Read Ebook: Q-Ships and Their Story by Chatterton E Keble Edward Keble

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INDEX 273

TO FACE PAGE

An Early Q-Ship 6

Commander S. C. Douglas, R.N. 8

Commander G. Herbert, D.S.O., R.N. 8

Captain Gordon Campbell and Lieutenant C. G. Bonner 42

After the Battle 204

Q-Ship Transformation 234

DIAGRAMS, ETC., IN THE TEXT.

FIG. PAGE

'The necessitie of a Historie is, as of a Sworne Witnesse, to say the truth and nothing but the truth.'

Q-SHIPS AND THEIR STORY

THE HOUR AND THE NEED

All warfare is merely a contest. In any struggle you see the clashing of will and will, of force against force, of brain against brain. For the impersonal reader it is this contest which has a never-ending interest. A neutral is just as keenly entertained as the playgoer who sits watching the swaying fortunes of the hero in the struggle of the drama. No human being endowed with sympathetic interest, who himself has had to contend with difficulties, fails to be moved by the success or disaster of the contestants in a struggle of which the spectator has no part or lot. If this were not so, neutral newspapers would cease to chronicle the wars of other nations, novels would cease to be published, and plays to be produced.

Human nature, then, being what it is, man loves to watch his fellow-man fighting, struggling against men or fate or circumstances. The harder the fight and the nearer he is to losing, so much the more is the spectator thrilled. This instinct is developed most clearly in youth: hence juvenile fiction is one mass of struggles, adventures, and narrow escapes. But the instinct never dies, and how few of us can resist the temptation to read the exciting experiences of some entirely fictional character who rushes from one perilous situation to another? Is there a human being who, going along the street, would not stop to watch a burglar being chased over roofs and chimney-pots by police? If you have once become interested in a certain trial at the law courts, are you not eager to know whether the prisoner has been acquitted or convicted? You despise him for his character, yet you are fascinated by his adventures, his struggles, his share in the particular drama, his fight against heavy odds; and, contrary to your own inherent sense of justice, you almost hope he will be acquitted. In a word, then, we delight in having before us the adventures of our fellow humanity, partly for the exciting pleasure which these arouse in us, but partly also because they make us wonder what we should have done in a similar set of circumstances. In such vital, critical moments should we have played the hero, or should we have fallen somehow a little short?

The following pages are an attempt to place before the reader a series of sea struggles which are unique, in that they had no precedent in naval history. If you consider all the major and minor sea fights from the earliest times to the present day; if you think of fleet actions, and single-ship contests, you cannot surpass the golden story of the Q-ships. As long as people take any interest in the untamed sea, so will these exploits live, not rivalling but surpassing the greatest deeds of even the Elizabethan seamen. During the late war their exploits were, for very necessary reasons, withheld from the knowledge of the public. The need for secrecy has long since passed, and it is high time that a complete account of these so-called 'mystery ships' should be published, not merely for the perpetuation of their wonderful achievements, but for the inspiration of the new race of seamen whose duty it will be to hand on the great tradition of the sea. For, be it remembered, the Q-ship service was representative of every species of seamen. There were officers and men of the Royal Navy both active and retired, of the Royal Naval Reserve, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and men from the Royal Fleet Reserve. From warship, barracks, office, colony, pleasure yacht, fishing vessel, liner, sailing ship, tramp steamer, and elsewhere these seafarers went forth in unarmoured, slow-moving, lightly-armed vessels to perform the desperate adventure of acting as live-bait for a merciless enemy. It was an exploit calling for supreme bravery, combined with great fighting skill, sound seamanship, and a highly developed imagination. The successes which were attained were brought about by just this combination, so that the officers, especially the commanding officers, and the men had to be hand-picked. The slow-reasoning, hesitating type of being was useless in a Q-ship; equally out of place would have been the wild, hare-brained, dashing individual whose excess of gallantry would simply mean the loss of ship and lives. In the ideal Q-ship captain was found something of the virtues of the cleverest angler, the most patient stalker, the most enterprising big-game hunter, together with the attributes of a cool, unperturbed seaman, the imagination of a sensational novelist, and the plain horse-sense of a hard business man. In two words, the necessary endowment was brains and bravery. It was easy enough to find at least one of these in hundreds of officers, but it was difficult to find among the many volunteers a plucky fighter with a brilliant intellect. It is, of course, one of the happy results of sea training that officer or man learns to think and act quickly without doing foolish things. The handling of a ship in bad weather, or in crowded channels, or a strong tideway, or in going alongside a quay or other ship--all this practice makes a sailor of the man, makes him do the one and only right thing at the right second. But it needed 'something plus' in the Q-ship service. For six months, for a year, she might have wandered up and down the Atlantic, all over the submarine zone, with never a sight of the enemy, and then, all of a sudden, a torpedo is seen rushing straight for the ship. The look-out man has reported it, and the officer of the watch has caused the man at the wheel to port his helm just in time to allow the torpedo to pass harmlessly under the ship's counter. It was the never-ceasing vigilance and the cool appreciation of the situation which had saved the ship.

