E-boat was the Western Allies' designation for fast attack craft of the
Kriegsmarine during World War II. The most popular, the S-100 class, were very
seaworthy, heavily armed, and fast – capable of sustaining 43.5 knots and
briefly accelerating to 48 knots. These craft were 35 metres long and 5.1
metres in beam, half again longer and much sleeker than any of the Allied PT
boats. Their diesel engine propulsion had substantially longer range than the
gasoline-fueled American PT boat and the generally similar British Motor Torpedo
Boat. As a result, the Royal Navy later
developed better matched versions of MTBs using the Fairmile 'D' hull design.
History = Development=
This design was chosen because the theatre of operations of such boats was
expected to be the North Sea, English Channel and the Western Approaches. The
requirement for good performance in rough seas dictated the use of a
round-bottomed displacement hull rather than the flat-bottomed planing hull that
was more usual for small, high-speed boats. Lürssen overcame many of the
disadvantages of such a hull and, with the Oheka II, produced a craft that was
fast, strong and seaworthy. This attracted the interest of the
Reichsmarine, which in 1929 ordered a similar boat but fitted with two torpedo
tubes. This became the S-1, and was the basis for all subsequent E-boats.
After experimenting with the S-1, the Germans made several improvements to the
design. Small rudders added on either side of the main rudder could be angled
outboard to 30 degrees, creating at high speed what is known as the Lürssen
Effect. This drew in an "air pocket slightly behind the three propellers,
increasing their efficiency, reducing the stern wave and keeping the boat at a
nearly horizontal attitude". This was an important innovation as the horizontal
attitude lifted the stern somewhat, allowing even greater speed, and the
reduced stern wave made E-boats harder to see, especially at night.
= Operations with the Kriegsmarine= E-boats, a British designation using the
letter E for Enemy, were primarily used to patrol the Baltic Sea and the English
Channel in order to intercept shipping heading for the English ports in the
south and east. As such, they were up against Royal Navy and Commonwealth
Motor Gun Boats, Motor Torpedo Boats, Motor Launches, frigates and destroyers.
They were also transferred in small numbers to the Mediterranean, and the
Black Sea by river and land transport. Some small E-boats were built as boats
for carrying by auxiliary cruisers. Crew members could earn an award
particular to their work—Das Schnellbootkriegsabzeichen—denoted by a
badge depicting an E-boat passing through a wreath. The criteria were good
conduct, distinction in action, and participating in at least twelve enemy
actions. It was also awarded for particularly successful missions,
displays of leadership or being killed in action. It could be awarded under
special circumstances, such as when another decoration was not suitable.
Schnellboote of the 9th flotilla were the first naval units to respond to the
invasion fleet of Operation Overlord. They left Cherbourg harbour at 5 a.m. on
6 June 1944. On finding themselves confronted by the entire invasion fleet,
they fired their torpedoes at maximum range and returned to Cherbourg.
During World War II, E-boats sank 101 merchant ships totalling 214,728 tons.
In addition, they sank 12 destroyers, 11 minesweepers, eight landing ships, six
MTBs, a torpedo boat, a minelayer, one submarine and a number of small merchant
craft. They also damaged two cruisers, five destroyers, three landing ships, a
repair ship, a naval tug and numerous merchant vessels. Sea mines laid by the
E-boats were responsible for the loss of 37 merchant ships totalling 148,535
tons, a destroyer, two minesweepers and four landing ships.
In recognition of their service, the members of Schnellboot crews were
awarded 23 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and 112 German Cross in Gold.
= Italian MS boat= The poor seaworthiness of the
Italian-designed MAS boats of World War I and early World War II led its navy to
build its own version of E-boats, called MS. The prototype was designed on the
pattern of six German-built E-boats captured from the Yugoslav Navy in 1941.
