.

What happened to Cretestem after that? Once again the story varies – her remains were lifted and dumped on the docks, or the wreck was towed out to sea.

We know from contemporary reports that ‘one vessel was sunk in the River and two in South Docks [i.e. Hudson and Hendon Docks] received damage.’ [13] Cretestem is the only war loss and only ship sunk of which we are aware for 24 May 1943 and the days immediately before and after, so we cannot find any record of a ship sunk in the River Wear. So the Cretestem must be one of the two ships damaged in the docks: the date is correct and brings together the known damage in the docks with the Lloyd’s casualty report. Could it be that, as often happens with wreck reports, two details have been conflated and the ship that sank in the River Wear is also one of the two vessels which sank in the Docks, i.e. one of the two damaged vessels was in fact damaged so badly that she sank?

But why would the two ships be treated so differently after such a similar fate? Cretehawser towed up the Wear to be dumped, Cretestem dumped in or around the docks or out to sea? As we have seen, Cretehawser survived an air raid and remains indestructibly in the Wear 80 years on. Clearly a vessel sunk in a dock is an undesirable obstruction, so if this did indeed happen to Cretestem, she was almost certainly lifted.

Where she then went is a moot point. She would have had to be fairly intact to be towed out – a vessel in bits would not have been capable of being towed. In a war context, being towed out to sea seems perhaps less plausible, with the vessel towing her making what could be regarded as an unnecessary journey negotiating the convoys plying the swept War Channels, and the war perils lurking outside the Channels – not to mention the risk of causing an obstruction should the towed vessel suddenly sink, as hulks and submarines without their own motive power and damaged or beyond repair have a habit of doing.

Once again aerial photography comes to our aid. We cannot see Cretehawser and Cretestem in dock in RAF aerial photographs of 13 March 1941. However, they are identifiable side by side in RAF aerial photos of 22 October 1941 at the south-eastern end of the Hudson Dock, adjacent to the Hendon Dock Swing Bridge. They can be shown on photographic rectification to be the correct length and to share the distinctive characteristics of the Crete- ships. (Creteboom, also sold to the South Stockton Shipbreaking Co., was sold on out of the country in 1937, so is out of contention.) They are seen again in May 1942, almost exactly a year prior to the events of May 1943 (below).

Aerial view of Hendon Dock to the left, separated from the Hudson Dock on the right with its rail lines leading to the coal staiths by the Hendon Dock Swing Bridge. Cretehawser and Cretestem are the two vessels side by side on the right-hand side of the bridge. Historic England Archive (RAF photography) Historic England Photograph raf_1cu_ah_o_ah413 flown 27 May 1942. This image can be explored in greater detail on its dedicated page on the Historic England Aerial Photo Explorer.

They are both still together in the same position on 1 September 1942. There were both human and building casualties of an air raid in Hendon, Sunderland, on the night of 16-17 October 1942, but the bombs seem to have fallen slightly further west than the later raid, and the casualties were nowhere near as heavy. so it seems unlikely that Cretehawser was damaged in an air raid of 1942, as often stated, and towed away up the Wear then.

It seems likely, then, that it was the Hendon Dock Swing Bridge that was damaged on the night of 24 May 1943, and that Cretehawser and Cretestem were the two vessels that sank in the docks that night. Not quite ‘Hendon Dock’ as was stated in Lloyd’s, but not very far off at all.

So it was probably 1943, not 1942, when Cretehawser was towed away up the Wear. We can surmise that she was the less damaged of the two vessels, and Cretestem took the most impact from the blast, so Cretestem was probably the one immediately next to the bridge, with Cretehawser on the outside. Cretehawser was towed away, perhaps, to allow Cretestem to be dealt with.

We can see in the 1919-1939 mapping that there were travelling cranes around the seaward side of Hudson Dock. Was Cretestem then craned off and then perhaps dumped as infill for war blast damage? That sounds plausible – there is a long heritage of obsolete and damaged ships being used as the foundations of and infill for breakwaters, jetties and harbour walls. Perhaps this happened here.

