Ian Edward Fraser

Few Royal Naval Reserve officers had a war as varied as Ian Edward Fraser. Born at Ealing, Middlesex, on 18 December 1920, the elder son of marine engineer Sydney Fraser, he was taken as an infant to Kuala Lumpur before returning to Britain. He attended the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, and entered the training ship HMS Conway in 1936. On leaving Conway in 1938 he joined the Blue Star Line and went to sea as a cadet, serving in the company's Tuscan Star and Sydney Star. He was appointed a probationary midshipman in the Royal Naval Reserve in 1938 and was called up for naval service in June 1939, initially joining the battleship HMS Royal Oak.

When war came Fraser served in the destroyers HMS Keith, HMS Montrose and HMS Malcolm. He was aboard Montrose during the Dunkirk evacuation in May 1940. The following year he was serving in Malcolm when she, together with other escorts, hunted and sank the German submarine U-651 south of Iceland on 29 June 1941. All 45 members of the U-boat's crew survived and were taken prisoner.

Fraser subsequently volunteered for submarine service, serving in P35 and H43 before receiving a formal appointment on 1 April 1942 to HMS Dolphin for the new S-class submarine HMS Sahib, then completing at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead. He served as Sahib's navigator when she commissioned. Following work-up and an initial Arctic patrol, Sahib moved to the Mediterranean, joining the 10th Submarine Flotilla at Malta in October 1942 and subsequently the 8th Submarine Flotilla at Algiers at the end of December.

On 21 January 1943, while patrolling west of Corsica, Sahib torpedoed and sank the German submarine U-301. Fraser's service during Sahib's successful patrols brought him the Distinguished Service Cross. The award was published in the Supplement to The London Gazette on 6 April 1943, which named "Lieutenant Ian Edward Fraser, R.N.R." among those honoured for bravery and skill in successful submarine patrols.

Fraser escaped Sahib's eventual loss through an extraordinary accident. During a post-patrol celebration aboard a depot ship, a heavy brass ashtray was thrown and broke a bone in his foot. The injury kept him ashore when Sahib sailed again. The submarine was sunk off Sicily on 24 April 1943, and almost her entire surviving ship's company became prisoners of war. On 8 July 1943 Fraser was appointed to HMS Cyclops for service as First Lieutenant of HMS H44, an appointment he held until February 1944. He then transferred to HMS Varbel for X-craft duties and trained for the hazardous midget-submarine operations that would define his wartime career.

In December 1944 Fraser was appointed to the midget-submarine depot ship HMS Bonaventure. Sent to the Far East with the 14th Submarine Flotilla, he was selected to command HMS XE-3 for Operation Struggle, the planned attack on the Japanese heavy cruiser Takao in the Johore Strait. Bonaventure moved forward to Labuan, and on 26 July 1945 XE-3 departed under tow by HMS Stygian. The operational crew, Fraser, Sub-Lieutenant William James Lanyon Smith, Engine Room Artificer Charles Alfred Reed and Acting Leading Seaman James Joseph Magennis, took over for the final approach. With about forty miles remaining to the target, XE-3 slipped her tow late on 30 July and entered the defended Singapore approaches.

The passage demanded exceptional navigation. Fraser took XE-3 through waters protected by mines, hydrophones, controlled minefields and an anti-submarine boom, at one stage deliberately leaving the believed safe channel to reduce the risk of detection. The often-repeated figure of eighty miles did not describe an eighty-mile one-way approach. Fraser's Victoria Cross citation states that the approach and withdrawal together amounted to an eighty-mile passage through the defended waters.

On 31 July Fraser located Takao, which was already sitting very low in shallow water. Only beneath the cruiser's midships section was there sufficient depth for the tiny submarine to pass beneath her. For roughly forty minutes Fraser worked XE-3 along the seabed until he succeeded in forcing the craft beneath the centre of the cruiser. Magennis then squeezed through the restricted diver's hatch and worked beneath Takao, clearing marine growth from the hull so that he could attach his full complement of limpet mines despite exhaustion and a leaking breathing set.

Fraser also released one of XE-3's large external explosive charges. During the withdrawal operation, another external carrier failed to fall clear. Magennis, although already exhausted, volunteered to leave the submarine a second time and spent about seven minutes freeing the obstruction with a heavy tool. With the explosive load released, Fraser and his crew completed their escape and eventually regained HMS Stygian. This wording deliberately avoids fixing the precise moment at which XE-3 became completely clear of Takao, because surviving published accounts differ slightly on that sequence.

The charges exploded that evening, blowing a breach more than sixty feet long and thirty feet wide below Takao's waterline, flooding compartments and leaving the already badly damaged cruiser effectively unusable for the remainder of the war. It is more accurate to describe the attack as further crippling and immobilising Takao than to imply that Fraser's attack alone converted a fully operational cruiser into a constructive total loss. The Royal Navy records that she had already reached Singapore badly damaged and beyond economical repair, serving principally as a floating anti-aircraft battery.

Fraser and Magennis were both awarded the Victoria Cross. The award appeared in the Third Supplement to The London Gazette, Issue 37346, published on 9 November 1945 under an Admiralty notice dated 13 November. Rather than presenting a truncated passage as a verbatim transcription, the following is an intentional extract from Fraser's official citation: "The courage and determination of Lieutenant Fraser are beyond all praise." The citation went on to emphasise that he had persisted until he had forced XE-3 beneath the cruiser despite the extreme hazards of the operation.

Fraser and Magennis received their Victoria Crosses from King George VI at Buckingham Palace on 11 December 1945. Fraser's Distinguished Service Cross and Victoria Cross thus recognised two distinct phases of his submarine career: the first for his work during successful wartime submarine patrols, and the second for command of one of the most hazardous midget-submarine attacks of the Pacific war.

In 1946 Fraser was authorised to accept and wear the United States Legion of Merit, Degree of Officer. He left full-time naval service in 1947 but continued in the Royal Naval Reserve. Applying wartime diving experience to civilian work, he established Universal Divers Ltd with his younger brother Brian and became a pioneer of commercial self-contained diving in Britain. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Wallasey in 1957 and remained active in public and maritime affairs.

Fraser eventually attained the rank of lieutenant commander in the Royal Naval Reserve. He received the Decoration for Officers of the Royal Naval Reserve and later a Bar to that decoration, the latter being announced in 1963. He retired from the RNR on 18 December 1965. In later life he remained closely associated with the Victoria Cross and George Cross community and with naval commemorations. He died at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral on 1 September 2008, aged eighty-seven.