Q Ships and Their Story 2

Q Ships and Their Story 2

10. Action of _Penshurst_ on November 30, 1916 113

 

11. Action of _Penshurst_ on January 14, 1917 118

 

12. The Humorous Side of Q-Ship Warfare 127

 

13. _Farnborough’s_ Farewell 196

 

14. Action of _Pargust_ on June 7, 1917 201

 

15. The Great Decision 208

 

16. Letter from the First Lord of the Admiralty

to Captain Gordon Campbell 210

 

 

 

 

‘The necessitie of a Historie is, as of a Sworne Witnesse, to say the

truth (in just discretion) and nothing but the truth.’

 

SAMUEL PURCHAS in ‘_Purchas His Pilgrimes_,’ 1625.

 

 

 

 

Q-SHIPS AND THEIR STORY

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

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 ...’