We may never know – but at least aerial photography has shed new light on the story of Cretehawser and Cretestem.

This article would not have been possible without the invaluable help of my specialist colleague in the Historic England Archive, and Richard Lewis of The Crete Fleet blog. As ever, I am profoundly grateful for their kind assistance.

Footnotes

[1] Further discussion on the Crete– ships, their build and loss, in Cant, S 2013 England’s Shipwreck Heritage: from logboats to U-boats (Swindon: English Heritage); see also The Crete Fleet website

[2] North-East Heritage Library nd “Amble Shipyard” The Ship-Building Archive published online; Morpeth Herald and Reporter, 7 November 1919, p5 Appropriation Books 143951-144000

[3] Mercantile Navy List 1920, p135; Historic England Research Records, Cretestem; Mercantile Navy List, 1930, p136; Shields Gazette, 21 September 1937, p6

[4] Appropriation Books 143101-143150; Mercantile Navy List 1920, p135; Historic England Research Records, Cretehawser; Mercantile Navy List, 1930, p136

[5] Shields News, 9 May 1935, p4; Northern Daily Mail, 5 June 1935, p6

[6] Edinburgh Evening News, 19 February 1940, p4; information regarding Cretestem‘s service in the Baltic attributed by the writer of the letter to Fougner, N K 1922 Seagoing and Other Concrete Ships (London: Henry Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton) but probably sourced from some other publication, as not, apparently, in this text.

[7] Sunderland Echo and Shipping Gazette, 26 September 1941, p2

[8] Cretehawser: TNA BT 110/1015/8 Cretestem: TNA BT 110/1015/9

[9] Shields Gazette, 21 September 1937, p6

[10] Historic England Research Records, Cretehawser and Cretestem; “Sink me if you can!”

[11] “Sink me if you can!”

[12] Lloyd’s War Losses: the Second World War 3 September 1939 – 14 August 1945 Vol.1 p678; Ripley R & Pears B 2011 North-East Diary 1939-1945 Incidents 23rd/24th May 1943 to 9th September 1943

[13] North-East Diary 1939-1945 Incidents 23rd/24th May 1943 to 9th September 1943

Diary of the Second World War – November 1942

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The E-boats keep coming . . .

Trawler seen in port bow view, with her pennant number 252 in white to left, and land marking the horizon in the background.
HMT Ullswater (FL 20361) at a buoy. Ullswater was lost off the Eddystone in November 1942 while acting as escort for a south coast – Wales convoy. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205121578

The war at sea in English waters in November 1942 was a slightly quieter one than October 1942 had been, and December 1942 would be. For all that the E-boats kept coming (S-boote in German).

On the evening of the 9th the 2nd, 4th and 6th S-boot Flottille, responsible for the loss of several ships of convoy FN 832 off Norfolk in October 1942, opened fire once more on another FN convoy, FN 861, again off the east coast.  

According to Wehrmacht reports, 4 ships from a convoy were sunk, and three ships, two steamers and an escort, were reported damaged. [1] In fact, the only victim sunk on the 9th was the Norwegian steamer Fidelio, torpedoed east of Lowestoft. The steamer Wandle was badly damaged in the same attack, her bows virtually blown off but still partially attached and sinking. Somehow she was kept afloat, albeit awash, and ultimately she reached the Tyne for repair after several days under tow in fog and heavy seas. She would go on to be rebuilt and continue in service until 1959. [2]

On the 15th the British steamer Linwood, on convoy FS (Forth South) 959, struck a mine laid by air off the Long Sand Head in the approaches to the Thames, with the loss of three DEMS (Defence of Merchant Ships gunners). Elsewhere, in the North Sea and the Baltic, similar mines laid by British aircraft accounted for at least 7 ships during the month. [3]

