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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Q-Ships and Their Story," E. Keble Chatterton delves into the fascinating world of naval warfare during World War I, particularly focusing on the innovative tactics employed by the Royal Navy through the use of Q-ships'—deceptively unarmed merchant vessels designed to lure enemy submarines. Chatterton's narrative combines meticulous historical research with engaging storytelling, seamlessly weaving together technical details, personal anecdotes from naval personnel, and broader strategic implications. The book is situated in the context of maritime military history, offering insights into the interplay between technology and warfare as well as the psychological aspects of naval engagements. E. Keble Chatterton was a noted British author and historian with a passion for naval affairs, a background that profoundly influences his writing. With his experience as a sailor and his extensive research on naval history, Chatterton was uniquely positioned to reveal the sophisticated and often covert operations surrounding Q-ships. His knowledge allows him to craft a compelling narrative that not only captures the historical significance of these vessels but also humanizes the experiences of those who served aboard them. "Q-Ships and Their Story" is essential reading for history enthusiasts and maritime scholars alike. Chatterton's vibrant prose brings to life a lesser-known yet crucial aspect of naval warfare, making it a valuable addition to any collection. Those intrigued by the evolution of military strategies and the relentless ingenuity of human spirit during wartime will find this book both informative and captivating. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Q-Ships and Their Story
Table of Contents
Introduction
Beneath the calm silhouette of a merchantman lies a deliberate illusion forged to outwit a hidden enemy. E. Keble Chatterton’s Q-Ships and Their Story presents the clandestine campaign in which ordinary-looking vessels became traps for submarines during the First World War. The book introduces readers to a maritime theater where patience, deception, and nerve formed the essence of survival. Rather than celebrating spectacle, it traces how careful planning and disciplined restraint could be as lethal as overt firepower. Chatterton’s focus on the artifice of disguise and the fraught moments before revelation creates a study in tension, uncertainty, and calculated risk at sea.
This is a work of nonfiction naval and military history, written by a prolific chronicler of the sea. First published in the early 1920s, it reflects a postwar moment when the public sought to understand the hidden strategies that shaped the conflict’s outcome. The setting is predominantly the waters around the British Isles and the wider North Atlantic, where the menace of submarine warfare demanded new responses. Within that context, the book examines the emergence and operation of decoy vessels—Q-ships—tasked with countering U-boat tactics. Chatterton situates these efforts within the broader campaign to safeguard maritime lifelines essential to wartime survival.
Readers encounter a structured account that moves from the conception of the ruse to the practical realities of life aboard ships designed to look defenseless while readying concealed strength. Without dwelling on outcomes of individual engagements, the narrative conveys the constant game of misdirection: feigned vulnerability, measured timing, and the peril of inviting an attack in order to spring a trap. The voice is steady and informed, attentive to procedure and atmosphere, and alive to the anxieties of crews who had to appear ordinary under extraordinary pressure. The mood is one of sober suspense, with flashes of ingenuity underscoring the method behind the masquerade.
At its core, the book interrogates the ethics and efficacy of deception as a lawful tool of war at sea. It raises questions about disguise and identity, about how far a combatant may go to protect commerce and coastal communities, and about the burdens placed on sailors who must suppress instinctive reactions until the decisive moment. Themes of improvisation, discipline, and endurance recur, as does the fragile boundary between civilian appearance and military purpose. Chatterton portrays not only devices and tactics but the mental calculus required when visibility, distance, and silence decide fates, inviting readers to weigh prudence and courage against the unpredictable ocean.
Chatterton’s style favors clarity and narrative momentum, guiding readers through technical matter without pedantry. He emphasizes the choreography of encounters rather than their sensational effects, showing how watchkeeping, signaling, and practiced routines keep a deception credible. The book’s descriptive passages anchor readers in the feel of sea and weather, and in the claustrophobic stillness that precedes action. By foregrounding process—how a disguise is sustained, how a crew masks readiness, how timing is judged—he reveals the craft behind the concept. The result is a lucid account that rewards careful reading and conveys the complexity of naval operations executed under a veil of normality.
