Captain Michael Lindsay Coulton "Tubby" Crawford DSC & Bar (27 June 1917 – 28 June 2017) was an officer in the Royal Navy and submariner.
Early life and family Michael Lindsay Coulton Crawford was born near Cuckfield, Sussex, England, to Walter Coulton Crawford and his wife. Tubby and his brother Peter spent their early years in Kenya where their father, who had served in the Royal Engineers in the First World War, had been granted some farmland and also served as an engineer with the Kenya and Uganda Railway. In 1924 Crawford, aged 6, and his brother were sent to England where they attended Merton Court preparatory school in Sidcup. Their father died on 10 November 1926 while they were in England.The Official Gazette of the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya. 4 October 1927, p.1169. The boys' mother returned to England thereafter, to live on the Isle of Wight in "straitened circumstances".
Royal Navy Crawford matriculated into Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, in January 1931. Crawford served as a cadet and midshipman in the York-class cruiser . He passed out from Dartmouth as a midshipman on 1 May 1935. He also served aboard HMS Malaya and HMS Revenge in the Home Fleet before attending his Sub-Lieutenant's course.
Crawford was promoted sub-lieutenant on 16 May 1938, lieutenant on 16 September 1939, acting lieutenant-commander on 1 November 1944, lieutenant commander on 16 March 1947, commander on 30 June 1951, and finally captain on 30 June 1959.
Submarine service Crawford decided to join the submarine service (colloquially known within the Royal Navy as "the Trade") after his time as a midshipman in large ships made him believe that being in a small vessel, such as a submarine, would provide more responsibility for a junior officer. During his wartime career, he would serve as first lieutenant to the two most successful British submarine aces: Benjamin Bryant (by most ships sunk) and Malcolm Wanklyn (by tonnage sunk).
Second World War From August to October 1938, he served on the submarine depot ship HMS Maidstone in the Mediterranean.
HMS Sealion (72S) From 5 January 1939, Sub-Lieut. Crawford served aboard HMS Sealion, under the command of Lieut. Cmdr. Benjamin Bryant, as part of the submarine squadron stationed in Malta, on Manoel Island. The squadron's tasks during September 1939 consisted largely of exercising, included training Royal Navy surface ships in anti-submarine warfare.
Sealion left Malta on 11 October 1939, with Crawford by this time promoted lieutenant, to return to the UK. Sealion left Portsmouth on her first war patrol on 28 October 1939, ordered to patrol in the North Sea (Dogger Bank) area. On 6 November 1939, she fired six torpedoes at U-21 off the Dogger Bank but all missed. The enemy submarine surfaced and an attempt was made to engage her with the deck gun, but this proved impossible due to the heavy seas.
Sealion conducted a number of patrols in late 1939 and early 1940, operating from Harwich, in the North Sea and off the Dutch coast. Her first success came in the sinking of the German merchant ship August Leonhardt on 11 April 1940 off the Danish island of Anholt in the Skaggerak. In subsequent patrols, Sealion made a number of unsuccessful attacks: on 6 May 1940 on the German transports Moltkefels and Neidenfels with six torpedoes; on 3 July 1940 on a convoy off the Boknafjord, Norway; and on 8 July 1940 on the beached wreck of the German merchant ship Palime off Obrestadt, which had struck a mine on 5 June 1940. Crawford related that on one occasion Sealion was sent into the Skagerrak with the purpose of making her presence known so that the Germans would concentrate their anti-submarine efforts there (possibly this was in April or June 1940). Sealions patrols took her as far north as Stavanger, when she was, according to Crawford, not far from where her sister boat HMS Shark was destroyed. On one occasion during this period, Crawford recalls that Sealion was forced to remain submerged for 45 hours at a stretch without ventilation.
On 29 July 1940, Sealion attacked the German submarine U-62, first with torpedoes and then with her deck gun. Due to the wrong range having been entered by the sight-setter, the shells fell far short and U-62 dived and escaped. She finished that patrol by sinking the Norwegian merchant Toran on 4 August and then attacking but failing to sink the German merchant Cläre Hugo Stinnes on 6 August. During the latter attack, Bryant failed to observe a tug (UJ 123) which was escorting the convoy, which then rammed the Sealion, causing heavy damage to her periscopes. She crept back to Rosyth and was then sent down to the Swan & Hunter yard in Newcastle for a refit. Upon arrival at Swan & Hunter on 13 August, Crawford was relieved and sent to Dundee to join HMS L23 as first lieutenant, which sailed to Scapa Flow for anti-submarine exercises.
HMS Upholder (N99) After three months with L23, Lieut. Crawford was appointed first lieutenant in HMS Upholder, under the command of Lieut. Cmdr. Malcolm Wanklyn (later VC). Crawford joined the boat on 10 December 1940; she sailed for Gibraltar on 12 December and thence to Malta to join the 10th Submarine Flotilla. On the way, Upholder participated in Operation Excess, acting as a screen for ships sailing to Malta, including HMS Illustrious, the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier. Upon arrival in Malta, Upholder was berthed adjacent to Illustrious, which suffered repeated Luftwaffe attacks.
