The Douglas-Morris Collection of Naval Medals (Part 1)

An outstanding and rare Conspicuous Gallantry Medal awarded to Able Seaman Harry Smith for the “Human Torpedo” attack on Spazia harbour and the sinking of the Italian cruiser Bolzano

Conspicuous Gallantry Medal, G.VI.R. (A.B. H. Smith D/JX.368318) officially engraved naming, nearly extremely fine

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Douglas-Morris Collection of Naval Medals.

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C.G.M. London Gazette 28 November 1944 “For great gallantry as the crew of a ‘Human Torpedo’ which on the night of 21 June 1944 penetrated the heavily defended harbour of Spazia and sank the Italian cruiser Bolzano.”

At 18:40 hours on 21 June 1944, Able Seaman Harry Smith sailed from the Corsican port of Bastia in the commandeered Italian destroyer Greacle. He was a member of one of two two-man Human Torpedo crews chosen to attack two Italian heavy cruisers, under German control since the Italian capitulation, inside the heavily defended anchorage of La Spazia. The two ‘Charioteer’ crews comprised Sub-Lieutenant Malcolm Causer and Able Seaman Smith, and Petty Officer Cook C. L. Berry and Stoker Ken Lawrence. The former were to attack the Bolzano, the latter the Gorizia.

At 20:30 hours and twenty miles from the Italian coast, Greacle stopped engines and the Charioteers under the direction of the Senior British Naval Officer, Commander P. E. H. Heathfield, transferred to an Italian Motor Torpedo Boat. Causer and Smith had made contact with the M.T.B.’s Italian captain while training at their secret base at San Vito at the entrance to Tarranto harbour. The Italian officer had been based at La Spazia before coming over to the Allies, and the plan was for him to drop them close to the harbour entrance which consisted of a mile-long channel with a breakwater and boom defences at its mouth. Causer and Smith were to attack the cruiser, get ashore, lie low during the day, and then make their way up the coast to place where they would find a large rock about two hundred yards out to sea. They were then to swim out to the rock, and during the night a fast motor boat would come in and take them off.

When Heathfield was satisfied that they were three miles off La Spezia he instructed the Italian captain to cut engines and the Chariots were lowered over the side. The Charioteers mounted, checked the trim, and at 22:30, putting their motors to slow ahead, started inshore. Heathfield and the Italian captain later stated the Chariots had been dropped in the agreed position, but the Number Ones of both craft felt they had been deposited considerably further out. It afterwards transpired that the Charioteers were wrong and that their misapprehension was due to the batteries producing less than maximum speed.

For the first hour Causer and Smith ran in unhindered on the surface, but then the sound of a marine engine forced them to dive to about twenty-five feet and reduce speed. When the noise faded, they surfaced and stopped the motor and Smith was ordered to sit facing aft, to keep watch astern. With some difficulty he accomplished this unusual manoeuvre, and they continued cautiously, running past the boom defence vessel, then, altering course to starboard, proceeded to follow the breakwater which would bring them to the old entrance. By the time they reached the entrance they were some three hours behind schedule. Smith, of course, had resumed his customary position, facing forwards. As they rounded the end of the breakwater semi-submerged with only Causer’s head showing, there came the sound of heavy boots and a rifle being cocked above them. ‘We were so close’, Causer remembered, ‘that I did not even dive for fear that the movement would attract the attention of the guard. Instead we just carried on straight ahead, and soon I felt reasonably safe again.’

In the middle of the disused old entrance, they negotiated their way round a half sunk ship, only to find their progress impeded by three rows of anti-torpedo nets. They dived hoping to pass underneath but the surplus netting lying at the bottom was too heavy to lift. There was no time to cut their way through and groping in the blackness, they were lucky enough to find a hole sufficiently large for the Chariot to pass through. To their relief the second and third nets were in an equally poor state and they passed on without difficulty. On the far side they ran into a patch of oil which obscured their visors, ‘Smith fished out the little cotton waste which he had stowed away aft against such a mishap and with the aid of this we were able to clear our glasses of most of the film.’ They continued on the surface towards the mooring where, according to the latest photo-reconnaissance photographs, the 10,000-ton Bolzano was lying.

‘We were still on the surface when we sighted her dark outline,’ Causer recalled, ‘I reduced to slow speed and continued until we were within about 200 yards range ... before pushing the stick forward and diving to about twenty-five feet. Shortly afterwards we could distinguish clearly, by looking up, the shape of the Bolzano ... In a few moments we came scraping along the underside of the huge hull. We switched off the motor, clamped on with the magnets, and immediately began to pull ourselves and the Chariot along the ship’s hull, moving one magnet at a time. We continued this progress underneath the ship until I reckoned we were half-way along and, as far as I could assess, under the boiler rooms.’ Causer secured a series of magnets to the hull and tied the lanyards hanging from them to the warhead, which Smith made sure was properly secured. It was now about 04:30, and having decided the charge was correctly placed Smith and Causer ‘exchanged the thumbs up with a fair degree swagger about the gesture’. Causer set the time fuse for 06:30, and then pulled the release gear that freed the warhead from the Chariot.