Two of them sank the largest warship that was sunk by this kind of vessel in
World War II. Two MS boats were used to infiltrate a party of 14 Italian marines
behind the Allied lines in Egypt on 3 September 1942. The marines blew up a
railway and an aqueduct before being captured. Thirty-six of these vessels
were completed by 1943. = Service in the Spanish Navy=
The Kriegsmarine supplied the Spanish Navy with six E-boats during the Spanish
Civil War, and six more during the Second World War. Another six were built
in Spain with some assistance from Lürssen. One of the early series, either
the Falange or the Requeté, laid two mines during the civil war that crippled
the British destroyer HMS Hunter off Almería on 13 May 1937. The German-built
boats were discarded in the 1960s, while some of the Spanish-built ones served
until the early 1970s. = Service in China=
The Chinese Nationalist Navy had three S-7 E-boats during the Second
Sino-Japanese War. One was destroyed by Japanese planes, one was lost, and one
was captured by the People's Liberation Army during the Chinese civil war. The
People's Liberation Army Navy used it as a patrol boat until 1963. The Chinese
Nationalist Government had also ordered eight S-30 E-boats and a boat carrier,
but they joined the Kriegsmarine in 1939.
= Post-war service= Royal Navy
At the end of the war about 34 E-boats were surrendered to the British. Three
boats, S-130, S-208 and S-212 were retained for trials.
= Operation Jungle= The Gehlen Organization, an intelligence
agency established by American occupation authorities in Germany in
1946 and manned by former members of the Wehrmacht's Fremde Heere Ost, used Royal
Navy's E-boats in order to infiltrate its agents into the Baltic states and
Poland. Royal Navy Commander Anthony Courtney was struck by the potential
capabilities of former E-boat hulls, and John Harvey-Jones of the Naval
Intelligence Division was put in charge of the project. He discovered that the
Royal Navy still had two E-boats, P5230 and P5208, and had them sent to
Portsmouth, where one of them, P5230, was modified to reduce its weight and
increase its power with the installation of two Napier Deltic engines of 3000 hp
apiece. Lieutenant-Commander Hans-Helmuth Klose was assigned to
command a German crew, recruited by the British MI16 and funded by the American
Office of Policy Coordination. The missions were assigned the codename
"Operation Jungle". The boats carried out their missions under the cover of
the British Control Commission's Fishery Protection Service, which was
responsible for preventing Soviet navy vessels from interfering with German
fishing boats and for destroying stray mines. The home port of the boats was
Kiel, and operated under the supervision of Harvey-Jones. Manned by Klose and his
crew, they usually departed for the island of Bornholm waving the White
Ensign, where they would hoist the Swedish flag for a dash to Gotland, and
there they would wait for orders from Hamburg. The first mission consisted in
the landing of Lithuanian agents at Palanga, Lithuania, in May 1949, and the
last one took place in April 1955 in Saaremaa, Estonia. During the last two
years of the operation, three new German-built motorboats replaced the old
E-boats. Klose was later assigned the command of a patrol boat in the
Bundesmarine and became commander-in-chief of the fleet before
his retirement in 1978. Royal Danish Navy
In 1947, the Danish navy bought twelve former Kriegsmarine boats. These were
further augmented in 1951 by six units bought from the Royal Norwegian Navy.
The last unit, the P568 Viben, was retired in 1965.
Royal Norwegian Navy After World War II, the Norwegian Navy
received a number of former Kriegsmarine boats. Six boats were transferred to
Denmark in 1951. = Operators=
Nazi Germany West Germany
Kingdom of Italy Bulgaria
Spain Republic of China
United Kingdom Denmark
Norway People's Republic of China
Survivors There is just one surviving E-boat,
identified as S-130. S-130 was purchased and towed from Wilhelmshaven, Germany to
the Husbands Shipyard, Marchwood, Southampton, England in January 2003,
under the auspices of the British Military Powerboat Trust. In 2004, S-130
was taken to the slipway at Hythe, where, under the supervision of the
BMPT, she was prepared and then towed to Mashfords yard in Plymouth, England to
await funding for restoration. In 2008, S-130, having been purchased by Kevin
Wheatcroft, was slipped across the River Tamar and set up ashore at Southdown in
Cornwall to undergo restoration work involving Roving Commissions Ltd. As of
June 2012, this work continues and includes an S130 Members' Club.