From her base in Malta, Upholder engaged in normal patrolling duties with the purpose of preventing supplies reaching Axis forces in North Africa, with a particular focus on shipping sailing down the west coast of Sicily down the Tunisian coast to Tripoli and down the eastern side of Sicily from Taranto. Her early patrols were not particularly successful. Crawford suggests that one reason may be that at that time there were restrictions on the number of torpedoes which should be launched during attacks, which meant that in some attacks only two were fired at a target rather than three. On one occasion, on 12 April 1941, Upholder was out of torpedoes, but still achieved a minor success by persuading an enemy convoy to turn round by firing star-shell.
On 26 April 1941, Upholder attacked the wreck of the German merchant ship Arta, which had run aground on the sand-banks off Kerkennah in Tunisia. A party was sent aboard and documents were retrieved from the captain's safe, which was blown open using explosives. The party then destroyed the wreck with demolition charges. On the following day, Upholder attempted to get close to the similarly grounded wreck of the Italian destroyer Lampo, but ran aground herself before she could reach her. Several days later, on 1 May, Upholder attacked a merchant convoy, sinking the German merchant ship Arcturus and damaging and later sinking the German merchant ship Leverkusen.
Crawford later recalled that on one occasion Upholder was selected to land a party of commandos at Taormina in an attempt to assassinate Luftwaffe Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, who intelligence indicated was staying at the Miramar Hotel. Wanklyn volunteered Upholder for the job, partly because he had spent his honeymoon in Taormina and was familiar with the bay. Upholder was fitted out for the task with a fender in order to avoid damaging her bow on the rocks. The operation was postponed and later cancelled due to Kesselring reportedly having left Taormina. Various sources, including Crawford, suggest that this episode occurred in April 1941.
In May, off the east coast of Sicily, Upholder took part in perhaps her most famous engagement. She was patrolling at dusk. Crawford was on watch and saw a dark shape and called Wanklyn to the periscope, who took over and carried out a daring attack for which he was later awarded the Victoria Cross. Upholder had already taken part in two attacks and so had only two torpedoes remaining. Also, her ASDIC was out of action. Upholder fired her two torpedoes and sank the Italian schooner Conte Rosso.
In July, Upholder encountered two Italian cruisers, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Raimondo Montecuccoli, steaming at about 22 knots and escorted by destroyers. Wanklyn originally intended to attack Montecuccoli, but shortly before firing, the ASDIC operator gave the cruisers an even higher speed, of around 28 knots, which meant that Upholder did not have a good enough position to attack her and so Wanklyn switched the attack to Garibaldi. Upholder fired two torpedoes, one of which was claimed as a hit but did not sink Garibaldi, though it did put her in port and out of action for some time.
Crawford was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) on 2 September 1941 for "skill and enterprise in successful submarine patrols" from January to May 1941, an award confirmed shortly after Upholder's return from her 16th war patrol.
On 16 September, the crew of Upholder was recalled from shore leave in the middle of the afternoon and, with HMS Ursula, HMS Unbeaten and HMS Upright, sailed within a few hours to pursue intelligence reports of a troop convoy from Taranto passing to the east of Malta en route to Tripoli. Three of the submarines were put across the convoy's line of passage, with Upholder in the middle and Unbeaten and Upright on either side. Ursula was positioned fifty miles to the west in order to carry out a daylight attack in the early morning. Upholder attacked and sank the Italian merchant ships Neptunia and Oceania. A third ship in the convoy, Vulcania, escaped despite an attack by Ursula on 18 September with four torpedoes, one of which may have hit.
HMS Graph In November 1941, Crawford left Upholder to return to the UK to undertake his submarine commander's course (known as "the Perisher"). Upon successful completion of that course, and while waiting for an H-boat to command, the commander of HMS Graph, captured German U-570, Lt. Edward Dudley Norman, became sick and Lt. Crawford took command of that vessel for about a week. Crawford found the U-boat's periscopes to be "superb", but noted that a great quantity of water would break over the bridge in even the slightest sea. He found the standard of comfort aboard to be inferior to British submarines. In particular, the wardroom arrangement was particularly uncomfortable because the passage from the crew compartment to the control room went right through the middle of the wardroom, so that any time any rating had to go on watch, the entire wardroom had to move.
HMS H50 After his week in command of Graph, Crawford spent three months in command of HMS H50, which nominally operated from Rothesay, but was in fact mainly on detached service in Derry, where it gave anti-submarine training to the convoy escort groups based there.
HMS Unseen (P51) In June 1942 Crawford took command of what was then "P51" at the Barrow shipyards. On 1 July she departed the yard for Holy Loch for sea trials and training.
On 29 July, she departed on her first war patrol. Unfortunately, during training of watch divers in surfacing and diving the submarine, when diving after taking a sun-sight to find her position, the petty officer on watch pulled the wrong lever, which resulted in high-pressure air being blown into the "Q"-tank with both vent and Kingston valve shut, which damaged the tank and the battery, forcing Unseen to go to Sheerness for repairs to the tank before setting off for the Mediterranean.