With daylight fast approaching Causer decided to abandon the original plan of landing near La Spazia, and elected instead to make for the breakwater. With Smith unaware of the change they dived to thirty feet and at 05:45 the breakwater was reached. Causer, to Smith’s surprise, flooded the Chariot: He turned to Smith and made signs that he was dismounting and that he wanted Smith to follow suit. This information was not received with any enthusiasm by the Number Two, who, indeed, was so reluctant to move that he just stayed seated where he was. Eventually Causer managed to persuade him, and he let himself float clear. No sooner was he dismounted than, to his further surprise, he saw his Number One climbing up the rocks and beckoning him to do the same. This was getting past a joke, he thought, as he saw Causer disappear above him. Then, within a few moments, the ripples over his head betokened the surface. But that wasn’t all. There was Causer partly out of the water and already cutting away his suit with his greasy diver’s knife. By the time Smith was completely surfaced and on a firm footing his companion was stripped of all his gear - suit, breathing set, boots, everything. Before Smith could get his visor open he saw Causer bundle all his equipment together and send it down to join the Chariot. Smith shook his head, gave up trying to undo his visor’s wingnuts, ripped his headpeice off with his knife, and said, “Well - what the hell are we doing here?”

Having disposed of their diving gear, they concealed themselves among the rocks at the end of the breakwater. After a short while a fisherman passed close by. Causer hailed him and told him they were British P.O.W.’s. The fisherman refused to lend them his own boat but promised to see if he could get hold of another in his village, and went on his way. At 06:23 the charge under the Bolzano exploded. Causer recalled, ‘We got a hell of a kick out of it. First of all two great waterspouts shot up into the air, one either side of the Bolzano, just aft of the bridge. Only just then did it come back to me what we had really done and what Jerry would do to us if he caught us ... It wasn’t long before she began to go down heavily by the bow. Soon her whole stern was out of the water she looked as though she were going to settle, and I guessed that her stern had probably touched the bottom. However, she suddenly rolled over with a terrific splash and sank. We felt good. All that was left visible was part of her starboard side. By this time it was almost half-past seven.’

The fisherman returned with a rowing boat and some drinking water, and having guessed what they had been up to, promptly took his leave. Smith and Causer rowed about two miles south of the breakwater to a point where a number of fishing boats were going about their business. Pretending to be one of them they spent the day at a respectable distance, stripped to the waist under a hot sun, and, in the absence of an anchor were compelled to keep rowing so as not to drift away. At dusk when the other boats had started back for La Spazia, they rowed and drifted in a southerly direction intending to clear the shore and eventually reach Corsica some ninety-miles away. They had now been thirty-six hours without rest or sleep. At day break they were out of sight of land and they succeeded in catching a few droplets of rain in their silk escape maps, but their mouths were still very dry and their tongues had started to swell. They had no idea of their whereabouts and so Causer altered course to the east, hoping that they had travelled sufficiently far down the Italian coast to land in Allied occupied territory. At length the mainland came into view and they came ashore at the German controlled town of Forti de Marmi, only thirty-five miles from La Spazia. Reluctantly some local people at great personal risk took them in, fed them, and supplied them with civilian clothes. Late that night a guide took them up into the hills and delivered them into the hands of the Partisans - the same group of Partisans, as it turned out, who were harbouring Berey and Lawrence.

For six weeks the four Charioteers lived in the hills, took part in Partisan operations, and met among others some deserters from the famous Italian Human Torpedo unit the Decima Flottigla Mas who told them Smith and Causer’s Chariot had been recovered by the Germans and that it had been announced that the men who had attacked the Bolzano had been killed. On 10 August Berey succeeded in crossing the German lines at a point on the Arno to rejoin British forces. Stoker Lawrence, who attempted to cross with him, was wounded by a hand grenade thrown by a German sentry, and was captured. Twenty-four hours later Smith and Causer made their attempt at the same point and were also taken prisoner. Smith was subsequently incarcerated at Marlag und Milag, Westertimke (Tarnstetd), where he was placed in solitary confinement and otherwise badly abused in an attempt to get him to admit complicity in the Bolzano affair. Until his release by the 11th Hussars in 1945, he persisted with the story that he was merely a survivor from a big submarine. Causer subsequently received the D.S.O., and their epic adventure later became the basis of the film Above Us the Waves.