Q Ships and Their Story 23

Q Ships and Their Story 23

But after all that could be prepared for has been done, there

always remains some awkward possibility which the wit of man can

never foresee. Take the incident of the Q-ship _Ravenstone_, which

was commissioned as a Q-ship on June 26, 1917, under the name of

_Donlevon_. A month later she was torpedoed one afternoon in the

Atlantic, 40 miles south of the Fastnet. Fortunately there were no

casualties, and fortunately, too, the ship did not straight away

founder. There was a heavy sea running, and she was soon down by

the head; but she was also prevented from using her engines, for the

torpedo had struck her in No. 2 hold, and the force of the explosion

had lifted and thrown overboard from the fore well-deck a 7-inch hemp

hawser. This had fallen into the sea, floated aft, and there fouled

the propeller so effectually that the ship could go neither ahead

nor astern. It was a most annoying predicament, but who could have

foreseen it? The submarine apparently ‘hopped it,’ for she made no

further attack, and one of Admiral Bayly’s sloops, H.M.S. _Camelia_,

stood by _Donlevon_, and from Berehaven arrived the tug _Flying Spray_,

who got her in tow. Another sloop, the _Myosotis_, had her in tow for

thirty-one hours, handling her so well in the heavy sea that, in spite

of _Donlevon_ being down by the head and steering like a mad thing,

she safely arrived in Queenstown, and was afterwards paid out of the

Service. Ten thousand pounds’ worth of damage had been done.

 

In the early summer of 1917, at a time when the United States Navy had

just begun to help us with their destroyers and the enemy was hoping

very shortly to bring us ‘to our knees,’ we had thirteen different

Q-ships based on Queenstown. There was the converted sloop _Aubrietia_,

commanded by Admiral Marx, M.V.O., D.S.O., who, in spite of his years,

had come back to the Service and accepted a commission as captain

R.N.R. For a time he was in command of H.M. armed yacht _Beryl_,

owned by Lord Inverclyde. From this command he transferred to the

more exciting work of decoying submarines, and it is amusing when one

thinks of an admiral pretending to be the skipper of a little tramp. Of

this thirteen there was Captain Grenfell’s _Penshurst_, about which

the reader has already been informed. Captain Gordon Campbell was in

_Pargust_, and Commander Leopold A. Bernays, C.M.G., was in _Vala_. The

latter was one of the most unusual personalities in a unique service.

Before the war he had left the Navy and gone to Canada, where he had

some pretty tough adventures. On the outbreak of war he joined up, and

crossed to England as a soldier, but managed to get transferred quite

early to a mine-sweeping trawler, where he did magnificent work month

after month; first in sweeping up the mine-field laid off Scarborough

at the time of the German raid, December, 1914, and afterwards in

clearing up the difficult Tory Island minefield, which had been laid by

_Berlin_ in October, 1914, but was not rendered safe for many months

afterwards. When in the summer of 1915 a British minesweeping force was

required for Northern Russia, Bernays was sent out with his trawlers.

Here, with his usual thoroughness and enthusiasm, he set to work, and

again performed most valuable service, and buoyed a safe channel for

the ships carrying munitions from England to voyage in safety.

 

But Bernays was no respecter of persons, especially of those who were

not keen on their job. With Russian dilatoriness and inefficiency,

and in particular with the Russian admiral, he soon found himself

exasperated beyond measure. His own trawlers were working in the most

strenuous fashion, whereas the Russians seemed only to be thwarting

instead of helping, and at any rate were not putting their full weight

into the contest. I do not know whether the yarn about Bernays in

exasperation pulling the beard of the overbearing Russian admiral is

true, but there was a big row, and Bernays came back to England,

though for his good work he received the coveted British order C.M.G.

After further minesweeping off the Scotch coast, where once more he

distinguished himself, he came to Queenstown to serve in his Q-ship.

Here he went about his job in his usual fearless manner, and on one

occasion had played a submarine as he used to play a fish. He had

slowed down, and the U-boat was coming nicely within range, when just

as everything was ready for the bait to be swallowed, up came a United

States destroyer at high speed to ‘rescue’ this ‘tramp.’ The submarine

was frightened away, and _Vala_ lost her fish. Then one day Bernays

took _Vala_ on another cruise. What happened exactly we do not know,

but evidently a submarine got her, and sank her without a trace, for

neither ship nor crew was ever heard of again.

