Q Ships and Their Story 16

Q Ships and Their Story 16

There were still seven men in the boat, and it seemed as if they were

destined never to be rescued after their long vigil, and moreover the

boat was now nearly full of water. _Dunois_ came down again; some of

the Q-ship’s seven jumped into the water, the destroyer lowering her

cutter and picking up the rest. The submarine was not seen again;

the destroyer arrived safely in Cherbourg, where the Englishmen were

landed, and next morning they met a trawler with the crew of the second

cutter on board.

 

Such, then, were action and counter-action of Q-ship and submarine;

such were the hardships and suffering which our men were called upon

to endure when by bad luck, error of judgment, or superior cleverness

of the enemy, the combat ended unfavourably for the mystery ship. Not

all our contests were indecisive or victorious, and some of these

subsequent passages in open boats are most harrowing tales of the sea.

Men became hysterical, went mad, died, and had to be consigned to the

depths, after suffering the terrors of thirst, hunger, fatigue, and

prolonged suspense. It was a favourite ruse for the U-boat, having seen

the survivors row off, to remain in the vicinity until the rescuing

ship should come along, so that, whilst the latter was stopped and

getting the wretched victims on board, Fritz could, from the other

side, send her to the bottom with an easily-aimed torpedo. There can be

no doubt that, but for the smartness of _Dunois’_ captain, she, too,

would have suffered the fate of the Q-ship, and then neither British

nor French would have survived. It is such incidents as these which

make it impossible to forget our late enemies, even if some day we

forgive.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IX

 

THE SPLENDID ‘PENSHURST’

 

 

On November 9, 1915, the Admiralty, who had taken up the steamer

_Penshurst_ (1,191 gross tons), commissioned her at Longhope as a

Q-ship, her aliases being Q 7 and _Manford_. This inconspicuous-looking

vessel thus began a life far more adventurous than ever her designers

or builders had contemplated. Indeed, if we were to select the three

Q-ships which had the longest and most exciting career, we should

bracket _Penshurst_ with _Farnborough_ and _Baralong_.

 

The following incidents illustrate that no particular rule could be

laid down as to when a Q-ship could get in touch with the enemy. We

have seen that _Baralong_ set forth for a particular locality to

look for a definite submarine and found her. Other decoys searched

for submarines but never so much as sighted one; others, again, when

everything seemed quiet, suddenly found themselves torpedoed and

sinking. Others, too, had an engagement to-day, but their next fight

did not come until a year later. The case of _Penshurst_ is interesting

in that on two consecutive days she fought a submarine, but she is

further interesting as having been commanded by an officer who, with

Captain Gordon Campbell, will always remain the greatest of all Q-ship

captains.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 9.—DIAGRAM TO ILLUSTRATE APPROXIMATE MOVEMENTS OF

‘PENSHURST’ IN HER ENGAGEMENT WITH SUBMARINE ON NOVEMBER 29, 1916.]

 

Commander F. H. Grenfell, R.N., was a retired officer who, like so many

others, had come back to the service after the outbreak of war. After

serving for a year in the 10th Cruiser Squadron as second-in-command

of _Cedric_, he was appointed to command _Penshurst_, cruised up and

down first off the north of Scotland, then off Ireland, and in the

English Channel for nearly a year without any luck. On November 29,

1916, a year after her advent into this special service, _Penshurst_,

who, with her three masts, low freeboard, and funnel aft, resembled

an oil-tanker, was steaming down the English Channel at 8 knots. The

time was 7.45 a.m., and her course was S. 81 W. (Mag.), her position

at this time being Lat. 49.45 N., Long. 4.40 W. She was definitely on

the look-out for a certain submarine which had been reported at 4.30

the previous afternoon in Lat. 50.03 N., Long. 3.38 W. As _Penshurst_

went jogging along, picture a smooth sea, a light south-west wind,

and the sun just rising. Fine on the port bow 7 miles away was the

British merchant steamer _Wileyside_, armed, as many ships were at this

time, defensively with one gun aft; while hull down on _Penshurst’s_

starboard bow was a sailing ship of sorts. Then, of a sudden, a small

object was sighted on the port beam against the glare of the horizon,

so that it was difficult to make out either its nature or its distance.

However, at 7.52 a.m. this was settled by the object firing a shot and

disclosing herself as a submarine. The shot fell 60 yards short, but a

few minutes later came another which passed over the mainmast without

hitting. The range was about five miles, but owing to the bad light

Captain Grenfell could not see whether the enemy was closing. In order

to induce her so to do, at 8 a.m. he altered course to N. 45 W.

 

This brought the enemy nearly astern, and at the same time _Penshurst_

slowed down to half speed. By this time the sun was above the horizon,

and the light was worse than before, but the submarine was apparently

altering course to cut off the _Wileyside_, and ignoring _Penshurst_.

