S-130
E boats were much more than just fast torpedo attack boats, they were in reality a scaled down warship. Heavily armed and extremely fast (in excess of 34 knots) they could cause immense damage to much larger enemy ships and escape unharmed. Called E boats by the British they should be more properly called Schenell-Boote or S boats. The last surviving seaworthy example of this class is at the moment (2008) languishing at Mashfords Yard near the Cremyll Ferry in Cornwall.
I am not all that fond of preserving things just to do it. There is a perfectly good example of an E boat at Bremerhaven, but that’s a museum piece. This boat, the S 130 however has a fantastic history that would be hard to invent, and since the object of the exercise is to restore the boat so that it can once again take to the water, then I am all for it.
Built at the Johan Schlighting boatyard in Travemude, the S 130 was commissioned on Oct 21st 1943, under the command of Oberleutnant zur see Gunter Rabe, with the call sign Raven. At first she operated out of Rotterdam into the North Sea but soon switched to Cherbourgh to patrol the Western and Central Channel areas. During the beginning of 1944 she conducted many savage night actions and then became embroiled in the Allied, Operation Tiger, probably the biggest cock up that the British and Americans had so far made at sea. Operation Tiger was a full scale rehearsal for the American attack on Utah Beach during the forth coming D. Day landings. On the 27th April a German recognisance plane spotted the convoy off Slapton Sands in Devon and vectored two flotillas of E boats to the area. Meanwhile due to a communications mix up British escorting destroyers were removed from the convoy, leaving just a small force of M.T.B.s to cover the exercise. ( click here to read my article in ‘Tombstones’)
At just after one o’clock in the morning in the pitch dark, the E boats, steaming at over 36 knots fell gleefully upon the convoy sinking two landing craft drowning over six hundred men and causing such chaos in the dark, that the Americans started shooting at each other’s landing crafts, killing and wounding soldiers who by now must have thought they were in hell with the night sky lit up by the burning ships and the cry’s of the wounded and dying. The E boats got away scot free leaving over six hundred and thirty nine Americans dead or missing, four times the casualty list when they did the real thing on D.Day. The dead washed in on the tide all along the coast and were buried in unmarked mass graves to hush it all up.
The S 130 helped to attack the Allied Fleet on D.Day, and as the Allies stormed ever onwards towards Germany she took part in the long retreat eventually ending up in Rotterdam as the War came to its final end. Taken as a British War Prize the S 130 was used for test purposes and re-engined to give a new top speed of 45 knots. It was then decided to deploy the vessel, with other captured E boats, to British occupied Germany to spy on the Russian Fleet. The boats photographed the Russian ships and gathered huge amounts of intelligence, and if they were spotted all they had to do was roar off at high speed. The Russians had nothing fast enough to catch them. Later in 1949, she was used to insert agents into the Baltic States.
During this time the British recruited ex German Navy officers to run the boats with mostly German crew. The most notable of these was Hans Helmut Klose who later commanded a unit that landed agents on the coast to link up with the local partisans who harried the Russians in Poland, Latvia, and Estonia. He was so successful that the unit became known in secret circles as The Klose Fast patrol Group. After its success in inserting and more importantly, retrieving agents, MI6 decided to create a more permanent organization in 1951 which it ran until 1955, when due to leaky intelligence within MI6 and others, over forty agents were caught by the Russians who either sentenced them or turned them into double agents.
Interestingly all this joint operations with the ex German officers laid the foundation of what is now the German Navy’s Schnellbootflotille. In the spring of 1956 the units were abandoned and the boats including S 130, were handed back to the Germans where they were used as high speed training vessels. Most of their crews joined the German Navy, including Klose who retired in 1978 with the rank of Vice Admiral. S 130 continued to be a training vessel until 1991 when she was paid off in Willemshaven. She then became a houseboat until she was acquired by her present owners for restoration in 2003.
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Swoop0690 says
The Norwegian Coastal defense fleet has a squadron of captured S-boots doing patrol duties, including the 2 S-Boots that attacked Exercise Tiger, the practice run for the D-day invasion
Swoop0690 says
They are in the process of decommissioning them now though.
Bruce Dibben says
Enormous admiration for the guys undertaking such a mammoth project. What a fabulous piece of German engineering these boats were. A killing machine designed by engineers for the use of demons.
Must come and see it.
Felix says
do u have any pictures of the cabin because i am moderling one in airfix?