In the early hours of the 19th the six ships of the 5th S-boot Flottille, S-68, S-77, S-82, S-112, S-115, and S-116 located convoy PW (Portsmouth-Wales) 250 off the Eddystone with the assistance of ‘Lichtenstein’ radar apparatus. Most sources state that the attack was carried out by the E-boats alone, but the Merchant Shipping Movement Cards for the three cargo vessels lost in this incident suggest that it was a coordinated E-boat and aircraft attack. [4] That said, there is no explicit mention of attack from the air in the evidence given by the Norwegian survivors of one of the ships on 21 November 1942 at Plymouth before the Norwegian vice-consul though there was a hint by the carpenter, Peder Andersen, that on his lookout he saw a ‘bright light shining down’. [5] The master, Emanuel Edwardsen, introduced his evidence in an understated fashion, stating that he was unable to produce the logbook due to circumstances which would become clear in his account. All the witnesses confirmed that they had felt the shock of not one, but two, successive torpedoes and they were unable to release one of the boats, but successfully got away in the other, to be picked up by a British vessel.

The victims were the former Danish Birgitte now sailing under the British flag, with the loss of 10 crew, the Norwegian Lab with the loss of 3 lives in the stern part of the ship, the British steamer Yewforest laden with steel billets, with 9 crew and 2 of her gunners, and their escort, HMT Ullswater, which was lost with all hands. The four wrecks lie in close proximity to one another and Ullswater is on the Schedule of Designated Vessels under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. [6]

Like many of her compatriots, the Danish Birgitte had come under the control of the Ministry of War Transport (MOWT), having been seized as a prize and requisitioned by the British authorities at Gibraltar in May 1940 after the fall of Denmark.[7] Lab became one of the famed Nortraships (Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission), at that time the world’s largest shipping fleet, while Yewforest had spent her career with Scottish owners since being built in 1910. Intended as a steam whaler, Ullswater was requisitioned on the stocks on the outbreak of war and had spent the war on escort duty.

Their attackers can be seen together at Travemünde in May 1942 on this German-language site, 4th image down: from left to right, S-115, S-112 with the Lichtenstein radar antenna visible, and S-116.

In English waters at any rate the rest of the month was quiet, with no further shipping losses.

Footnotes:

[1] Convoyweb; Rohwer, J and Hümmelchen, G 2007-2022 Chronik des Seekrieges 1939-1945 November 1942 (Württembergische Landesbibliothek: published online) (in German)

[2] Central Office of Information 1947 British Coaster: The Official Story (London: HMSO)

[3] Chronik des Seekrieges

[4] Chronik des Seekrieges; Merchant Shipping Movement Cards: Birgitte, BT 389/4/172; Lab, BT 389/38/249; Yewforest, BT 389/32/198, all The National Archives (TNA)

[5] This account is available in English: https://www.krigsseilerregisteret.no/forlis/221161, and click on Sjøforklaring tab

[6] UK Statutory Instruments 2019 No.1191 The Protection of Military Remains Act (Designation of Vessels and Controlled Sites) Order 2019 Schedule 1

[7] TNA BT 389/4/172

Diary of the Second World War – October 1942

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Convoy Battle!

The summer of 1942 had seen two key convoy battles – Arctic convoy PQ17 which battled through during the first half of July to Archangel and Murmansk with the loss of two-thirds of its ships; and Mediterranean convoy WS21S of August, in which victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat by delivering the tanker Ohio to the relief of Malta.

It is these famous incidents, and others like them, which we tend to think of when we consider convoy battles of the Second World War – yet convoy battles were an everyday reality and took place not only ‘over there’ during the Battle of the Atlantic and in the foreign theatres of war, but ‘in home waters’ also around the coasts of Britain.

Every convoy was a potential battle.

In the early hours of 7 October 1942 three groups of E-boats were lurking off Cromer to intercept any passing convoys. The term ‘E-boat’ is a linguistic legacy in English of the Second World War: ‘E-boat’ (‘Enemy boat’) referred to the German Schnellboot or S-boot (‘fast boat’), broadly equivalent to an Allied motor torpedo boat, so the terminology differs between British and German sources.