But the incident is only beginning. The next stage is to lure the enemy on, to entice him, using your own ship as the bait. It may be one hour or one day later, perhaps at dusk, or when the moon gets up, or at dawn, but it is very probable that the submarine will invisibly follow you and attack at the most awkward time. The hours of suspense are trying; watch has succeeded watch, yet nothing happens. The weather changes from good to bad; it comes on thick, it clears up again, and the clouds cease to obliterate the sun. Then, apparently from nowhere, shells come whizzing by, and begin to hit. At last in the distance you see the low-lying enemy engaging you with both his guns, firing rapidly, and keeping discreetly out of your own guns' range. Already some of your men have been knocked out; the ship has a couple of bad holes below the water-line, and the sea is pouring through. To add to the anxiety a fire is reported in the forecastle, and the next shell has made rather a mess of the funnel. What are you going to do? Are you going to keep on the bluff of pretending you are an innocent merchantman, or are you going to run up the White Ensign, let down the bulwarks, and fire your guns the moment the enemy comes within range and bearing? How much longer is it possible to play with him in the hope that he will be fooled into doing just what you would like him to do? If your ship is sinking, will she keep afloat just long enough to enable you to give the knock-out blow as the inquiring enemy comes alongside? These are the crucial questions which have to be answered by that one man in command of the ship, who all the time finds his bridge being steadily smashed to pieces by the enemy's fire.

'If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting ...'

then, one may definitely assert, you have in you much that goes to the making of an ideal Q-ship captain and a brave warrior. As such you might make a first-class commanding officer of a destroyer, a light cruiser, or even a battleship; but something more is required. The enemy is artful; you must be super-artful. You must be able to look across the tumbling sea into his mind behind the conning tower. What are his intentions? What will be his next move? Take in by a quick mental calculation the conditions of wind, wave, and sun. Pretend to run away from him, so that you get these just right. Put your ship head on to sea, so that the enemy with his sparse freeboard is being badly washed down and his guns' crews are thinking more of their wet feet and legs than of accurate shooting. Then, when you see him submerging, alter course quickly, reckon his probable position by the time you have steadied your ship on her course, and drop a series of depth-charges over his track. 'If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance, run'; if you have acted with true seamanship and sound imagination, you will presently see bits of broken wreckage, the boil of water, quantities of oil, perhaps a couple of corpses; and yours is the U-boat below, my son, and a D.S.O.; and a thousand pounds in cash to be divided amongst the crew; and you're a man, my son!

That, in a few phrases, is the kind of work, and shows the circumstances of the Q-ship in her busiest period. As we set forth her wonderful story, so gallant, so sad, so victorious, and yet so nerve-trying, we shall see all manner of types engaged in this great adventure; but we cannot appreciate either the successes or losses until we have seen the birth and growth of the Q-ship idea. As this volume is the first effort to present the subject historically, we shall begin at the beginning by showing the causes which created the Q-ship. We shall see the consecutive stages of development and improvement, the evolution of new methods, and, indeed we may at once say it, of a new type of super-seamen. How did it all begin?

Thus the war had gone on for several months, and an apparently sound idea had failed to produce a single good result. All kinds of shipping were being sunk, and yet the German submarines somehow could not be persuaded to attack these disguised ships. How was it? Was there something in the disguise which gave the steamers away? Was it purely hard luck? We cannot say definitely, but the fact remained, and it was rather disappointing. Of course the idea of disguise had been employed almost from the very first days of the war; for, in August, 1914, Admiral Jellicoe had requested that the armed trawlers, though commissioned, should not be painted grey like other warships, but retain their fishing numbers and funnel markings just as in peace time. In the early summer of 1915, a number of disguised armed trawlers were also sent out to the Dogger Bank in the hope of catching an unsuspecting submarine, who might think they were fishing. The idea had been further developed by a clever scheme involving the co-operation of a disguised armed trawler towing a submerged British submarine. This began in May; on June 23 it was the means of sinking U 40, and on July 20 it brought about the loss of U 23; but a few months later this idea was thought to be played out, and came to an end in October, 1915, though it was eventually revived in the following summer.