 

Bernays was just the man for Q-ship work. He was one whom you would

describe as a ‘rough customer,’ who might have stepped out of a Wild

West cinema. A hard swearer in an acquired American accent, in port

also a hard drinker; but on going to sea he kept everything locked up,

and not even his officers were allowed to touch a drop till they got

back to harbour. The first time I met him was at 3 o’clock one bitterly

cold winter’s morning in Grimsby. It was blowing a gale of wind and

it was snowing. Some of his minesweepers had broken adrift and come

down on to the top of my craft, and were doing her no good. There was

nothing for it but to rouse Bernays. His way of handling men, and these

rough North Sea fishermen, was a revelation. It was a mixture of hard

Navy, Prussianism, and Canadian ‘get-to-hell-out-of-this-darned-hole.’

There was no coaxing in his voice; every syllable was a challenge to

a fight. On the forebridge of his trawler he used to keep a bucket

containing lumps of coal, and in giving an order would at times

accentuate his forcible and coloured words by heaving a lump at any of

his slow-thinking crew.

 

Having said all this, you may wonder there was never a mutiny; but

such a state of affairs was the last thing that could ever happen in

any of Bernays’ ships. From a weak man the crew would not have stood

this treatment a day, but they understood him, they respected him,

they loved him, and in his command of the English tongue they realized

that he was like unto themselves, but more adept. Follow him? They

followed him everywhere—through the North Sea, through Russian and

Irish minefields, and relied on him implicitly. And this regard was

mutual, for in spite of his rugged manner Bernays had a heart, and he

thought the world of his crew. I remember how pleased he was the day

he was ordered to go to the dangerous Tory Island minefield. ‘But I’m

not going without my old crew; they’re the very best in the world.’

Bernays, as an American officer once remarked, ‘certainly was some

tough proposition,’ but he knew no cowardice; he did his brave duty,

and he rests in a sailor’s grave.

 

Another of these thirteen was the converted sloop _Begonia_, commanded

by Lieut.-Commander Basil S. Noake, R.N., an officer of altogether

different temperament. Keen and able, yet courteous and gentle of

manner, tall, thin, and suffering somewhat from deafness, this gallant

officer, too, paid the great penalty. For _Begonia_ was destined to

have no ordinary career. Built as a minesweeping sloop, she carried

out escort and patrol work until one day she was holed, but managed

to get into Queenstown. Here she was repaired and transformed into a

decoy, with a counter added instead of her cruiser stern, and with

the addition of derricks and so on she was a very clever deception.

During one cruise she was evidently a victim to the enemy, for she

disappeared, too.

 

The remaining ships of this thirteen were the _Acton_ (Lieut.-Commander

C. N. Rolfe, R.N.), _Zylpha_ (Lieut.-Commander John K. McLeod,

R.N.), _Cullist_ (Lieut.-Commander S. H. Simpson, D.S.O., R.N.),

_Tamarisk_ (Lieut.-Commander John W. Williams, D.S.O., R.N.R.),

_Viola_ (Lieut.-Commander F. A. Frank, D.S.O., R.N.R.), _Salvia_

(Lieut.-Commander W. Olphert, D.S.O., D.S.C., R.N.R.), _Laggan_

(Lieutenant C. J. Alexander, R.N.R.), and _Heather_ (Lieutenant Harold

Auten, R.N.R.). In this list there is scarcely a name that did not

receive before the end of the war at least one D.S.O., while two of

them received the Victoria Cross.

 

_Acton_ had an indecisive duel with a submarine on August 20, 1917. It

was a fine day with a calm sea when the enemy was sighted, and on being

attacked _Acton_ abandoned ship. In order to make this doubly real,

fire-boxes were started in the well-deck, and steam leakage turned on,

which made the ship look as if she were on fire. The enemy inspected

the ship closely, so closely in fact that he actually collided with

_Acton_, shaking the latter fore and aft. But after he had come to the

surface and _Acton_ opened fire, hitting, loud shouts came from the

conning-tower, and he submerged, thus escaping. _Acton_ went on with

her work until the end of hostilities.