As a contribution to interwar maritime history, the work helps document a lesser-known facet of anti-submarine warfare and preserves the experiences of those whose effectiveness depended on their anonymity. It complements broader accounts of convoy systems and patrols by focusing on a specialized response born of necessity. The book also reflects contemporary efforts to draw lessons from recent conflict: how institutions innovate under pressure, how doctrine adapts to new threats, and how narratives of risk and restraint shape public understanding. In presenting the Q-ship campaign as both a practical expedient and an intellectual problem, Chatterton offers a considered perspective on adaptation at sea.
For today’s readers, Q-Ships and Their Story resonates beyond its historical moment, illuminating questions of deception, deterrence, and resilience that remain pertinent in modern maritime security. The book invites reflection on the balance between transparency and secrecy, and on the human factors that govern technology’s use in ambiguous environments. It offers an experience that is measured rather than sensational, emphasizing procedure and judgment over spectacle, and granting insight into a campaign fought largely out of sight. Those who value disciplined storytelling, operational detail, and the moral texture of wartime decision-making will find a thoughtful guide to a shadow war waged in plain view.
Synopsis
E. Keble Chatterton’s Q-Ships and Their Story recounts the British Admiralty’s development and use of decoy vessels during the First World War to counter the German U-boat threat. The book presents a chronological, documentary-style narrative, combining operational background with case histories of individual ships and commanders. It explains what Q-ships were, how they were conceived, and why they were deployed, while situating them within the broader anti-submarine campaign. Chatterton draws on official records and eyewitness accounts to trace planning, tactics, engagements, and outcomes, aiming to record the method, scale, and character of this specialized war at sea without dwelling on polemic or embellishment.
The narrative opens with the rise of submarine warfare from 1914 and the strain it placed on Britain’s seaborne trade. Early U-boat operations observed prize rules, but escalating losses, contested legality, and growing ruthlessness culminated in unrestricted warfare. Conventional escorts, patrols, mines, and nets could not eliminate the threat. The Admiralty therefore explored deception as a complementary measure. Chatterton outlines these pressures, the practical constraints of the time, and the administrative steps that led to commissioning innocuous-looking merchantmen and sailing craft as covert warships. This framing explains both the strategic rationale and the secrecy that surrounded their creation and employment.
Chatterton then details Q-ship construction and doctrine. Ordinary coasters, tramps, trawlers, and schooners were fitted with concealed guns, depth charges, hidden lookouts, and wireless. Crews trained to simulate panic, launching a decoy boat while keeping a fighting party hidden until the U-boat approached within effective range. Rapidly dropping disguise screens, hoisting the White Ensign, and opening fire at close quarters formed the core tactic. Constant repainting and re-rigging sustained deception. The book describes recruiting and grooming officers for independent command, strict compartmentalization of information, and measures to prevent compromise, emphasizing the logistical effort and coordination required to keep the ships convincing.
Early operations in 1915–1916 established both the potential and hazards of the method. Chatterton summarizes first successes by armed smacks and small auxiliaries, as well as contentious incidents that provoked diplomatic exchanges and scrutiny of ruse de guerre boundaries. He presents examples where U-boats, confident of superiority on the surface, closed to investigate and were surprised by concealed armament. He also notes failures: premature exposure, misjudged ranges, dud ammunition, or torpedo strikes that left little chance for counterattack. These chapters highlight the iterative refinement of tactics, the value of disciplined drill under shellfire, and the constant risk of recognition by increasingly wary U-boat crews.
The account reaches its most detailed phase with the celebrated actions of 1917. Chatterton records the work of ocean-going decoys and smaller sailing Q-ships that lured submarines into short-range duels. He describes engagements in which commanders held their nerve under deliberate shelling to preserve the disguise, then struck suddenly to disable conning towers, periscopes, and guns. Episodes involving ships later known for high decorations and public notice appear here, including the use of the ballot for awards after particularly hard-fought actions. The text emphasizes repeated redeployments under new identities, repairs between sorties, and the personal leadership required to maintain crews’ confidence.
German countermeasures and the evolving environment form the next stage. As reports circulated, U-boats increasingly attacked from long range, fired torpedoes without warning, or used periscope-only approaches, reducing opportunities for Q-ship ambush. Chatterton notes improvements in submarine gunnery, caution in boarding, and reliance on night operations. In parallel, the Admiralty adopted convoy with destroyer and aircraft support, shifting the center of anti-submarine effort. Q-ships continued as a niche tool for specific areas and conditions, but their success became more situational. The book explains how doctrine adapted—new decoy patterns, depth-charge traps, and coordination with escorts—while acknowledging that operational surprise was harder to achieve.
