Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Second World War submariner’s D.S.M. group of eight awarded to Commissioned Engineer C. A. Jennings, Royal Navy, who survived six eventful operational patrols in the “Tantalus” in the Far East

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (C.E.R.A. C. A. Jennings, C/MX. 49757); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (MX. 49757 C.E.R.A., H.M.S. Totem) the medals with contact wear, edge bruising and polished, good fine, the stars rather better (8) £1200-1500

D.S.M. London Gazette 19 June 1945.

‘For courage, endurance and outstanding skill in successful patrols whilst serving in H.M. Submarines.’

Cyril Alfred Jennings, who was born in November 1910, entered the submarine branch as an Engine Room Artificer 4th Class in late 1933. By the outbreak of hostilities he was serving as an E.R.A. 3 out in Hong Kong, attached to Tamar, but in December 1940, having returned home, he was appointed an E.R.A. 2 in the Parthian, in which submarine he served until December 1941. Then in the new year he joined the L. 23, serving in her until his final wartime appointment to the newly launched Tantalus in February 1943.

The exploits of Tantalus are well recorded, not least for her tally of six wartime patrols in the Far East, but her first operational outing of note was actually an attempt to launch an attack on the Tirpitz and Scharnhorst, when the latter bombarded Spitzbergen. Sadly to no avail. Her first Far Eastern patrol, carried out between April and May 1944, in the Malacca Straits, was a typically eventful one, a special operation code named “Remarkable III” and a successful torpedo strike on the 3165-ton Amagim being among the highlights. And so, too, would this prove to be the case for all of her patrols, a steady succession of targets being attacked, some successfully and some not so successfully, and occasionally with due response from the enemy. Such was the case on her fourth patrol in the late summer of 1944:

‘The King’s submarines in the Far East have often to be content with such small targets as do not justify the use of torpedoes; and to secure even these, weeks may have to be passed in barren areas, and in the face sometimes of greatly improved enemy A./S. equipment. This was the experience, for example, of H.M. Submarine Tantalus (Lieutenant J. Nash, D.S.C., R.N., in temporary command) on her fourth Far Eastern patrol. She arrived in the Malacca Straits area on 29 August last [1944], and almost at once was sighted by a Japanese aircraft. This passed close overhead before deciding to attack, and by the time its bomb fell the submarine was at 70 ft. below the surface. The bomb, however, dropped close enough for an explosion to smash the navigation lights, and the aircraft then hung about for several hours, effectively preventing the Tantalus from getting on to her prescribed position off Penang. When she did arrive there, on the 31st, a general muster of the local fishing fleet was apparently in progress off the harbour; this dispersed towards noon, however, and the Tantalus was left alone. At 1630 a trading junk of about 30 tons was sighted, stalked and eventually sunk by shell-fire which, aimed forward in order to spare the crew, had the effect of sending the target into a spectacular nose-dive. The enemy by now was alert, however, and during the night a detour had to be made to avoid his patrol. At dawn he tried again, an A./S. boat came up from the south-east and began a tenacious search. Aiming to pin the Tantalus against the shore, he snooped round for some time before coming in to attack at speed from the starboard quarter. At 1701 six depth-charges exploded in quick succession, and most unpleasantly close. The submarine was severely shaken, and a good many lights, fittings and electrical instruments were carried away. Worst of all two hull valves jumped off their seating and began to leak badly. The result was that the Tantalus could not afford to go below 120 feet, and was already at 110; and she became seriously heavy aft from the inrush of water. Fortunately, the Engineer Officer, Lieutenant (E.) H. A. Kidd, D.S.O., D.S.C., R.N., was able to save both situations. The submarine climbed slowly to 90 feet and it was found possible to reseat the valve to opening it and shutting it again. The leak aft was more difficult but fortunately, in the Commanding Officer’s words, “Lieutenant Kidd was able to reduce this leak to a mere drip by altering the positions of the cocks on the system - not such an easy matter as it may sound, especially when silence is imperative.” The submarine could just be held at 120 feet with a bow-up angle of 8-10 degrees without using the ballast pump. In 26 fathoms that left little enough room between propellers and sea-bed.