E-boats and E-boat Admiral surrender, 13 May 1945, HMS Beehive, Felixstowe. (A 28559) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205159904

Out of the three E-boat groups present that day, the 2nd S-boot Flottille, with six craft, and the 4th, with three, found a target in convoy FN (Forth North) 832, an east coast convoy from the Thames for Methil, Scotland, with a Trade Division Signal report of 26 ships. Shortly after 4.30 in the morning they opened fire on FN 832. [1]

Some 10 or so miles NE of Cromer lie the remains of some of the convoy, all securely charted since the day they sank in 1942. {2] To seaward lies the remains of ML 339, a British motor launch of Fairmile B type that became a versatile multi-function asset used in several roles and theatres of war, particularly as a submarine chaser.

ML 340 seen in port view with troops on board, off Skiathos, Greece. (A 26457)
Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205119921

Around half a mile to port of ML 339 lie the remains of the Jessie Maersk, a British freighter under the control of the Ministry of War Transport (MOWT). As her name implies, she originally belonged to the Danish shipping line of Maersk, whose ships are still a familiar sight in ports around the world.

In 1940 Jessie Maersk had been at sea with a cargo bound for London when Denmark fell under Nazi occupation, and on that voyage was ordered over the wireless by the new regime to put into a neutral port. The master decided initially to put into an Irish port, but, as more information came in, the crew mutinied, took charge of the ship, and put her instead into Cardiff. There the master lodged a complaint with the police, who arrested the crew, but it did not quite end as he clearly expected. Far from being had up before a British court for mutiny, the crew were released by the British authorities with thanks for their action, and the Jessie Maersk, as with so many ships from Nazi-occupied countries, came under the auspices of the MOWT. (On her final voyage two years later she would be crewed by both British and Danish sailors. [3]) By contrast, in 1940, the possible internment of the master as an enemy alien or enemy sympathiser was discussed at Parliamentary level – in the Commons. [4]

Jessie Maersk had an eventful, if not positively hard, war, with a litany of incidents necessitating repairs – collisions in convoy, aircraft damage, and groundings, before being torpedoed and sunk on that day in October 1942. [5]

Another half a mile to port again lie the remains of HMS Caroline Moller, an Admiralty tug, i.e. one requisitioned from civilian service to act as a rescue tug. On the seabed the three ships appear at regular intervals, as if keeping station as they did so long ago in convoy above, with ML 339 still in her protective position guarding against seaward attack on the starboard flank.

Ships lost from the same convoy naturally frequently lie in close proximity, sometimes very close together, but to see three ships in a clear pattern on the seabed, a similar distance apart, is slightly more unusual. This pattern seems consistent with the rapidity of the simultaneous attack from multiple E-boats, and suggests that their victims all sank equally rapidly.

The British coasters Sheaf Water and Ilse were also damaged in the attack, and dropped out of the convoy, returning under tow to the southward. The damage they had sustained overwhelmed them as the turned back, and they too also now lie relatively close to one another, but as a distinct group, some distance from their convoy sisters. [6]

The Merchant Shipping Movement Card for Sheaf Water reveals what we would now call a ‘live feed’ or a ‘real-time update’ in red ink: ‘Torpedoed by E-boat between 57F and 67B buoys [of the swept War Channel], 7.10. Badly holed, now anchored Sheringham buoy. (8.10) Vessel now partly submerged. Report 9/10 states: only two masts visible high water. No further action will be taken (10.10). Now in about 8 faths [fathoms], salvage not practicable. (5.12)’ [7]

This was the second major incident in the Ilse’s wartime career. On a similar convoy voyage from Southend for the Tyne in June 1941, she had struck a mine on the 20th off Hartlepool. She seems to have gone down by the bows as her Shipping Movement Card notes: ‘the after end of the vessel floatable. Fore end constructive total loss.’ The stern half arrived at Hartlepool 10 days later and was docked, before being taken up the river to Middlesbrough for repairs, where a new forepart was built on, and by February 1942, she was back on the east coast convoy run. She was ‘presumed torpedoed by E-boat’ between the same two buoys as Sheaf Water. She then ‘sunk in tow’ (8.10) and by the 12th October she was ‘Submerged 2 mls [miles] E of Haisboro, 4ft of mast above water at low water spring tides.’ Salvage was also dismissed ‘not practicable’ on 5 December. [8]

The Ilse herself is thus also an unusual wreck, where parts of the same ship are charted in two distinct locations from different wreck incidents a year apart. [9] (In a previous blog, we’ve covered the loss of the Nyon, 1958/1962.)