Geographically, the narrative spans the Western Approaches, Irish Sea, English Channel, and selected Mediterranean stations. Chatterton distinguishes between coastal trawlers and smacks that worked close inshore and larger steamers that ranged farther out on trade routes. He shows how camouflage varied with locality: fishing rigs among fleets, collier profiles on common tracks, or neutral coloration where appropriate. Intelligence and signals informed patrol zones; auxiliaries, sloops, and aircraft sometimes supported attacks or intercepted damaged submarines. The book also treats logistical realities—armament concealment, ammunition supply in minor ports, and rapid re-masting or repainting—to illustrate the continuous effort required to remain credible under persistent observation.
Turning to results, Chatterton aggregates claims, confirmations, and probable damages while indicating the difficulty of precise accounting in submarine warfare. He reports a number of sinkings attributed to Q-ships, alongside many engagements that ended with U-boats escaping damaged or deterred. Losses among Q-ships, including vessels torpedoed with heavy casualties, are recorded soberly. The author weighs material effect against psychological and tactical influence, noting how decoys imposed caution, complicated U-boat decision-making, and bought time until escort, convoy, and technological advances matured. Postwar reconciliations of records and debates about cost-effectiveness are summarized without polemic, offering readers a measured sense of the method’s limits and contributions.
The closing chapters consolidate the book’s central message: Q-ships were a product of necessity that combined improvisation, disciplined deception, and individual initiative within a broader naval campaign. Chatterton presents them as one strand among many—mines, patrols, aircraft, and convoys—whose combined effect constrained the submarine threat. He preserves the operational details, acknowledges controversies, and records the endurance of crews who worked under unusual conditions. The narrative ends by situating Q-ship work within naval history as a distinct, time-bound response to a specific challenge, leaving a legacy of tactical ingenuity and an example of how maritime forces adapt to new forms of warfare.
Historical Context
E. Keble Chatterton’s Q-Ships and Their Story is set within the maritime theater of the First World War (1914–1918), with its geography spanning the Western Approaches, the Irish Sea, the English Channel, and the North Atlantic. Many operations centered on Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, the nerve center for anti-submarine measures. The book, first published in 1922, draws on Admiralty files opened after wartime secrecy eased and on testimonies of Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve officers and merchant seamen. Its time and place are defined by the perilous supply lifeline to the British Isles, where German submarines contested sea control and Britain improvised countermeasures on and beneath congested wartime sea lanes.
The German U-boat campaign evolved from adherence to prize rules to unrestricted submarine warfare. In early 1915 submarines generally surfaced, warned, and inspected merchantmen, but the sinking of RMS Lusitania by U-20 on 7 May 1915 marked a brutal escalation. Diplomatic crises followed, including the Arabic pledge (September 1915) and Sussex pledge (May 1916), which temporarily constrained German tactics. On 1 February 1917 Berlin resumed unrestricted warfare, aiming to starve Britain. Chatterton’s work is inseparable from this chronology: Q-ships exploited the surfacing behavior encouraged by prize rules, then adapted as U-boats increasingly attacked without warning, highlighting the shifting tactical logic that the narrative chronicles in detail.
Q-ships—also called special service or mystery ships—were decoy merchantmen fitted with concealed guns and manned by naval crews. Operating often from Queenstown under Admiral Lewis Bayly, they feigned vulnerability to lure U-boats within close range, then suddenly unmasked armament to fire. Tactics included a “panic party” abandoning ship to draw the submarine nearer, while hidden gunners waited behind collapsible screens. Early successes in 1915 included actions such as HMS Baralong’s destruction of U-27 on 19 August near the Irish Sea, and the schooner Prince Charles’s defeat of U-36 in July off the Hebrides. Chatterton documents these improvisations, showing how deception answered the novel threat of submarine commerce raiding.