David Mills says
I have just discovered a large German GA side elevation drawing of an E Boat that was inspected by Saunders Roe (Anglesey) Ltd in the 1950’s. I also have German photogrpahs of the Benz diesel engines and gearboxes that I believe were used in it. I remember seeing the E Boat at Menai Bridge when I was a youngster when my father took me to see it. He was a design draughtsman working on MTB’s and mine sweepers at the Beaumaris factory. Could S130 be the same boat that I saw all those years ago? Please checkout my website for my newly discovered photos and drawings of the Saunders Roe prototype all aluminium MTB 539. This unique craft sunk off Anglesey in a storm and is still there awaiting recovery.
linda johnson says
my father had one of the original E-Boats S-97 in Barry, South Wales in 1970 & converted her into a cruise liner/houseboat with 6 double cabins/lounge/dining-room/galley & bridge. Sadly he died in 1982 & my mother & I had to sell her, she later went up the River Severn & I lost track of her, until recently my boyfriend had located her last whereabouts & sadly she has been left to rot & is very sadly no more. She was my home & was named after me & is sadly missed.
darryl Fenton says
I was lucky enough to be able to go onboard this vessel about 5 years or so ago,just before she was taken down to the Mashfords yard At Cremyl in SE Cornwall,she was moored up at the Naval Sailing school at Jupiter Point nr Torpoint,If you Squinted you could still see her E boat Lines,she had quite a lot of alterations over the years and ultimately bit got lost ,but i really believe she will again be restored to her former glory i for one cannot wait !
derek says
im from bristol and i remember a german e boat called ” blitz” in bristol city docks it was there for years
robert says
Not sure if it’s the same one, but there was an e boat called ‘Blitz’ in Ramsgate Harbour during the late 1980’s. The owner got into financial difficulty, and moved it a few miles around the coast to a muddy creek near Richborough Power Station. Unfortunately, it sprang a leak, filled with water and mud, and broke it’s back on the next high tide. It ended up on the bottom. I was told that Chatham Historic Dockyard attempted to buy it, but could not agree terms. A dredger berthed on top of it, and when the tide went out it got smashed to pieces. A terrible waste of a superb vessel – I have some photos of taken just before she sank.
Robert Deakin. says
It must have been a sight to see. i like looking at interesting things that had to do with the 11world war. who ever finds time to restor them must be feeling pretty proud.
Tony Ward says
There is a vessel moored off Shotley (Suffolk) which now has three masts and seems to have been abandoned on it’s mooring.
Rumour has it that this craft is a “converted” German WW11 Eboat.
Any ideas???
Tony W
Keith Carr says
Hi,
I remember the Blitz, which used to be moored in Bristol. It was owned by the Bristol wine merchant named Avery. It was definitely not the same boat. It was too small and had no torpedo tubes. In fact, my friend, Kurt Roeschel, was the marine engineer for the vessel. He had been an engineer on the S-boats during the war and told me that the vessel was a fast recovery boat and only armed with a solitary oerlikon gun. It was scavenged several times and on one occasion the wheel bearing all the commands in German was stolen – sad.It was sold and disappeared from Bristol – I wish I knew where to.
Maillard says
Bonsoir,
Il serait bon de réunir des fonds pour sauver ce bateau qui es un monument de notre histoire commune, si une personne parle français merci de me contacter s’il vous plait car j’ai besoin de renseignements d’avance merci.
PS : Mr Bennet n’est pas vraiment aimable.
Dietmar Zierl says
Hello,
my father was officer on Schnellboot S 130 from end of 1944 until end of WWII and was member of the crew, which handed over the boat to the british marines. Afterwards he was responsible until 1946, then went back home to Austria.
Has anyone information about the current owner and the location of S 130.
I would appreciate to get more information about it.
Best regards
Dietmar
Thunderous71 says
Last I knew of it was at Southdown Marina not far from Plymouth.
p fisher says
back in the 1950s there were about six of them at brightlingsea in essex they all went at different times the last one got washed up on the sea wall in the 1953 floods and was finally burned and the ashes were sived for the skrews a fuel tank was put into a wide fleet for a bridge and is most likley still there i recall they played german music over the tanoy all day.
Richard says
My family had an E-boat that was converted to a houseboat in 1953. Also two Fairmile Ds. They are to be seen online in an Aerofilms series of views of Hamble Airfield. One of the Ds was MTB783. They were all sold in due course from their Hamble river base. It would be interesting to know more of their fates.
Sidney Foubister says
Where is S 130 now ( June 2022 ) Is it open to visitors
Richard Avery says
Replying to Keith Carr. Yes, the Blitz belonged to my grandfather until it was sold to a family in Ramsgate where it stayed until, very sadly, it ended up sinking. Before her my Grandfather also owned another ex-German navy vessel called ‘Maiden Bower’. Am trying to find more about what happened to her