Q Ships and Their Story 19

Q Ships and Their Story 19

As for _Penshurst_, help had come too late. The crew were saved, but

the ship herself sank at 8.5 p.m. on December 24, 1917. Lieutenant

Cedric Naylor, who already possessed the decorations of D.S.O. and bar

and D.S.C., and had for his gallantry been transferred from R.N.R. to

the Royal Navy, now received a second bar to his D.S.O., and Lieutenant

E. Hutchison, R.N.R., received a D.S.O. Thus after two years of the

most strenuous service, full of honours, this _Penshurst_ ended

her glorious life as a man-of-war. Wounded, scar-stained, repaired

and refitted, her gallant crew, so splendidly trained by Captain

Grenfell, had kept taking her to sea along the lanes of enemy activity.

Insignificant to look at, when you passed her on patrol you would

never have guessed the amount of romance and history contained in her

hull. Naval history has no use for hysteria and for the sensational

exaggeration of ‘stunt’ journalism, but it is difficult to write calmly

of the great deeds performed in these most unheroic-looking ships.

To-day some Q-ship officers and men are walking about looking for jobs,

and there are not ships in commission to employ them. But yesterday

they were breaking the spirit of the U-boat personnel, risking their

lives to the uttermost limits in the endeavour to render ineffectual

the submarine blockade and the starvation of the nation.

 

Bravery such as we have seen in this and other chapters was greater

than even appears: for, having once revealed the identity of your ship

as a man-of-war, the wounded submarine would remember you, however

much you might disguise yourself; and the next time he returned, as

he usually did, to the same station, he would do his best to get you,

even if he spent hours and days over the effort. That officers and men

willingly, eagerly, went to sea in the same Q-ships, time after time,

when they might have obtained, and would certainly have deserved, a

less trying appointment afloat or ashore, is surely a positive proof

that we rightly pride ourselves on our British seamanhood. Through the

centuries we have bred and fostered and even discouraged this spirit.

In half-decked boats, in carracks, galleons, wooden walls, fishing

boats, lifeboats, pleasure craft; in steam, and steel-hulled motor,

cargo ships, in liner and tramp and small coaster, this seamanlike

character has been trained, developed, and kept alive, and now in the

Q-ship service it reaches its apotheosis. For all that is courageous,

enduring, and inspiring among the stories of the sea in any period, can

you beat it? Can you even equal it?

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER X

 

FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS

 

 

One of the great lessons of the Great War was the inter-relation of

international politics and warfare. It was an old lesson indeed, but

modern conditions emphasized it once more. We have already seen that

the torpedoing in 1915 of the Atlantic liners _Lusitania_ and _Arabic_

caused pressure to be put on the German Government by the United States

of America. In the spring of 1916 the submarine campaign, for the

Germans, was proceeding very satisfactorily. In February they had sunk

24,059 tons of British merchant shipping, in March they sank 83,492

tons, in April 120,540 tons; but in May this dropped suddenly to 42,165

tons. What was the reason for this sudden fall?

 

The answer is as follows: On March 24, 1916, the cross-Channel S.S.

_Sussex_ was torpedoed by a German submarine, and it happened that

many citizens of the U.S.A. were on board at the time and several were

killed. This again raised the question of relations between the U.S.A.

and Germany, the _New York World_ going so far as to ask, ‘Whether

anything is to be gained by maintaining any longer the ghastly pretence

of friendly diplomatic correspondence with a Power notoriously lacking

in truth and honour.’ On April 20, therefore, the U.S.A. presented

a very sharp note to the German Government, protesting against the

wrongfulness of the submarine campaign waged versus commerce, and

threatened to break off diplomatic relations. The result of this was

that Germany had to give way, and sent orders to her naval staff to

the effect that submarine warfare henceforth was to be carried on in

accordance with Prize Law: that is to say, the U-boats—so Admiral

Scheer interpreted it—were ‘to rise to the surface and stop ships,

examine papers, and all passengers and crew to leave the ship before

sinking her.’

 

Now this did not appeal to the German mind at all. ‘As war waged

according to Prize Law by U-boats,’ wrote Admiral Scheer,[3] ‘in the

waters around England could not possibly have any success, but, on the

contrary, must expose the boats to the greatest dangers, I recalled

all the U-boats by wireless, and announced that the U-boat campaign

against British commerce had ceased.’ Thus we find that after April

26 the sinkings of British merchant ships became low until they began

to increase in September, 1916, and then rapidly mounted up until in

April, 1917, they had reached their maximum for the whole war with

516,394 tons. It is to be noted that after May 8, until July 5, 1916,

no sinkings by U-boats occurred in home waters, although the sinkings

went on in the Mediterranean, where risk of collision with American

interests was less likely to occur.

