X-24, the midget submarine in which Shean tried to attack a floating dock
Shean rendezvoused with the submarine Spearhead and was towed in triumph to Subic Bay, in the Philippines. He was awarded a Bar to his DSO and the US Bronze Star for his gallantry, perseverance and outstanding skill.
Lieutenant-Commander Max Shean, who has died aged 90, was one of the small band of young men who, in the face of extraordinary peril, carried the sea war into enemy harbours; in the process they won a total of 68 awards for bravery, including four VCs; for his own exploits, Shean received a DSO and Bar.
In September 1942 Shean volunteered for special and hazardous service without knowing what this meant. After only 10 days' training, some of the volunteers dropped out; Shean thought that this took a lot of courage, while for him it seemed easier to stand at the back and hope that no one noticed his fear. When he learned soon afterwards that he was to become a diver in a secret, 51ft, four-man submarine known as an X-craft, his knees began to shake. But with his combination of engineering skills and seamanship, it turned out to be a task for which he was well-suited.
As an X-craft diver, Shean had to practise getting in and out of his submarine underwater through a small wet-and-dry chamber, shutting himself off from the rest of the crew before flooding the compartment and opening an external hatch.
Shean practised cutting underwater nets in Scottish lochs, which were always cold and black. There were accidents and deaths during training, but Shean and his fellow Australians always felt sure that they could beat the odds.
His first mission was Operation Source, the attack by a flotilla of X-craft on the German battleship Tirpitz in north Norway in September 1943. The X-craft were manned by passage crews and towed there by parent submarines, while attack crews, including Shean's, prepared themselves in the towing vessels.
Disaster struck, however, when Shean's X-9, behind Syrtis, broke her tow and the passage crew was lost. The towrope became tangled round Syrtis's port propeller, and Shean, whose diving suit was in X-9, plunged over the side into the freezing waters. Wearing overalls weighted with steel bars in the pockets, Shean repeatedly duck-dived until he could free the tangled rope. Knowing that, if attacked from the air, Syrtis would dive and abandon him on the surface, Shean was more frightened than he had ever been; and when he was hauled on board, the submarine's commanding officer rewarded him with a brusque "Well done!"
One of the lessons of Operation Source was the potential for confusion during multiple attacks; so on Operation Guidance, in April 1944, Shean, now in command of X-24, was towed by Sceptre to Bergen, Norway, to make a solo attack on a large floating dock.
Shean successfully penetrated the fjords to reach the harbour, but faulty intelligence caused him to lay X-24's explosive charges under a 7,800-ton German merchant ship, Barenfels, instead of the floating dock. Otherwise it was a model attack, and 24 hours later, sick and suffering from headaches caused by the stale air in the boat, Shean and his crew rendezvoused at sea with Sceptre. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his great courage, skill and determination in a most hazardous enterprise.
Following D-Day, Shean's flotilla was deployed to the Far East in command of an improved craft, XE-4. When Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, and an experienced submariner, saw his first XE-craft he declared it was a "suicide craft" which had no place in the Allies' order of battle. But when orders came from Washington to cut two underwater telegraph cables off Japanese-occupied Saigon, he found that the British midget submarines were the only force capable of achieving this.
The aim of Operation Sabre was to force the Japanese to use wireless communications which could be intercepted and deciphered. Shean designed new grapnels to hook the cables, which Engine Room Artificer Vernon "Ginger" Coles manufactured, and set off under tow from Queensland. En route to Indo-China, Shean nearly drowned. XE-4 was running on the surface, with the hatches closed to prevent the boat flooding, when Shean was swept away by a wave; but after "swimming the fastest strokes of my life" he grabbed the rudder and hauled himself hand-over-hand along the jumping wire and climbed on board again.
Undeterred, with only underwater dead reckoning updated by occasional sightings of Cap St Jacques lighthouse, Shean expertly navigated XE-4 into the shallow mouth of the Mekong river where, on July 31 1945, he began a submarine trawl for the cables. After ploughing the seabed for hours, XE-4 was, at 12.05, suddenly brought to a halt: it had snagged the first cable, and 13 minutes later the diver, fellow-Australian Sub-Lieutenant Ken Briggs, returned with a short length as proof that it had been cut. Resuming his trawl at 13.26, Shean found the second cable, much deeper than the first, and Sub-Lieutenant Adam Bergius made three attempts to cut it.
Shean could only wait until an exhausted Bergius emerged triumphantly from the airlock brandishing a length of cable.
Shortly after midnight, Shean rendezvoused with the submarine Spearhead and was towed in triumph to Subic Bay, in the Philippines. He was awarded a Bar to his DSO and the US Bronze Star for his gallantry, perseverance and outstanding skill. Coles, who was in Shean's crew in X-24 and in XE-4, was awarded a DSM and a mention in despatches.