THE BEGINNING OF SUCCESS

In the meantime the enemy was approaching rapidly and fired a second shot, which fell between the funnel and the foremast, but landed 50 yards over. When the range was down to 600 yards the enemy turned her broadside on to the collier and continued firing; and this was now the time for the Q-ship's captain to make the big decision. Should he maintain his pretence and continue to receive punishment, with the possibility of losing ship and lives in the hope that the submarine would come nearer? Or should he reveal his identity and risk everything on the chance of winning all? This was always the critical moment when the Q-ship captain held in his judgment the whole fate of the fight, of the ship, and his men.

Who can avoid a feeling of intense admiration for the men who, year after year, were willing and eager to roll about the sea in a small sailing ship looking for the enemy, well knowing that the enemy had all the advantage of speed, handiness, and armament? Even the motor was not powerful, and would give her not much more than steerage way in a calm. The submarine could always creep up submerged, using his periscope but now and then: the schooner, however, was a conspicuous target all the time, and her masts and sails advertised her presence from the horizon. These Q-ship sailing men deserve much for what they voluntarily endured. Quite apart from the bad weather, the uncomfortable quarters on board, the constant trimming of sheets and alteration of course off an unlit coast, there was always the possibility that some U-boat's crew would, after sinking the schooner, cut the throats of these British seamen. The Q-ship crews knew this, and on certain occasions when U-boat prisoners were taken by our ships the Germans did not conceal this fact. Life in these sailing craft was something quite different from that in a battleship with its wardroom, its cheery society, and a comfortable cabin to turn into. In the latter, with powerful turbines and all the latest navigational instruments, bad weather meant little inconvenience. After all it is the human element which is the deciding factor, and the Q-ship service certainly wore out officers and men at a great pace. It is indeed difficult to imagine any kind of seafaring more exacting both physically and nervously.

And still the Admiralty were not over optimistic as to the capabilities of the decoy ship, and had to be convinced of the real worth of this novel idea. However, an incident happened on August 19 which was so successful and so significant that it entirely changed the official mind, and all kinds of craft were suggested as suitable decoys. Some thought that oil-tankers would have made ideal bait: so they would, but such ships were few in number and too valuable. Others suggested yachts, and actually these were used for intelligence work in the Bay of Biscay. Many other schemes, too, were brought forward, but they were not always practicable, or had to be discarded for particular reasons.

Q-SHIP ENTERPRISE

It is as well to bear these periods in mind, for otherwise we cannot appreciate the dull, monotonous weeks and months of cruising spent by the Q-ships when they saw no submarine, received nothing but vague, inaccurate reports, and had to keep their crews from getting disappointed or eventually wondering whether they were really doing any good in this particular service. But as the winter passed and the U-boats displayed their usual spring activity, the Q-ships had their opportunities again. Before we come to see these, let us take a glance at the work which they were performing during the winter in the Mediterranean, where the enemy sought to cut our lines of communication to the Dardanelles.

With the experience which had been gained from all these engagements in various areas it was possible to form some idea of the requisite standardized equipment with which Q-ships should be supplied. First of all, inasmuch as the enemy was being better armed, at least one modern 4-inch gun was necessary, in addition to any 12-pounder. Long-range action, especially in the Mediterranean, was probable at times, for the enemy would not always consent to engage close to. Secondly, it was highly important that the ship should remain afloat, even though seriously holed. It might happen--and later on it actually did occur--that the enemy might suppose the ship was just about to founder, thus making it quite safe to close her in order to read her name. Then would come the one great chance for the Q-ship to destroy the enemy. Therefore, to this end, it became certain that these ships should be given cargoes of barrels, or timber, carefully stowed, so that it would be no easy task to sink her, and she might perhaps even be salved.

THE STORY OF THE 'FARNBOROUGH'

Two days before the end of February, 1916, I happened to be returning from leave in England to my ship, which was in Queenstown for boiler-cleaning. In the Holyhead-Kingstown steamer I found myself in conversation with a junior lieutenant-commander, R.N., who also was returning to his ship at Queenstown. We talked of many things all the way down across Ireland, but this quiet, taciturn officer impressed me less by what he said than by what he left unsaid, and it took me a long time to guess the name of his ship. I thought I knew most of the commanding officers of sloops and trawlers and drifters, and so on, at work off the south and south-west coasts of Ireland, but I had neither seen this officer nor heard his name before. At the beginning of the war he was unknown to the public; in fact, not until three weeks after the end of this February did he win distinction, but to-day his name is known and respected in every navy of the world, and his career as a naval officer is different from anything ever recorded in the pages of history.