We can see that the events of 7 October 1942 resulted in archaeological patterns not always seen on the seabed as a result of convoy attacks, in which ships scatter, take evasive action, drift after being struck before finally sinking, return fire, cover for other ships in convoy, put themselves in the line of fire in rendering assistance, or are attacked several times over the course of a voyage, with separate losses in quite different locations. On that day it seems that the E-boats swept in with such speed there was little time to return fire, resulting in three ships sinking together in short order and two that sank shortly afterwards as they turned back.

It was less a convoy battle than a devastating ‘hit and run’ raid leaving an archaeological legacy which forms a memorial to the lost crews. That archaeological legacy also preserves in lasting and concrete form some rather less tangible things: firstly, the locations of the buoys marking the swept War Channel, against which all the attacks were recorded, and which naturally disappeared after the war; secondly, it would appear, the disposition of the convoy relative to one another as they turned north-west on their voyage.

Crew of the Pole Star refuelling a war channel buoy, seen from HM Trawler Stella Pegasi. (A 18188) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205150957

Footnotes:

[1] Convoyweb; Rohwer, J and Hümmelchen, G 2007-2022 Chronik des Seekrieges 1939-1945 Oktober 1942 (Württembergische Landesbibliothek: published online) (in German)

[2] United Kingdom Hydrographic Office: ML 339 UKHO 9243; Jessie Maersk, 9238; HMS Caroline Moller, 9231

[3] Daily Herald, 22 April 1940, No.7,546, p10; widely reported in national and regional press

[4] Hansard, House of Commons Debate 30 April 1940, Vol.360, c.541

[5] Merchant Shipping Movement Card, Jessie Maersk, BT 389/17/22, The National Archives

[6] United Kingdom Hydrographic Office: Sheaf Water, UKHO 10554; Ilse, 10562

[7] Merchant Shipping Movement Card, Sheaf Water, BT 389/26/230, The National Archives

[8] Merchant Shipping Movement Card, Jessie Maersk, BT 389/16/65, The National Archives

[9] United Kingdom Hydrographic Office: UKHO no. 5624 (section, off Hartlepool, 1941); UKHO 10562 (off Cromer, 1942)

Diary of the Second World War – September 1942

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LBBB 332 and LBBB 362: two unlikely ships go to war

The tragic heritage of Exercise Tiger off Slapton Sands, south Devon, in April 1944 as preparation for the D-Day landings in June that year is well-known: the exercise was disrupted by enemy action, with the loss of Landing Ship Tanks LST-507 and LST-531, both now scheduled monuments. (Learn more in this Historic England article with a contemporary photograph.)

Less well-known off Salcombe, south Devon – perhaps because they were on exercise for an operation which never took place – is a similarly fateful attack on two Landing Barges (Landing Barge Barrage Balloon) LBBB 332 and LBBB 362, on 19 September 1942.

A Balloon Close-Hauled on a Barge, Francis Edwin Hodge, 1941 (Art.IWM ART LD 1931) A barrage balloon attached with ropes to a barge being moved at sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/13253

During the spring and summer of 1942, the Allied Powers had been in discussion about undertaking an invasion attempt on France in the forthcoming autumn, codenamed Operation Sledgehammer. Heavily promoted by the Soviet Union and the United States, it was viewed in Britain as having little prospect of success and costly in human and material resources, a view to which the US was also eventually persuaded. [1] The debacle of the Raid on Dieppe on 19 August 1942 only served to highlight that the Allies were not yet ready to open a second front in Europe, and instead Allied resources were poured into the North African campaign which would lead to victory at El Alamein in November 1942.

However, with Sledgehammer in mind, over the summer of 1942, Britain pressed some apparently rather unlikely vessels into service. [2] The ‘dumb barges’ of the Thames – so called because they had no propulsion of their own, and could only be towed, or operated with long ‘sweeps’ or oars – would now play their part in the war.