Maxwell Shean was born on July 6 1918 in Perth, where his father was clerk to the Supreme Court, and the young Max spent his youth "messing about in tin boats on the river". He was studying Engineering at the University of Western Australia when he heard news of Dunkirk. Although strongly advised to finish his studies, he was determined to join the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve.
The Royal Navy needed skilled anti-submarine warfare officers for the Battle of the Atlantic, and eventually one fifth of all ASWOs were trained at HMAS Rushcutter in Sydney, where Shean was sent in late 1940. By the summer of 1941 he was in his first ship, the corvette Bluebell, which he described as "like your first girlfriend, she goes into your heart. I served 14 months in Bluebell, she kept me afloat and gave me three meals a day, made me seasick and she sank a U-boat."
Bluebell was part of the 37th Escort Group escorting convoys between Britain and Gibraltar, and Shean took part in some of the bitterest fighting of the Battle of the Atlantic. His skill as an ASWO and proficiency in using his ASDIC (sonar) earned him the nickname "King Ping".
At the end of 1941 Bluebell took part in the desperate defence of convoy OG77, which was attacked by a wolf pack; but five U-boats were sunk. On the night of December 11/12 Shean heard the high-pitched whine of torpedoes three times through his headset and warned his captain to turn Bluebell, and at midnight he dropped two patterns of depth charges. Shean's postwar research in British and German archives convinced him that he had sunk U-208.
While training in X-craft on the Isle of Bute, Shean travelled to Aberfeldy, Perthshire, to seek his Scottish ancestors. There he was warned that the village shop's pretty assistant was "spoken for". Nevertheless, romance blossomed, and despite wartime security Shean even smuggled her into the builder's yard, where she broke a bottle of Australian champagne on the bows of Shean's boat, XE-4, and gave it its unofficial name, Exciter.
After the war Shean finished his degree and worked for the City of Perth Electricity and Gas Department, and the State Electricity Commission until his retirement in 1978.
In 1979 he celebrated the 150th anniversary of the settlement of Western Australia by winning the open division of the Parmelia Yacht Race from Plymouth to Fremantle. His yacht, Bluebell, is today moored at Fremantle Sailing Club. In May 2005 Shean and his wife joined the Department of Veterans' Affairs VE-Day mission to Europe.
Shean's logical approach to problems and his interest in engineering shine through his modest wartime biography, Corvette and Submarine (1992). Once one of his daughter's boyfriends remarked that he ran his household like a battleship, which Shean took as a great compliment.
Max Shean, who died on June 15, married Mary Golding in 1944. She survives him with their two daughters.
In September 1942 Shean volunteered for special and hazardous service without knowing what this meant. After only 10 days' training, some of the volunteers dropped out; Shean thought that this took a lot of courage, while for him it seemed easier to stand at the back and hope that no one noticed his fear. When he learned soon afterwards that he was to become a diver in a secret, 51ft, four-man submarine known as an X-craft, his knees began to shake. But with his combination of engineering skills and seamanship, it turned out to be a task for which he was well-suited.
As an X-craft diver, Shean had to practise getting in and out of his submarine underwater through a small wet-and-dry chamber, shutting himself off from the rest of the crew before flooding the compartment and opening an external hatch.
Shean practised cutting underwater nets in Scottish lochs, which were always cold and black. There were accidents and deaths during training, but Shean and his fellow Australians always felt sure that they could beat the odds.
His first mission was Operation Source, the attack by a flotilla of X-craft on the German battleship Tirpitz in north Norway in September 1943. The X-craft were manned by passage crews and towed there by parent submarines, while attack crews, including Shean's, prepared themselves in the towing vessels.
Disaster struck, however, when Shean's X-9, behind Syrtis, broke her tow and the passage crew was lost. The towrope became tangled round Syrtis's port propeller, and Shean, whose diving suit was in X-9, plunged over the side into the freezing waters. Wearing overalls weighted with steel bars in the pockets, Shean repeatedly duck-dived until he could free the tangled rope. Knowing that, if attacked from the air, Syrtis would dive and abandon him on the surface, Shean was more frightened than he had ever been; and when he was hauled on board, the submarine's commanding officer rewarded him with a brusque "Well done!"
One of the lessons of Operation Source was the potential for confusion during multiple attacks; so on Operation Guidance, in April 1944, Shean, now in command of X-24, was towed by Sceptre to Bergen, Norway, to make a solo attack on a large floating dock.
Shean successfully penetrated the fjords to reach the harbour, but faulty intelligence caused him to lay X-24's explosive charges under a 7,800-ton German merchant ship, Barenfels, instead of the floating dock. Otherwise it was a model attack, and 24 hours later, sick and suffering from headaches caused by the stale air in the boat, Shean and his crew rendezvoused at sea with Sceptre. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his great courage, skill and determination in a most hazardous enterprise.
