Controlled minefield at Saldanha Bay (South Africa)

My father (Dr HEJ Symes) was the Mining, Engineering and Technical Officer responsible for laying mines to protect allied shipping in the South Atlantic. This became important after several ships were attacked by German submarines. The purpose of mining the entrance to Saldanha harbour was to provide a safe place for allied ships to wait until they could travel in convoy.

Mining operations took place between 1942 and 1945. In the early days, the Royal Navy was involved.

A google search shows that there is virtually no information available on controlled mining in the South Atlantic - its purpose, installation and organisation - or the suspicion that a German submarine might have entered the harbour in June 1944.

After my father died, I found a hand-written article he had written in 1991. It provides a detailed report on war time activities in Saldanha Bay. Because there is so little information on this, I feel it is very important to make the information available to a wider audience of naval and war historians.

The following extract from the report explains the rationale behind the activities at Saldanha and why they were so important to the war effort.

"Apart from the approaching disastrous situation from which they were attempting to extricate themselves at Stalingrad and elsewhere on the Russian front, the Germans' effort at this stage was directed mainly towards continuing to bomb Britain, waging the to-and-fro desert war in North Africa and the unrelenting life-and-death struggle between the U-boats and Allied shipping in the Battle of the Atlantic. To exploit the latter campaign to its maximum and to extend their operations further afield, in mid-1942 the Germans introduced their 'U-cruiser', i.e. submarines of 1600 tonnes displacement whose operating range was reputedly 30 000 miles (or 50 000km).

By virtue of its geographic and strategic position about 100km north-west of Cape Town on the Atlantic coast, Saldanha became directly involved with two of these three war zones, viz. the Atlantic and North Africa. With German air superiority in the area and the threat of Italian naval forces prior to the decisive Battle of Cape Matapan, the Mediterranean route was far too hazardous to use as the main line of sea communication between Britain and Egypt. It was, however, necessary to supply the vital armaments to the allied land forces in Cyrenaica preparing finally to repulse the Germans in the Western Desert. Consequently, the very long and exposed strategic sea route around the Cape was used almost exclusively by the heavy traffic necessary to support the North African Campaign. In addition, the Cape was a natural point of convergence of shipping routes from Australia, India, Asia and the South Atlantic and Pacific around Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands.

It was their obvious strategy, therefore, for the Germans to concentrate a significant part of their U-boat onslaught at such a point of high shipping density and one of great importance to the Allied war effort.

By 1942 it was apparent that the concentration of ships on the route between the Cape and the North Atlantic war zone made it necessary that they should proceed together in convoys, each with an escort of one or more warships. All the ships comprising a single north-bound convoy normally did not arrive in Cape waters together, or simultaneously so that it became imperative to provide a safe temporary anchorage or haven for waiting vessels in which they would not be exposed to torpedo attacks. "