Two bargemen manoeuvring a barge laden with cargo along the River Thames, c.1930-1945. The long ‘sweeps’ can be seen in action. Julian Joseph Samuels Collection, SAM01/03/0089: Source Historic England Archive

They were requisitioned for repurposing as landing craft, valuable for bringing materials ashore from larger ships, their ‘swim’ ends easily convertible into ramps for offloading, and easily beached because of their shallow draught. [The second photo in this gallery of a contemporary model of a Thames lighter, made around 1940, depicts a sloping flat ‘swim’, rather than pointed or rounded and blunt, end.]

They were then initially fitted with British engines, but were soon re-engined with US-made Chrysler marine engines, supplied under Lend-Lease. [3] Some of this group were then able to perform exercises under their own power at various locations, with five barges undergoing trials at Salcombe in September 1942.

It would seem that among them were LBBB 332 and LBBB 362, each converted into a Landing Barge Barrage Balloon, amphibious vessels tethering airborne craft. Barrage balloon vessels were not, in themselves, a new idea. From the early days of the war, barrage balloons had been deployed for home defence, compromising the accuracy of enemy aircraft in range-finding and gunnery by forcing them to fly higher. Barrage balloons were thus placed around towns, strategic sites, and, crucially, harbours – anywhere that was a target for air attack.

ROYAL AIR FORCE BALLOON COMMAND, 1939-1945. (C 726) A Barrage Balloon Section, housed in a converted sugar barge in the Thames Estuary, sends up a kite balloon from its cradle. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205207526

Those balloons defending ports and harbours were flown from requisitioned barges and other small craft, and several were themselves victims of air attack, among them British drifter Lavinia L, sunk off Sheerness June 1941; and two ex-Belgian fishing vessels in British Admiralty service following the fall of Belgium in 1940, the Borealis, off the Isle of Wight, August 1940, and the Cor Jesu off Alnmouth, August 1941. These losses expose one of the key weaknesses of barrage balloon defence – their very presence signposted sites of importance. (Indeed, the contemporary photograph in Historic England’s aerial photography collections shows barrage balloons off Slapton Sands.)

Other barrage balloon vessels, while guarding against attack from the air, fell victim to the sub-surface wartime dangers of the sea, such as the British drifters Lord St Vincent, mined off Harwich in July 1940, and Carry On, also mined off Sheerness, December 1940. A similar fate befell the tug Lion, again off Sheerness, in January 1941. Her actual role is slightly unclear: she was requisitioned by the Air Ministry for barrage balloon duty but was towing a barge at the time of loss, which might perhaps have been a barrage balloon vessel, given the numbers stationed at Sheerness. [4]

The vessels at Salcombe and elsewhere represented a development of the need for harbour defence from the air. There were two new elements: one was the idea of an air shield while en route, supplementing conventional air cover, and the other the amphibious component, providing cover forward for the offloading of troops and ammunition on the beach. Salcombe was an ideal test location, since it was one of the existing harbours covered by seaward, but static, barrage balloon defences. [5]

However, as the other barrage balloon barges sunk elsewhere in the war attest, the barges on exercises became very visible targets for bombing raids. On 19 September 1942, a Luftwaffe air raid took place on Salcombe. It was in that raid that Landing Barges Barrage Balloon LBBB 332 and LBBB 362 were sunk by a Focke-Wulf of 10/JG 26. [6]

The papers of those involved in the extensive discussions over Operation Sledgehammer laid a documentary trail for something which never, ultimately, took place: the wrecks of the LBBBs form the tangible archaeological counterpart for that documentary trail.

Those wrecks also form a historical bridge between two events which did take place: in their small size and unlikely guise, they were akin to the ‘little ships’ which participated in Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940; and they were the precursors of the landing barges and the barrage balloon vessels that went in 1944 to the D-Day landing beaches as part of Operation Overlord with both British and American units – the history of the barrage balloon barges has, until recently, has been a crucial, but largely overlooked, heritage in both ships and personnel. [7] In the same vein, the LBBB wrecks at Salcombe help chart the little-known story of Britain’s preparations for Overlord as early as 1942.