By April 1917 Allied shipping losses peaked at approximately 881,000 gross tons, compelling strategic reform. The Admiralty, urged by evidence from the Western Approaches and in concert with U.S. Navy support after 6 April 1917, instituted escorted ocean convoys from May. American destroyers arrived at Queenstown in mid-May, forging the Sims–Bayly partnership that improved anti-submarine patrols. Hydrophones, depth charges, and air patrols matured through late 1917, reducing sinkings. In Chatterton’s account, Q-ships continued to operate but increasingly complemented rather than replaced convoys, functioning as opportunistic traps in coastal waters and focal points in the broader shift from isolated patrols to layered, systematized convoy protection.
Some of the war’s most emblematic decoy actions involved Gordon Campbell, RN. In HMS Farnborough (Q-5) he lured and sank U-68 on 22 March 1916 off southwest Ireland, using a textbook panic-party ruse. On 17 February 1917, torpedoed by U-83, Campbell deliberately maintained the disguise to entice the submarine to surface for a coup de grâce; when U-83 closed, Farnborough’s hidden guns and a mine charge destroyed her. Campbell received the Victoria Cross, and his crew’s stoicism under damage and flooding became a model for later Q-operations. Chatterton foregrounds these episodes, using official reports to reconstruct timing, ranges, and gunnery that defined the deadly choreography of such engagements.
In 1917 two further set-piece battles shaped the Q-ship legend. HMS Pargust, on 7 June 1917, decoyed and sank the minelaying UC-29 near Ireland after withstanding torpedo damage; the rare “VC by ballot” honored Lieutenant Ronald Niel Stuart and Seaman William Williams for collective gallantry. On 8 August 1917 HMS Dunraven fought a prolonged duel with a U-boat—often identified as UC-71—suffering magazine fires while still preserving her disguise; a second VC by ballot recognized Lieutenant Charles Bonner and Petty Officer Ernest Pitcher. Chatterton presents these as case studies in deception under fire, emphasizing the cost in casualties and the extreme discipline required to withhold return fire.
Q-ship warfare sat uneasily within international law. The use of false flags was lawful if the true colors were shown before combat, yet incidents like Baralong’s 1915 sinking of U-27—and alleged shooting of survivors—fed German accusations of illegality and inflamed neutral opinion, especially in the United States. Simultaneously, Germany’s unrestricted campaign violated prize norms and struck hospital ships and liners. Chatterton situates Q-ships at this legal and moral fault line, noting how Admiralty secrecy both shielded methods and complicated accountability. Postwar tallies credited Q-ships with roughly a dozen confirmed U-boat sinkings (about 14), at the loss of over two dozen decoy vessels, underscoring both efficacy and cost.
As social and political critique, the book exposes the fragility of a maritime empire dependent on merchant labor and the ethical compromises forced by total war. It reveals class tensions between commissioned officers and civilian crews co-opted into perilous deception, and it highlights the austere calculus that accepted sacrificial damage to bait submarines. By placing Q-ships amid blockade policy, neutral diplomacy, and legal controversy, Chatterton implicitly challenges romantic notions of naval chivalry, portraying a conflict where survival trumped ceremony. The narrative thus interrogates state secrecy, the burden borne by coastal communities, and the uneasy balance between strategic necessity and the laws and customs of the sea.
Q-Ships and Their Story
PREFACE
The wonderful and brave story of ships and men here presented needs but the briefest introduction. The deeds will forever remain one of the most glorious chapters in the chronicles of the sea. No excuse is offered for adding another volume to the literature of the war, for the subject is deserving of greater attention than has hitherto been possible. Lord Jellicoe once remarked that he did not think English people realized the wonderful work which these mystery ships had done in the war, and that in these vessels there had been displayed a spirit of endurance, discipline, and courage the like of which the world had never before seen[1q].
To few naval historians, I believe, has it ever been permitted to enjoy such complete opportunities for acquiring authentic information as is here presented. Unquestionably the greatest sphere of Q-ship operations was off the south-west coast of Ireland, owing to the fact that the enemy submarines from the summer of 1915 to 1918 concentrated their attacks, with certain intervals, on the shipping in the western approaches to the British Isles. It was my good fortune during most of this period to be at sea patrolling off that part of Ireland. These Q-ships[1] were therefore familiar in their various disguises at sea or in harbour at Berehaven and Queenstown during their well-earned rest. Throughout this time I kept a diary, and noted down much that would otherwise have been forgotten. Many of the Q-ship officers were my personal friends, and I have enjoyed the hospitality of their ships. Valuable data, too, were obtained from officers of merchant ships who witnessed Q-ships engaging submarines.