Following D-Day, Shean's flotilla was deployed to the Far East in command of an improved craft, XE-4. When Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, and an experienced submariner, saw his first XE-craft he declared it was a "suicide craft" which had no place in the Allies' order of battle. But when orders came from Washington to cut two underwater telegraph cables off Japanese-occupied Saigon, he found that the British midget submarines were the only force capable of achieving this.
The aim of Operation Sabre was to force the Japanese to use wireless communications which could be intercepted and deciphered. Shean designed new grapnels to hook the cables, which Engine Room Artificer Vernon "Ginger" Coles manufactured, and set off under tow from Queensland. En route to Indo-China, Shean nearly drowned. XE-4 was running on the surface, with the hatches closed to prevent the boat flooding, when Shean was swept away by a wave; but after "swimming the fastest strokes of my life" he grabbed the rudder and hauled himself hand-over-hand along the jumping wire and climbed on board again.
Undeterred, with only underwater dead reckoning updated by occasional sightings of Cap St Jacques lighthouse, Shean expertly navigated XE-4 into the shallow mouth of the Mekong river where, on July 31 1945, he began a submarine trawl for the cables. After ploughing the seabed for hours, XE-4 was, at 12.05, suddenly brought to a halt: it had snagged the first cable, and 13 minutes later the diver, fellow-Australian Sub-Lieutenant Ken Briggs, returned with a short length as proof that it had been cut. Resuming his trawl at 13.26, Shean found the second cable, much deeper than the first, and Sub-Lieutenant Adam Bergius made three attempts to cut it.
Shean could only wait until an exhausted Bergius emerged triumphantly from the airlock brandishing a length of cable.
Shortly after midnight, Shean rendezvoused with the submarine Spearhead and was towed in triumph to Subic Bay, in the Philippines. He was awarded a Bar to his DSO and the US Bronze Star for his gallantry, perseverance and outstanding skill. Coles, who was in Shean's crew in X-24 and in XE-4, was awarded a DSM and a mention in despatches.
Maxwell Shean was born on July 6 1918 in Perth, where his father was clerk to the Supreme Court, and the young Max spent his youth "messing about in tin boats on the river". He was studying Engineering at the University of Western Australia when he heard news of Dunkirk. Although strongly advised to finish his studies, he was determined to join the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve.
The Royal Navy needed skilled anti-submarine warfare officers for the Battle of the Atlantic, and eventually one fifth of all ASWOs were trained at HMAS Rushcutter in Sydney, where Shean was sent in late 1940. By the summer of 1941 he was in his first ship, the corvette Bluebell, which he described as "like your first girlfriend, she goes into your heart. I served 14 months in Bluebell, she kept me afloat and gave me three meals a day, made me seasick and she sank a U-boat."
Bluebell was part of the 37th Escort Group escorting convoys between Britain and Gibraltar, and Shean took part in some of the bitterest fighting of the Battle of the Atlantic. His skill as an ASWO and proficiency in using his ASDIC (sonar) earned him the nickname "King Ping".
At the end of 1941 Bluebell took part in the desperate defence of convoy OG77, which was attacked by a wolf pack; but five U-boats were sunk. On the night of December 11/12 Shean heard the high-pitched whine of torpedoes three times through his headset and warned his captain to turn Bluebell, and at midnight he dropped two patterns of depth charges. Shean's postwar research in British and German archives convinced him that he had sunk U-208.
While training in X-craft on the Isle of Bute, Shean travelled to Aberfeldy, Perthshire, to seek his Scottish ancestors. There he was warned that the village shop's pretty assistant was "spoken for". Nevertheless, romance blossomed, and despite wartime security Shean even smuggled her into the builder's yard, where she broke a bottle of Australian champagne on the bows of Shean's boat, XE-4, and gave it its unofficial name, Exciter.
After the war Shean finished his degree and worked for the City of Perth Electricity and Gas Department, and the State Electricity Commission until his retirement in 1978.
In 1979 he celebrated the 150th anniversary of the settlement of Western Australia by winning the open division of the Parmelia Yacht Race from Plymouth to Fremantle. His yacht, Bluebell, is today moored at Fremantle Sailing Club. In May 2005 Shean and his wife joined the Department of Veterans' Affairs VE-Day mission to Europe.
Shean's logical approach to problems and his interest in engineering shine through his modest wartime biography, Corvette and Submarine (1992). Once one of his daughter's boyfriends remarked that he ran his household like a battleship, which Shean took as a great compliment.
Max Shean, who died on June 15, married Mary Golding in 1944. She survives him with their two daughters.
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