Built as hull No. 1030 at the Schlichting boatyard in Travemünde,
S-130 was commissioned on 21 October 1943 and took an active part in the war,
participating in the Exercise Tiger attack and attacks on the D-day invasion
fleet. According to Dutch military historian
Maurice Laarman: In 1945, S-130 was taken as a British
war prize and put to use in covert operations. Under the guise of the
"British Baltic Fishery Protection Service", the British Secret
Intelligence Service MI-6 ferried spies and agents into Eastern Europe.
Beginning in May 1949, MI-6 used S-208, to insert agents into Lithuania, Latvia,
Estonia, and Poland. The operations were very successful and continued under a
more permanent organisation based in Hamburg. In 1952, S-130 joined the
operation and the mission was enlarged to include signal intelligence
equipment. In 1954/55, S-130 and S-208 were replaced by a new generation of
German S-boote. S-130 was returned to the newly formed
Bundesmarine in March 1957, and operated under the number UW 10. Serving
initially in the Unterwasserwaffenschule training sailors in underwater weaponry
such as mines and torpedoes, she later became a test boat under the name EF 3.
S-130 was on display in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, formerly used as a houseboat.
Today S-130 is undergoing thorough restoration in Southdown Marina,
Cornwall, following purchase by the "Wheatcroft Collection" England.
Variants The Schnellboot design evolved over
time. The first had a pair of torpedo tubes on the fore deck.
S-2 class The first production of the E-boat in
1931, based on the S-1. S-7 class
Built from 1933, three were sold to China.
S-14 class Improved S-7, built in 1934. Enlarged
hull. S-18 class
Wartime types were: S-26 class
Entered service in 1940. 40 m hull. Torpedo tubes covered by forward deck.
S-30 class S-38 class
S-38b class Improved S-38 class with armoured
bridge. Various armament including 40 mm Bofors or 20 mm Flak aft, MG34
Zwillingsockel midships. S-100 class
From 1943. 1 × 20 mm in the bow, 2 × 20 mm gun amidships and 37 mm gun aft.
S-151 class Type 700
Late war design proposal with stern torpedo tubes and 30 mm gun turret
forward. Eight boats built, but completed to S-100 design specification.
Specification Length: 34.9 m
Weight: up to 120 t Speed: 43.8 kn
Engines: Three 20-cylinder 2000 hp Daimler-Benz MB501 diesels driving three
shafts. Armament:
2 × 53.3 cm torpedo tubes, with room for 2 more torpedoes.
1 × 20 mm gun, 1 × 40 mm gun on some S-38 class boats
Other AA armament carried on different models included two or more
pintle-mounted MG-34s, 3.7 cm Flak 42 and 8.6 cm RaG M42 or, rarely, one of
the well-known, quadruple 20 mm Flakvierling mounts.
See also Daimler-Benz DB 602, V-16 diesel
aero-engine that was developed into the MB502 and MB501.
List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Schnellboot service
R boat Steam Gun Boat
Notes References
Dallies-Labourdette, Jean Philippe. German S-boote at War, 1939–1945.
Histoire and Collections. ISBN 2-913903-49-5.
Krakow, David. Schnellboot in Action. Squadron/Signal Publications, Inc. ISBN
0-89747-660-3. Krakow, David; Connelly, Garth.
Schnellboot in Action. Squadron/Signal Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-89747-457-0.
Williamson, Gordon; Palmer, Ian. German E-boats 1939–45. Osprey Publishing. ISBN
1-84176-445-0. Macpherson, Ken. Ships Of Canada's Naval
Forces. Collins Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-00-216856-1.
Williamson, Gordon. E-boat vs MTB : the English Channel 1941–45. Oxford ; Long
Island City: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84908-407-9.
External links World War II Schnellboot, or E-boat
Prinz Eugen E-boat site John Drain's model E-boat site
Five part video podcast documentary about S130 on www.pod3.tv
"British Military Powerboat Trust".