A considerable number of authentic manuscripts has been examined. By the courtesy of commanding officers I have been lent documents of priceless historical value, such as copies of official reports and private diaries, plans, sketches, photographs, and so on. All this information has been further augmented by personal conversation, correspondence, and valuable criticism. I submit, therefore, that with all these sources of information available, and with knowledge of much that has been published from the German side, it is possible to offer a monograph that is at once accurate in detail and correct in perspective.
‘With respect to single-ship actions,’ wrote James in his monumental Naval History a hundred years ago, ‘the official documents of them are also very imperfect. The letters are generally written an hour or so after the termination of the contest, and, of course, before the captain has well recovered from the fatigue and flurry it occasioned. Many captains are far more expert at the sword than at the pen, and would sooner fight an action than write the particulars of one.’ That statement is true to-day of the Q-ships, and it would have been negligent not to have availed oneself now of the calm and considered version of the chief actors in the great mystery-ship drama while they are still alive. Although the time for secrecy has long since passed, nothing has here been included of a confidential nature that can be of assistance to enemies past or potential. In one instance, for political reasons and in the interests of the service, I have made a certain omission. Those concerned will recognize this and understand: the rest will not notice it.
Among those who have rendered me the greatest assistance in regard to information, advice, criticism, the loan of manuscripts, illustrations, and in other ways, I desire especially to return thanks to Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, C.V.O., K.C.B., K.C.M.G.[2], and Miss Voysey, C.B.E.; to Captain F. H. Grenfell, D.S.O., R.N., Captain Gordon Campbell, V.C., D.S.O., R.N., Captain W. C. O’G. Cochrane, R.N., Commander Godfrey Herbert, D.S.O., R.N., Commander Stopford C. Douglas, R.N., and to Lieutenant G. H. P. Muhlhauser, R.N.R.
E. KEBLE CHATTERTON.
March, 1922.
CHAPTER ITHE 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.
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?
An Early Q-ship Q-ship “Antwerp” entering Harwich harbour.
Q-ship “Antwerp” Commander Herbert is on the port side of the bridge, the Mercantile Chief Officer and Quartermaster being in the foreground.
To face p. 6
Turn your attention back to the autumn of 1914. It was the sinking of the three Cressys on September 22 by U 9 that taught Germany what a wonderful weapon of offence she had in the submarine. Five days later the first German submarine penetrated the Dover Straits. This was U 18, who actually attacked the light cruiser Attentive. But it was not until October 20 that the first merchant ship, the British S.S. Glitra in the North Sea, was sunk by a submarine. Six days later the French S.S. Amiral Ganteaume, with Belgian refugees, was attacked by a German submarine. A month passed, and on November 23 the S.S. Malachite was attacked by U 21, and after being on fire sank. Three days later the S.S. Primo was sunk also by U 21. It was thus perfectly clear that we had before us a most difficult submarine campaign to contend with, and that merchant ships would not be immune. On the last day of October H.M.S. Hermes was torpedoed off Calais, and on November 11 H.M.S. Niger had a similar fate near Deal.
Commander S. C. Douglas, R. N. When serving in the Q-ship “Antwerp,” wearing a false moustache and disguised as an English commercial traveller.
Commander G. Herbert, D.S.O., R.N. Taken on the bridge of the Q-ship “Antwerp,” disguised as a Dutch pilot with a wig.