This brilliant success had a most cheering effect on all the patrol vessels working off the Irish coast. With careful reserve the story was breathed in wardrooms, and it percolated through to other stations, inspiring even the most bored officer to go forth and do likewise. This victory had a most important bearing on the future of the Q-ship service, and officers and men were eager to take on a job which afforded them so much sport. It meant something more, too. For, junior though he was, Lieutenant-Commander became Commander Gordon Campbell, D.S.O.; Lieutenant W. Beswick, R.N.R., who had trained the guns' crew so well, and the Engineer-Lieutenant Loveless received each a D.S.C., and three of the crew the coveted D.S.M. There followed also the usual ?1,000 in addition to prize bounty. Of the ship's complement seven of the officers belonged to the Royal Naval Reserve, and many of the ratings were either of that service or the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

Winter followed and was almost merging into spring, and then again this ship made history. In another chapter this thrilling episode will be told. In the meantime much else had happened.

That being so, it was not surprising that a submarine never suspected on September 9, 1916, that this was another 'trap-ship.' It was just before 6.30 in the evening that this steamer was sixty miles south-west of the Lizard, when a submarine was sighted about 2,000 yards off on the starboard bow. The enemy had hoisted some flag signals, but they were too small to be read. It was presumed that it was the usual order to stop, so the steamer hove-to and the captain called up the stokers who were off watch to stand by the lifeboats, for all this time the submarine, who had two guns, was firing at the ship. Having lowered the starboard lifeboat halfway down to the water, the Q-ship pretended to try and escape, so went full speed ahead, turned to port, and brought the enemy right astern. The German maintained a rapid fire, many shots coming unpleasantly across the bridge, one entering the forecastle and wounding two men, of whom one afterwards died. Another shell entered the engineers' messroom and slightly injured Temporary Engineer Sub-Lieutenant James Purdy, R.N.R. This same shell also cut the leads to the wireless room just above.

THE 'MYSTERY' SAILING SHIPS

Most people would have thought that the sail-driven decoys would have had a very short life, and that they would speedily have succumbed. On the contrary, though their work was more trying and demanded a different kind of seamanship, these 'mystery' ships went on bravely tackling the enemy.

The Lowestoft armed smacks, for instance, during 1916 had some pretty stiff tussles, and we know now that they thoroughly infuriated the Germans, who threatened to have their revenge. Looked at from the enemy's aspect, it certainly was annoying to see a number of sailing smacks spread off the coast, each obviously trawling, but not to know which of them would in a moment cut her gear and sink the submarine with her gun. It was just that element of suspense which made a cautious German officer very chary of going near these craft, whereas he might have sunk the whole fishing fleet if he dared. It was not merely annoying; it was humiliating that a small sailing craft should have the impertinence to contend with the super-modern ship of a German naval officer. That, of course, was not the way to look at the matter; for it was a contest, as we have seen, in which brains and bravery were factors more decisive than anything else. The average British fisherman is ignorant of many things which are learnt only in nautical academies, but the last you could accuse him of being is a fool or a funk. His navigation in these sailing smacks is quaint and primitive, but he relies in thick weather chiefly on the nature of the sea-bed. He can almost smell his way, and a cast of the lead confirms his surmise; he finds he is just where he expected to be. So with his character. Hardened by years of fishing in all weathers, and angered to extreme indignation during the war by the loss of good ships and lives of his relatives and friends, this type of man, so long as his decoy smack had any sort of gun, was the keenest of the keen.

When we consider the actions fought by these topsail schooners and brigantines in the Great War we appear almost to be dreaming, to be sent right back to the sixteenth century, and modernity seems to have been swept clean away. While the Grand Fleet was unable, these sailing ships were carrying on the warfare for which they had never been built. In the whole of the Royal Navy there were hardly any suitable officers nowadays who possessed practical experience in handling schooners. This was where the officer from the Mercantile Marine, the amateur yachtsman, the coasting skipper, and the fisherman became so invaluable. In these days of decaying seamanship, when steam and motors are dominant, it is well to set these facts down lest we forget. The last of the naval training brigs has long since gone, and few officers or men, even in the Merchant Service, serve an apprenticeship under sail.