 

_Zylpha_ and _Cullist_ both had tragic ends to their careers. _Zylpha_

was a 2,917-ton steamer, built at Sunderland in 1894, and had been

commissioned as a Q-ship as far back as October, 1915. Early in June,

1917, she steamed along the south Irish coast and then out into the

Atlantic, as if bound for New York. On June 11, at 9.45 a.m., when

about 200 miles from the Irish coast, she was torpedoed by a submarine

that was never seen again, and totally disabled. Her engines had

stopped for the last time, and the sea had poured in, though her

closely-packed cargo of wood was at present keeping her afloat. Having

‘bleated’ with her wireless, one of the United States destroyers, based

on Queenstown, proceeded to her assistance. This was the _Warrington_,

and she stood by the ship for a whole twenty-four hours—from 2 p.m. of

the eleventh until 2.30 p.m. of the twelfth. By the time _Warrington_

had arrived _Zylpha’s_ engine-room and boiler-rooms were already awash,

Nos. 2 and 3 holds flooded, the wireless out of action, and one man

killed. The _Warrington_ kept patrolling round her, requested a tug by

wireless, and went on zigzagging through the long hours. By the evening

_Zylpha_ was in a bad way, and the Atlantic swell was seriously shaking

the bulkheads, but she was still afloat next morning. By this time the

_Warrington_, who had been some time on patrol, was running short of

oil, so, at 2.30 p.m., regretfully had to return to harbour for fuel.

 

This was a sad blow to the _Zylpha_ people, but whilst waiting for the

arrival of the U.S. destroyer _Drayton_ and two Queenstown tugs which

were being sent to her, _Zylpha_ actually made sail with what little

canvas she had, and made good at 1-1/2 knots. At noon of the fourteenth

she was picked up by H.M. sloop _Daffodil_, and was then taken in tow.

Next day, at 1 p.m., tugs reached her, but she could not last out

the night, and, after having been towed for most of 200 miles, she

gradually sank when quite near to the west coast, finally disappearing

at 11.20 p.m. near the Great Skelligs. So ended _Zylpha_.

 

_Cullist_ was commanded by an officer who had served a long time off

this coast in a sloop. Her real name was the _Westphalia_, but she was

also known as the _Jurassic_, _Hayling_, and _Prim_. She was of 1,030

gross tons, and in the spring of 1917 was lying at Calais, when she was

requisitioned and sent to Pembroke Naval Dockyard to be fitted out. She

was commissioned on May 12 by Lieut.-Commander Simpson, and Admiral

Bayly then sent her to cruise along certain trade routes. She was

capable of steaming about 10 knots, and was armed with a 4-inch and two

12-pounder guns, as well as a couple of torpedo-tubes, and all these

had been well concealed. A few weeks later, on July 13, _Cullist_ was

between the Irish and French coasts, and it was just after 1 p.m. when

a submarine appeared on the horizon.

 

About two minutes later the enemy from very long range opened fire,

but as his shots were falling about 3,000 yards short, he increased

speed towards the _Cullist_. By 1.30 a large merchant ship was seen

coming up from the south, so _Cullist_ hoisted the signal ‘You are

standing into danger,’ whereupon the big steamer altered course away.

_Cullist_ then zigzagged, keeping always between sun and enemy, and by

dropping eight smoke-boxes at various intervals succeeded in enticing

the submarine down to a range of 5,000 yards, a distance which was

maintained for the rest of the action. From 1.45 the enemy continually

straddled _Cullist_ so that the decks were wet with the splashes, and

shell splinters were rattling on masts and deck. By 2.7 the enemy

had fired sixty-eight rounds, but had not hit once. _Cullist_ now

decided to engage, and her third round was seen to hit just below the

submarine’s gun, the remainder hitting regularly along the deck and on

the conning-tower, causing bright red flames which rose higher than

the conning-tower. Three minutes after _Cullist_ had opened fire the

enemy sank by the bows in flames, and then the ship steamed to the spot

and dropped a depth charge. Three of _Cullist’s_ crew saw a corpse

dressed in blue dungarees, floating face upwards, but the submarine was

never seen again. By 3.30 H.M.S. _Christopher_ arrived on the scene

and both ships searched for the enemy. He was evidently seriously

damaged, but he had made his escape. Lieut.-Commander Simpson, for

this engagement, was awarded a D.S.O; Lieutenant G. Spencer, R.N.R., a

D.S.C.; Sub-Lieutenant G. H. D. Doubleday, R.N.R., also a D.S.C.; while

two other officers were ‘mentioned.’