Therefore, at 8.6 a.m. the latter altered course so as again to bring

the submarine abeam. This had the desired effect, for at 8.10 a.m.

the submarine fired a third shot, which fell about 200 yards short of

_Penshurst_, and this proved that Q-ship and submarine were closing.

Two minutes later _Penshurst_ stopped her engines and the usual ‘panic’

evolution was carried out, by which time the submarine had closed to

within 3,000 yards, and turned on a course parallel with the Q-ship,

reducing to slow speed and being just abaft the _Penshurst’s_ port beam

and silhouetted against the glare of the sun, three Germans being

seen standing in the conning-tower. In order to spin out the time,

the Q-ship’s boats were being turned out and lowered as clumsily as

possible, and now the U-boat sent along a couple more shots, one of

which fell over and the other short.

 

Thus far it had been a contest of brain, and Captain Grenfell had

succeeded in making the enemy conform to the British will. At 8.20

a.m., as there seemed no possibility of inducing the submarine to come

any closer, _Penshurst_ opened fire, but there was time to fire only

a couple of rounds from the 12-pounder and 6-pounder and three rounds

from the 3-pounder before the German hurriedly dived, for all three

guns had dropped their shots pretty close to the target. The shooting

had been done under difficult circumstances, for it was at a black spot

against a strong glare. When once the enemy submerged, _Penshurst_ went

full speed to the spot and dropped a depth charge, but the German had

escaped, and she would live to warn her sister submarines about the

Q-ship which had surprised her.

 

For this U-boat had had a careful look at _Penshurst_, and Captain

Grenfell could hardly hope to surprise the submarine again and bring

her to action, so he altered course to the eastward with the object of

intercepting another U-boat, whose presence had been reported at 11.15

that forenoon 5 miles north of Alderney. Very likely the submarine

with whom he had just been engaged would send out by her _telefunken_

wireless a full description of the Q-ship, so, as she steamed along,

_Penshurst_ now altered her appearance by painting herself a different

colour and by lowering the mizzen-mast during the night. Thus, when the

sun rose on November 30, on what was to be _Penshurst’s_ lucky day, she

seemed to be a totally different ship.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 10.—DIAGRAM TO ILLUSTRATE APPROXIMATE MOVEMENTS OF

‘PENSHURST’ IN HER ACTION WITH SUBMARINE ON NOVEMBER 30, 1916.]

 

During the forenoon of November 30 we should have seen this transformed

_Penshurst_ going down Channel again well south of the Dorset chalk

cliffs. At noon she was in the position Lat. 50.11 N., Long. 2.31 W.

(see track chart), steering N. 89 W., when she intercepted a wireless

signal from the Weymouth-Guernsey S.S. _Ibex_ that a submarine had been

seen at 11.44 a.m. 20 miles N.W. of the Casquets; so the Q-ship altered

course towards this position, and at 1.50 p.m. the conning-tower

of a submarine was observed 5 miles to the southward, apparently

chasing a steamer to the westward. A few minutes later the German

turned eastward and then submerged. It was then that _Penshurst_ saw

a seaplane, which had come across the Channel from the Portland base,

fly over the submarine’s position and drop a bomb without effect. This

caused Captain Grenfell to reconstruct his plans, for it was hopeless

now to expect that the submarine would engage on the surface. On the

other hand, the Q-ship with her speed would be superior to this type

of submarine, which, when submerged, could not do better than 6 knots

at her maximum, but would probably be doing less than this. The weapon

should, therefore, be the depth charge, and not the gun. He decided to

co-operate with the seaplane, and ran down towards her.

 

 

[Illustration: Q SHIP “PENSHURST”

 

Showing bridge-screen dropped on port side and bridge gun ready for

action.

 

To face p. 114]

 

It was necessary first to get in touch with the airman and explain who

the ship was, so at 2.22 p.m., being now in Lat. 50 N., Long. 2.48

W., Captain Grenfell stopped his engines, and after some attempts at

communication by signal, the seaplane alighted on the water alongside.

Captain Grenfell was thus able to arrange with the pilot to direct

the Q-ship and fire a signal-light when the ship should be over the

submarine; a depth charge could then be let go. But the best-laid

schemes of seamen and airmen sometimes went wrong: for, just after the

seaplane had risen into the air, she crashed on to the water, broke a

wing, knocked off her floats and began to sink. This was annoying at a

time when the Q-ship wanted to be thinking of nothing except the enemy;

but _Penshurst_ lowered her gig and rescued the airmen, then went

alongside the injured seaplane, grappled it, and was preparing to hoist

it on board when at 3.14 p.m. a shell dropped into the sea 200 yards

ahead of the ship. Other shots quickly followed, and then the submarine

was sighted about 6,000 yards on the port quarter. How the enemy must

have laughed as, through his periscope, he saw the aircraft which so

recently had been the aggressor, now a wreck! How certain a victim the

innocent-looking steamer seemed to him!