Fishery
Protection Service
Royal Navy
pictures Part 5
Fishery Protection Service Royal Navy
In 1949 the Flag officer Germany of the Royal Navy of the British occupation zone created a fishery Protection service.
The Royal Navy activated two fast torpedo boats S 130 and S 208 of the former German Kriegsmarine and which had been built in the Lürssen shipyard in Bremen Vegesack. The boats had been given to England as prize of war. A German transportation unit of the German Minesweeping Administration (GM/SA) had brought them to England 1945 together with some other boats of the same production. The Royal Navy used them there for test and trial purposes as Experimental Craft FPB 5130 and FPB 5208. The boats had been brought to a shipyard in Portsmount to be reconstructed and equipped for their new use. Besides the Fishery Protection Service they should also overtake tasks of the navy reconnaissance.
As the boats sailed unarmed, the torpedo barrels had been dismounted and closed, the maschine gun shaft (Geschützbrunnen) on the back closed, too. Additional fuel tanks had been installed in order to increase the action radius. A powerful radar and radio direction finding had been installed.
The original Mercedes Benz diesel engines had been replaced by three Napier-Deltic diesel engines with altogether 7500 PS, with which the boats achieved a speed of 45 kn.
For their use in the Baltic Sea the boats had been painted with a special white, non reflecting paint.
The boats flown the White Ensign, with German crews, all former members of the Kriegsmarine. Chief of the flotilla was Kapitänleutnant, now officer of 2nd grade Hans-Helmut Klose, who had already organized the transportation of the boats to England. Hans-Helmut Klose had much experience for his new activity. At the end of the war he was chief of the flotilla of the 2nd fast torpedo boats school flotilla and he had fighted at Kurland against the Red Fleet. During the last days of war he had taken part in the evacuation of Libau.
First the boats were used for the survey of the sea frontiers of the British occupation zone.
The British admirality, however, needed urgently information about equipment and activities of the Red Fleet, so that very soon the boats advanced more to the east. They showed up during the Sovjet fleet manoeuvres and in front of the bases and took photos of the ships. When they were detected they escaped. Several times the Sovjets took up the chase, but the boats could always escape, thanks to their superior speed.
For cover reasons they had a whole set of nationality flags with them. This avoided effectively identification, as several navies sailed with fast torpedo boats (S-Boote) of the same type of the former Kriegsmarine. The boats were British or American prizes of war and had been given to allied states.
In the meantime the British Secret Service MI6 had trained as agents emigrants coming from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which should be smuggled into the Baltic States to overtake there intelligence service tasks. They should coordinate with the anti Sovjet resistance groups there. Those hided in the forests since the end of the war and fought a bitter battle against the Sovjet occupying forces.
The agents had been flown from England to West Germany, had landed there on British military airfields, from there they had been brought to varying harbours under the control of the Royal Navy, where boats from Klose awaited them ready to cast off. The first stage of the trip was the lakeland district Bornholm. There they awaited the radio signal from London giving the final order to penetrate into the territorial waters of the UDSSR. Only the commander knew the strategically choosen place to land of the day. After nightfall the boat approached with dimmed lights about 3 sea miles the shore. They exchanged the agreed direction signs, invisible for those not knowing about, with the persons awaiting them on land. A rubber dinghy with outboard motor was lowered and the person in charge of the boat, who was in radiotelephone communications with the fast torpedo boat, put the agents ashore. There he overtook the already waiting agents returning to England and returned back to the fast torpedo boat which immediately moved off from the shore. The intelligence service passage was so successful that agents after agents were put ashore and returned in the following years.
From 1953 on, after a cooperation agreement between the British and the American Secret Services MI6 and CIA, also American agents, supported by the organisation Gehlen, were brought by the boats of Klose to their operation area in the Baltic States.
1955 the landings had to be stopped. In the meantime the Sovjet counter intelligence had infiltrated the resistance groups. A complete agents troup had been caught, they had presumably been betrayed.
In 1952 the flotilla was reinforced. The German Federal Boarder Guard Sea (Bundesgrenzschutz See) had ordered at the shipyard Lürsen 3 fast patrol boats of the tried and tested, modernized type of the Kriegsmarine. The planned speed of 43 kn, however, offended against the Potsdam agreement, construction of the fast patrol boats was prohibited. The Military Security Service of the British occupation zone confiscated the boats when they were not yet ready.The Royal Navy set them in service as Storm Gull and Silver Gull for the Fishery Protection Service, with German crews. The third boat, Wild Swan, however, was never set in service.
In spring 1956 the Fishery Protection Service had been disbanded. The crews got medallions for their services from the Royal Navy. The boats were handed over to the new set up German Federal Navy. The former boats of of the Kriegsmarine S 130 and S 208 had been turned back into their old condition before handing over. They were used then as school boats UW 10 and UW 11 at the underwater warfare school. The three more new, confiscated boats formed together with 2 boats of the same type (which, as it became apparent that the Federal Republic should be rearmed, could finally still be built) the first fast torpedo boat squadron of the German Federal Navy.
Most of the crew members joined the German Federal Navy. The chief of the flotilla, Hans Helmut Klose retired as vice admiral and chief of the fleet in 1978.
On April 1st 1957 the German Federal Navy could put three units under the control of the NATO
2. Hochseeminensuchgeschwader
1. Schnelle Minensuchgeschwader
1. Schnellbootgeschwader
This was only possible because the German Federal Navy had well trained units with well trained personnel from the navy service units from the very beginning.
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