To face p. 8
What was to be done? The creation of what eventually became known as the Auxiliary Patrol, with its ever increasing force of armed yachts, trawlers, drifters, and motor craft; the use of destroyers and our own submarines formed part of the scheme. But even at this early stage the Q-ship idea came into being, though not actually under that name. Officially she was a special-service ship, whose goings and comings were so mysterious that even among service men such craft were spoken of in great secrecy as mystery ships. This first mystery ship was the S.S. Vittoria, who was commissioned on November 29, 1914. She had all the appearance of an ordinary merchant ship, but she was armed, and went on patrol in the area where submarines had been reported. It was an entirely novel idea, and very few people knew anything about her. She never had any luck, and was paid off early in January, 1915, without ever having so much as sighted a submarine. The idea of decoy ships suggested itself to various naval officers during December, 1914, and their suggestions reached the Admiralty. The basic plan was for the Admiralty to take up a number of merchantmen and fishing craft, arm them with a few light quick-firing guns, and then send them forth to cruise in likely submarine areas, flying neutral colours. This was perfectly legitimate under International Law, provided that before opening fire on the enemy the neutral colours were lowered and the White Ensign was hoisted. Seeing that the enemy was determined to sink merchantmen, the obvious reply was to send against them armed merchantmen, properly commissioned and armed, but outwardly resembling anything but a warship. Thus it came about that on January 27, 1915, the second decoy ship was commissioned. This was the Great Eastern Railway S.S. Antwerp (originally called Vienna), which operated in the English Channel. She was placed under the command of Lieut.-Commander Godfrey Herbert, R.N., one of the most experienced and able officers of our submarine service. The choice was a happy one, for a submarine officer would naturally in his stalking be able to realize at once the limitations and possibilities of his opponent. It was a most difficult task, for the U-boats at this time were still very shy, and only took on certainties. Neither in boats nor in personnel had Germany yet any to spare, and there were periods when the submarine campaign fluctuated. Thus, day after day, week after week, went by, and Antwerp never had any chance. The enemy was now beginning to operate further afield, and at the end of January, 1915, for the first time, a U-boat made its way up the Irish Sea as far as off Liverpool, and then, on February 18, was inaugurated the German Submarine Blockade. Shipping began to be sunk in various places, but the western end of the English Channel was now a favourite zone, especially in the neighbourhood of the Scillies; and it was with the hope of being taken for a merchant ship that Antwerp had come out from Falmouth and made her way westward. Thus, on March 12, we see her, about three o’clock in the afternoon, twelve miles north of the Bishop Rock Lighthouse. A submarine1 was sighted steering in a northerly direction for a steamer on the horizon. Here, at length, was a chance. Twenty minutes later, Antwerp came up to a sailing ship, and found she had on board the officers and crew of the Ellerman liner Andalusian, which had been captured and scuttled 25 miles W.N.W. of the Bishop Rock. Antwerp continued her chase, and got within four miles of the Andalusian, still afloat, but then the submarine dived and was never sighted again. So Antwerp was never able to sink a submarine, and she was paid off on April 5, 1915.
During the summer of 1915 there was a small steamer called the Lyons, which one used to see in various naval ports, and under various disguises. Her primary object was to carry naval stores from one port to another, but it was always her hope to fall in with a submarine. I remember seeing her one day alongside Pembroke Naval Dockyard, painted a certain colour and with one funnel. A little later I saw her elsewhere with a different coat of paint and a dummy funnel added to her, so that she resembled an ocean-going tug. Lyons also was unable to entrap the enemy, and terminated her decoy-ship period at the beginning of November of the same year.
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.
Another variation of the decoy-ship principle at this time was that employed by Admiral Startin, who was in charge of the naval base at Granton. In view of enemy submarines having recently held up neutral merchant steamers in the North Sea, he disguised two big trawlers so as to resemble small neutral merchant ships. This was in July, 1915. So successfully was this done that one of them actually deceived British destroyers, who took her for a Danish cargo steamer. The next development was further to disguise them by adding a false deck cargo of timber, boats, and other details, so as to resemble closely a Norwegian cargo ship, with Norwegian colours hoisted at the mizzen, two derricks placed on the trawler’s foremast, and Norwegian colours painted on prepared slips of canvas placed on each side of the hull amidships. Those who were at sea in those days will recollect that it was customary for neutral ships to have their national colours painted on each side of the hull in the hope that the enemy would not mistake the ships for Allies’. Thus cleverly disguised, the two Granton trawlers Quickly and Gunner went into the North Sea, armed with nothing more powerful than a 12-pounder, Admiral Startin being himself