There is no person more conservative than the seafaring man; the whole history of the sailing ship shows this clearly enough, and it is curious how one generation is much the same as another. It was Lord Melville who, in the early years of the nineteenth century, stated that it was the duty of the Admiralty to discourage, to the utmost of their ability, the employment of steam vessels, as they considered the introduction of steam was calculated to strike a fatal blow to the naval supremacy of Great Britain. A hundred years later, although the Q-sailing-ship had justified herself, yet there was a sort of conservative prejudice against her development. 'The small sailing vessel,' complained a distinguished admiral, 'will develop into a sailing line-of-battle ship with an electric-light party reefing topsails and a seaplane hidden in the foretopmen's washdeck locker, and everybody seasick.'

Yes: there was much in common between this flag-officer and the noble lord, in spite of the intervening century.

THE 'MARY B. MITCHELL'

MARY Y. JOSE VIGO

on her hull, so as to look like a neutral. But until she had got clear of Falmouth this inscription was covered over with a plate bearing her real name. In order to be able to pick up signals at sea she was fitted with a small wireless receiving set, the wire being easily disguised in the rigging. Rolling about in the swell of the Atlantic or the chops of the English Channel for four weeks at a time is apt to get on the nerves of a crew unable to have a stretch ashore: so in order to keep everyone on board fit and cheery, boxing-gloves and gymnastic apparatus were provided.

There can be no doubt but that these sailing ships had the most strenuous and arduous task of all. They suffered by being so useful, for the Q-steamships, as a rule, did not spend more than eight days at sea out of twelve, and then they had to come in for coal. The schooners, as we have seen, could keep the sea for a month, so long as they had sufficient water and provisions. Several more were added to the list during 1917 and 1918, and there was never any lack of volunteers for them. The only difficulty was, in these days of steam, in choosing those who had had experience in sailing craft. The revival of the sailing man-of-war was certainly one of the many remarkable features in the naval campaign.

MORE SAILING SHIPS

'It is all very well serving as a target at 1,000 yards, but it is an experience which must not be too long continued in case a lucky shot disables one. In the present case, moreover, the wind and sea were rapidly increasing, and we were leaving the boat in spite of all our efforts to stop. The submarine seemed quite determined not to come any nearer, and the C.O. decided that the moment had come for our side to begin. Just before this one of the bulwarks, luckily on the side away from the sub., had fallen down, and let a deluge of water on to the decks, but this did not affect things as far as we know.

'We then made for the boat, which was still labouring after us, and got it hooked on and hoisted. There was quite a decent-sized sea, and the hoisting process was not very pleasant for those left in to hook on, not to mention that they got wet from the exhaust.

'At the time the sub. was firing, one of the officers or crew was standing on the conning-tower rails, probably spotting for the gunners. He was there when the first shell struck, but was not noticed afterwards. Very likely he had fallen into the tower, but he may have fallen into the water.

'We certainly gave them a lesson in gunnery, two hits out of three shots. Compare that with their performance. Moreover, our guns had to be swung into position, while theirs was already pointed.

'It was no use waiting about, as we should very likely have been torpedoed, so we went on towards the land.

'And so ended what the skipper calls the "Battle of the Silver Pit," from the name of the fishing ground where it took place. As far as it went it was satisfactory, but we should like to be sure that we sank the first. The two engagements took about two hours. Possibly by waiting we might have done better, but, on the other hand, we might have done worse.'

'Then followed a pause of nearly half an hour without our seeing anything of him. The cook was sent to the galley to get on with breakfast and we started the engine. It is hardly necessary to say that as it was particularly wanted it ran very badly, and, indeed, could hardly be kept going at all. Suddenly a shell burst near us, followed by another and another. We could not at first tell the direction from which they came, and thought it was from astern, but found that the submarine had cunningly moved away towards the sun, and had emerged in the mist behind the path of the sun, where he was practically invisible from our ship, while we were lit up and must have offered a splendid target with our white hull and sails. His shooting was very good, and none of the shells missed us by much. He fired rapidly, and was probably using a 4?1-inch semi-automatic gun. The shells all burst on striking the water, and the explosions had a vicious sound. They seemed to come at a terrific speed, suggesting a high-velocity gun. The C.O. calmly walked the deck, the skipper took the wheel, and I sat at the top of the cabin hatchway and noted the times and numbers of shells fired and anything else of interest. The rest of the crew were at their stations, but keeping below the bulwarks, except those who launched the boat and let it tow astern. The eleventh shell struck us just above the water-line, and soused us all with spray which flew up above the peak of the mainsail. It tore a hole in the side and burst in the sand ballast, reducing the skipper's cabin to matchwood, and destroying the wireless instrument. It also knocked down the sides of the magazine and set fire to the wood, starting some of the rockets smouldering. It also smashed up the patent fire extinguishers, and possibly the fumes from these prevented the fire from spreading. Anyway, it was out when we had time to see what was happening.

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