Meanwhile the enemy was still nosing about, with frequent pauses to listen and take stock. At 0737 he dropped three more depth-charges. These, though not dangerously close, made the rack, on the steering Evershed in the after ends, jump out of step. The Commanding Officer reports that in the control-room, “it was realized that the steering was out of step, but after a careful check over it appeared that with the rudder itself amidships the submarine had a strong tendency to swing to starboard. It suddenly occurred to me that while I had been attributing this to errors in the steering instruments it might be the gyro which was at fault. The binnacle illumination had been smashed, but by poking in a wandering ... and juggling to find the right position the compass card was illuminated and I was much relieved to find that we were indeed heading out to sea and not circling aimlessly in shallow water.” Gradually the Tantalus drew clear of the enemy, and at about 1210 the periscope was at last put up, and the submarine was found to be alone, with land far astern. Both periscopes had suffered from the attack; flakes of dust had been knocked down on to the graticule, making the field of view very spotty. This made it easy to misjudge the size and character of potential targets; but at 1352 on 3 September six small coasters were seen proceeding south-east in convoy. They were steaming in line ahead and the Tantalus was already 30 degrees on their port bow. She turned on to a firing course. A Japanese submarine-chaser and a patrolling aircraft combined to hamper the Tantalus in her movements, and three minutes before firing two bombs were dropped not far off. Torpedoes were fired at the first and second ships at 3,500 yards, and from the evidence of explosions it was thought probable that both targets had been sunk. The enemy A./S. forces did not succeed in making effective contact and the Tantalus got clear away. On the following day a tug was shelled, crippled and driven ashore; but the water was too shallow to allow of any approach to decisive range and the Tantalus reluctantly had to withdraw. Patrol was then shifted to the Penang area. On 7 September she had an inconclusive encounter with an enemy A./S. boat, and in the evening a second member of this unwelcome tribe interrupted the submarine in her investigations. After such thorough warnings it was disappointing to find no satisfactory target in this area, and on the evening of the 9th the Tantalus was ordered to patrol off Sabang. Once again determined enemy opposition was met. In fact, 10 September was a notably unpleasant day; as early as 0317 an enemy patrol sighted Tantalus and gave chase. The Japanese gained steadily, but did not press home his attack. No sooner was he shaken off than a friend of his sighted the submarine to the north of him and turned towards. He in his turn was outwitted, but patrols remained within range throughout the morning and were augmented at 1350 by a bomber aircraft. This dropped four bombs unpleasantly close; a patrol boat, some two miles away, did not join in. In the evening a final aggravation was endured when an unseen enemy opened fire on the Tantalus with two streams of tracer. Two A./S. boats were somewhere near, and soon afterwards one of them dropped two depth-charges. The westward passage to Penang was then abandoned, and the Tantalus set course for base. On passage it was possible to attend to less hazardous matters. When, for instance, the Equator was crossed on 14 September, “a ceremony was held during the dog-watches, and those who had not crossed before were presented with certificates, after certain formalities.” The patrol, which ended on 24 September, was the longest so far made in the Far East by a submarine of the Eighth Flotilla.’

As part of the Fremantle Flotilla in early 1945, on her sixth patrol, and now back under the command of Lieutenant-Commander H. S. MacKenzie, D.S.O., D.S.C., the Tantalus topped this record by adding another four days at sea in the remote waters of the Java Sea and adjoining waters, a feat not lost on David Thomas, author of Submarine Victory:

‘Eight weeks on patrol in the confined spaces of a submarine mostly spent in tropical heat, much of it below the surface and in hostile waters, is a fate few would want to suffer.’

Having been advanced to C.E.R.A. in August 1946, while serving in the Totem, Jennings remained in the submarine branch until appointed a Commissioned Engineer for general duties in October 1954. He retired in April 1960 and is believed to have died in Australia in 1983.