aboard one of the ships. A large submarine was actually sighted on July 20, and at 1,000 yards the enemy began the action. Quickly thereupon lowered her Norwegian flag, ran up the White Ensign, removed the painted canvas, replied with her 12-pounder, and then with her 6-pounder. A fine, lucky shot was seen to strike the submarine, and much smoke was seen to issue. Although the enemy made off and was not sunk, yet it showed that it was possible to fool German submarines by this disguise. The decoy-ship idea was not merely sound in principle, but it was practicable and was capable of being used as a valuable offensive weapon. Most of a year had passed since the beginning of war, and there were no decoy ship results to show except those which had been obtained by British submarines working in conjunction with disguised trawlers. However, just as the seaman often finds the dawn preceded by a calm and followed by a breeze, so it was to be with the decoy ships. The dawn of a new period was about to take place, and this was followed by such a wind of events that if anyone had dared to doubt the value of this specialized naval warfare it was not long before such hesitation vanished. Disguised trawlers had in the meantime been further successful, but there were obviously greater possibilities for the disguised merchant ship, the collier and tramp types especially. But this all depended on three things: First, the right type of ship had to be selected very carefully and with regard to the trade route on which she would normally in the present conditions be likely to be found. For instance, it would have been utterly foolish to have sent a P. and O. liner to cruise up and down the waters of the Irish Channel or an Atlantic liner up and down the North Sea. Secondly, having once selected the right ship, much depended on the dock-yard authorities responsible for seeing that she was fitted out adequately as to her fighting capabilities, yet externally never losing any of her essential mercantile appearance. This meant much clever designing, much engineering and constructive skill, and absolute secrecy. Thirdly, the right type of keen, subtle, patient, tough officer had to be found, full of initiative, full of resource, with a live, eager crew. Slackers, ‘grousers,’ and ‘King’s-hard-bargains’ were useless.
Q-ship[4] “Antwerp” Showing the collapsible dummy life-raft which concealed the two 12-pounders.
Gun’s Crew of Q-ship “Antwerp” Gun’s crew of “Antwerp” ready to fire on a submarine. The sides of the dummy life-raft have been collapsed to allow gun to come into action.
To face p. 12
CHAPTER IITHE BEGINNING OF SUCCESS
We turn now to the northern mists of the Orkneys, where the comings and goings of the Grand Fleet were wrapped in mystery from the eyes of the world. In order to keep the fleet in stores—coal, oil, gear, and hundreds of other requisite items—small colliers and tramp steamers brought their cargoes northward to Scapa Flow. In order to avoid the North Sea submarines, these coal and store ships used the west-coast passage as much as possible. Now, for that reason, and also because German submarines were already proceeding in earnest, via the north-west of Scotland, to the south-west Irish coast, ever since the successful sinking of the Lusitania[3], it was sound strategy on our part to send a collier to operate off the north-western Scottish coast. That is to say, these looked the kinds of ships a suspecting U-boat officer would expect to meet in that particular locality.
Under the direction of Admiral Sir Stanley Colville, a handful of these little ships was, during the summer of 1915, being fitted out for decoy work. One of these was the collier S.S. Prince Charles, a little vessel of only 373 tons. In peace-time she was commanded by her master, Mr. F. N. Maxwell, and manned by five deckhands, two engineers, and two firemen. These men all volunteered for what was known to be a hazardous job, and were accepted. In command was placed Lieutenant Mark Wardlaw, R.N., and with him went Lieutenant J. G. Spencer, R.N.R., and nine active-service ratings to man the guns and use the rifles. She carried the weakest of armament—only a 3-pounder and a 6-pounder, with rifles forward and aft. Having completed her fitting out with great secrecy, the Prince Charles left Longhope in the evening of July 21 with orders to cruise on routes where submarines had recently been seen. Proceeding to the westward at her slow gait, she saw very few vessels until July 24. It was just 6.20 p.m. when, about ten miles W.N.W. of North Rona Island, she sighted a three-masted vessel with one funnel, apparently stopped. A quarter of an hour later she observed a submarine lying close to the steamer. Here was the steel fish Prince Charles was hoping to bait.
Pretending not to see the submarine, and keeping on her course like a real collier, Lieutenant Wardlaw’s ship jogged quietly along, but he was closing up his gun’s crews behind their screens and the mercantile crew were standing by ready to hoist out the ship’s boats when required. The German now started up his oil-engines and came on at full speed towards the Prince Charles. It had just gone seven o’clock and the submarine was 3 miles off. The collier had hoisted her colours and the enemy was about five points on the bow when a German shell came whizzing across. This fell 1,000 yards over. Lieutenant Wardlaw now stopped his engines, put his ship head on to the Atlantic swell, blew three blasts, and then ordered the crew to get the boats out, in order to simulate the movements of an ordinary merchant ship in the presence of an attacking submarine.