 

Having regard to the increasing utility and efficiency of the Q-ships,

we can well understand Admiral Scheer’s objection to U-boats rising

to the surface, examining the ship’s papers, and allowing everyone to

leave the ship before sinking her. This was the recognized law, and

entirely within its rights the Q-ship made full use of this until she

hoisted the White Ensign and became suddenly a warship. It shows the

curious mental temper of the German that he would gamble only when he

had the dice loaded in his favour. He had his Q-ships, which, under

other names, endeavoured and indeed were able to pass through our

blockade, and go raiding round the world; but until his submarines

could go at it ruthlessly, he had not the same keenness. It was on

February 1, 1917, that his Unrestricted Submarine Campaign began,

and this was a convenient date, seeing that Germany had by this time

109 submarines. We know these facts beyond dispute, for a year after

the signing of Armistice Germany held a ‘General National Assembly

Committee of Inquiry’ into the war, and long accounts were published

in the Press. One of the most interesting witnesses was Admiral von

Capelle, who, in March, 1916, had succeeded von Tirpitz as Minister

of Marine; and from the former’s lips it was learned that one of the

main reasons why Germany in 1916 built so few submarines was the

Battle of Jutland; for the damage inflicted on the High Sea Fleet

necessitated taking workmen away from submarine construction to do

repairs on the big ships. The number and intensity of the minefields

laid by the British in German waters in that year caused Germany to

build many minesweepers to keep clear the harbour exits. This also,

he says, took men away from submarine building. It needed a couple of

years to build the larger U-boats and a year to build the smaller ones;

and though at the beginning of the Unrestricted Campaign in February,

1917, there were on paper 109 German submarines, and before the end

of the war, in spite of sinkings by Allied forces, the number even

averaged 127, yet there were never more than 76 actually in service

at one time, and frequently the number was half this amount. For the

Germans divided the seas up into so many stations, and for each station

five submarines were required, thus: one actually at work in the area,

one just relieved on her way home for rest and refit, a third on her

way out from refit to relieve number one, while two others were being

overhauled by dockyard hands. Geographically Germany was unfortunately

situated for attacking the shipping reaching the British Isles from the

Atlantic and Bay of Biscay. Before the submarines could get into the

Atlantic they had either to negotiate the Dover Straits or go round the

North of Scotland. The first was risky, especially for the bigger and

more valuable submarines, and during 1918 became even highly dangerous;

but the second, especially during the boisterous winter months, knocked

the submarines about to such an extent that they kept the dockyards

busier than otherwise.

 

All this variation of U-boat activity reacted on the rise, development,

and wane of the Q-ship. In the early part of 1917, when the submarine

campaign was at its height, the Q-ships were at the top of their

utility. It was no longer any hole-and-corner service, relying on a

few keen, ingenious brains at one or two naval bases, but became a

special department in the Admiralty, who selected the ships, arranged

for the requisite disguises, and chose the personnel. The menace

to the country’s food had by this time become so serious—a matter

of a very few weeks, as we have since learned, separated us from

starvation—that every anti-submarine method had to be carried out

with vigour, and at that time no method promised greater success than

these mystery ships. Altogether about 180 vessels of various sorts

were taken up and commissioned as Q-ships. Apart from the usual tramp

steamers and colliers and disguised trawlers, thirty-four sloops

and sixteen converted P-boats, named now ‘PQ’s,’ were equipped. The

P-boat, as mentioned on a previous page, was a low-lying craft rather

like a torpedo-boat; but her great feature was her underwater design.

She was so handy and had a special forefoot that if once she got near

to a submarine the latter would certainly be rammed; in one case the

P-boat went clean through the submarine’s hull. The next stage, then,

was to build a suitable superstructure on this handy hull, so that the

ship had all the appearance of a small merchant ship. Because of her

shallow, deceptive draught she was not likely to be torpedoed, whereas

her extreme mobility was very valuable.

 

In every port all over the country numerous passenger and tramp

steamers and sailing ships were inspected and found unsuitable owing

to their peculiar structure or the impossibility of effective disguise

combined with a sufficient bearing of the disguised guns. All this

meant a great deal of thought and inventive genius, the tonnage as

a rule ranging from 200 to 4,000, and the ships being sent to work

from Queenstown, Longhope, Peterhead, Granton, Lowestoft, Portsmouth,

Plymouth, Falmouth, Milford, Malta, and Gibraltar. And when you ask

what was the net result of these Q-ships, the whole answer cannot be

given in mere figures. Generally they greatly assisted the merchantman,

for it made the U-boat captain very cautious, and there are instances

where he desisted from attacking a real merchant ship for the reason

that something about her suggested a Q-ship. In over eighty cases

Q-ships damaged German submarines and thus sent them home licking their

wounds, anxious only to be left alone for a while. This accounts for

some of those instances when a merchant ship, on seeing a submarine

proceeding on the surface, was surprised to find that the German did

not attack. Thus the Q-ship had temporarily put a stop to sinkings by

that submarine. But apart from these indirect, yet no less valuable,