Footnotes

[1] The National Archives, Churchill Archive, CHAR 20/77/87-90; Matloff, M. & Snell, E (1990) Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare (Washington DC: Centre of Military History, US Army) 266-292, as published online

[2] Smith, G. nd “Thames Lighters at War in Time for D-Day”, Naval-History.net – Part 1 and Part 2

[3] Ibid.

[4] United Kingdom Hydrographic Office 12806

[5] “Barrage Balloon Vessels”, Barrage Balloon Reunion Club, published online

[6] Designated as LBBB 332 and LBBB 362 in British Vessels Lost at Sea, 1914-18 and 1939 45 (Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd) (reproduction of HMSO originals), p51; described as ‘dumb barges of 150-ton type’ in Smith Part 2; Brine, M nd “Casualties of the Bombing at Salcombe”, Devon Heritage (published online); Goss, C, Cornwell, P, and Rauchbach, B, 2003 Luftwaffe Fighter-Bombers over Britain: The Tip and Run Campaign 1942-3 (Manchester: Crécy Publishing Ltd.)

[7] Hervieux, L 2015 “How Black Barrage Balloon Troops Kept the D-Day Beaches Safe”, Military History Now, published online; Military Health Systems Communications Office, 2022 “This D-Day veteran hit the beach strapped to a barrage balloon”, We Are The Mighty, published online

No.48: The Cieszyn

~ Serena ~ Leave a comment

Dziękuję ci Kapitanie!

Following a trip to Poland last week, I thought I’d talk about Polish shipwrecks in English waters.

We have at least 69 wrecks of Polish origin, but a number may have been masked by historic former nationalities such as “Prussian”. Without a home port being named, it is difficult to identify just to which modern state incorporated within the former extent of Prussia a vessel belongs. Our earliest reference is in 1389 to the Cristofre of Danzig, while a reference to “Dansk in Prucia” from 1391 is clear enough, at the period when Gdansk was one of the major cities of the Hanseatic League, a trade association which dominated the Baltic and North Sea and became a power in its own right. Richard II and his queen, Anne of Bohemia, surrendered their rights in the wreck and restored the wrecked goods to the merchants involved.

Inevitably language isn’t always much of a clue, since most Prussian names were recorded in German rather than Polish, although occasionally other languages crop up. There is even a Lord Wellington belonging to Gdansk, wrecked off Lincolnshire in 1824, when memories of the Anglo-Prussian alliance against Napoleon were still fresh. The ports of Gdansk and Szszecin continued to be referred to as Prussian Danzig and Stettin until well into the 20th century.

During World War II a number of Polish ships were lost in English waters including today’s featured wreck, the Cieszyn, which was bombed and sunk by two Dorniers off Lowland Point, near Falmouth, 73 years ago yesterday on 20th March 1941.

It was said that the boat carrying the escaping crew also came under attack, as did the lifeboatmen who put out from Coverack to rescue them in the Three Sisters lifeboat. When the Coverack cox’n, Archie Rowe, was featured on This Is Your Life in the days before it became dominated by celebrities, the team tracked down Captain Mikosza of the Cieszyn to express his gratitude.

Her bell was recovered in 1997, leading to the identification of the wreck, which had previously been thought to be a different wreck site, now believed to be the 1942 wreck of the British armed trawler Lord Snowden, lost in collision in the same general area. In turn the last resting place of the Lord Snowden has been reattributed from elsewhere, when the 1940 wreck of another WWII armed trawler, the Comet, was positively identified by her bell, having previously been believed to be Lord Snowden.

The Cieszyn also lives on in literature. As the fictional Bielsk, the Polish novelist Arkady Fiedler, who spent the war years in London, paid tribute to the Cieszyn and other wartime Polish ships in his book Dziękuję ci Kapitanie (Thank you, Captain!) For a picture of her, please see: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:SS_Cieszyn_POL.jpg

The Polish wrecks in English waters are thus tangible reminders of the shifting alliances in Europe in times of war and peace.

See also a recent post on the Raphael of Gdansk here.