Q Ships and Their Story 31

Q Ships and Their Story 31

THE GALLANT OFFICERS AND CREW OF THE Q-SHIP “DUNRAVEN.”

 

Captain Gordon Campbell is in the second row with Lieutenant C. G.

Bonner on his right.

 

To face p. 216]

 

Special arrangements had been made in the event of casualties. Thus,

if the captain were laid out a certain officer was to carry on and

take over command. Similar arrangements were made in the event of all

officers on the bridge becoming casualties, an eventuality that was

far from improbable. In fact, Captain Grenfell gave orders that if a

shell burst on or near the bridge a certain officer was to be

informed in any case; and if the latter did not receive word of this

explosion he was to assume that everyone on the bridge was a casualty

and he was to be ready to open fire at the right time. One of the

possibilities in the preliminary stages of these attacks was always

that owing to the hitting by the enemy’s shells, or, more likely

still, by the explosion of his torpedo against the side of the ship,

some portion of the screens or dummy deckhouses might have been

damaged, and thus the guns be revealed to the enemy. So, while

_Penshurst’s_ captain was busily engaged watching the movements of

the submarine, the information as to this unfortunate fact might have

been made known. It was therefore a standing rule that the bridge was

to be informed by voice-pipe of such occurrences. Damage received in

the engine-room was reported up the pipe to the bridge. Conversely

there were placed three men at the voice-pipes—one on the bridge, one

in the gunhouse aft, and one at the 12-pounder—whose duty it was to

pass along the messages, the first-mentioned passing down the varying

bearing and range of the submarine and the state of affairs on the

bridge, and when no orders were necessary he was to keep passing

along the comforting remark ‘All right.’ By this means the hidden

officers and guns’ crews were kept informed of the position of

affairs and able to have the guns instantly ready to fire at the very

moment the screens were let down. Obviously victory and the very

lives of every man in the ship could be secured only if the vessel

came into action smartly and effectively without accident or

bungling.

 

Sometimes victory was conditional only on being torpedoed, so that

the enemy might believe he had got the steamer in a sinking condition

and the vessel was apparently genuinely abandoned. Inasmuch as the

submarine on returning home had to afford some sort of evidence, the

U-boat captain would approach the ship and endeavour to read her

name. It was then that the Q-ship’s opportunity presented itself, and

the guns poured shells into the German. Special drills were therefore

made in case _Penshurst_ should be hit by torpedo, and in this

eventuality the boat ‘panic party’ was to lower away and at once

start rowing off from the ship, whilst the remainder hid themselves

at their respective stations. As for the engineers, their duty was to

stop the engines at once, but to try to keep the dynamo running as

long as possible so that wireless signals could still be sent out.

The engine-room staff were to remain below as long as conditions

would allow, but if the water rose so that these were compelled to

come up, their orders were to crawl out on to the deck on the

disengaged side and there lie down lest the enemy should see them. As

these Q-ships usually carried depth charges and the latter exploded

under certain conditions of pressure from the sea, it was one of the

first duties on being torpedoed that these should be secured.

 

Now, supposing the Q-ship were actually sunk and the whole crew were

compelled _really_ to abandon ship, what then? The submarine would

certainly come alongside the boats and make inquiries. She would want

to know, for instance, the name of the ship, owners, captain, cargo,

where from, where bound. That was certain. She would also, most

probably, insist on taking the captain prisoner, if the incident

occurred in the last eighteen months of the war. All these officers

and men would, of course, be wearing not smart naval uniform, but be

attired in the manner fitting the _personnel_ of an old tramp. The

captain would be wearing a peaked cap, with the house-flag of his

Company suitably intertwined in the cap badge, while the men would be

attired in guernseys, old suits, and mufflers, with a dirty old cloth

cap. Now, if the U-boat skipper was a live man and really knew his

work he would, of course, become suspicious on seeing so many hands

from one sunken tramp. ‘This,’ he would remark, ‘is no merchant ship,

but a proper trap,’ and would proceed to cross-examine the boats’

crews. It was therefore the daily duty of Q-ship men to learn a

suitable lie which would adequately deceive the German. Here is the

information which _Penshurst_ was, at a certain period of her Q-ship

career, ready to hand out to any inquisitive Hun if the latter had

sunk the ship.

 

In answer to questions the crew would reply: ‘This is the S.S.

_Penshurst_, owned by the Power Steam Ship Company of London. Her

master was Evan Davies, but he has gone down with the ship, poor man.

Cargo? She was carrying coal, but she was not an Admiralty collier.’

Then the enemy would ask where from and to. If it happened that

_Penshurst_ was in a likely locality the reply would be: ‘From

Cardiff’; otherwise the name of a well distant coal port, such as

Newcastle or Liverpool, was decided upon. For instance, if

_Penshurst_ were sunk in the neighbourhood of Portland Bill whilst

heading west it would be no good to pretend you were from the Mersey

or Bristol Channel. When the German commented on the singularly large

number of the crew, he would get the reply: ‘Yes, these aren’t all

our own chaps. We picked up some blokes two days ago from a torpedoed

ship.’ Then in answer to further questions one of the survivors from

the latter would back up the lie with the statement that they were

the starboard watch of the S.S. _Carron_, owned by the Carron

Company, 2,350 tons, bound with a cargo of coal from Barry (or

Sunderland) to a French port. In this case Captain Grenfell would

pretend to be the master of the _Carron_, and of _Penshurst’s_ four

officers one would pretend he was the first mate of the Carron,

another the first mate of the collier _Penshurst_, another the

_Penshurst’s_ second mate, whilst the assistant-paymaster, not being

a navigator, passed as chief steward. Thus, every little detail was

thought out for every possible _contretemps_. To surprise the enemy

and yet not to let him surprise you was the aim.

 

[Illustration: Q-SHIP “BARRANCA”

 

In one form of disguise. Hull painted a light colour, black boot-top

to funnel, funnel painted a light colour, alley ways open. She is here

seen in her original colour as a West Indian fruit-carrier.]

 

[Illustration: Q-SHIP “BARRANCA”

 

Appearance altered by painting hull black and funnel black with white

band. She is here disguised as a Spaniard, with Spanish colours painted

on the ship’s side just forward of the bridge, though not discernable

in the photograph.

 

To face p. 220]

 

If, by a piece of bad luck, your identity as a Q-ship had been

revealed—and this did occur—so that the enemy got away before you had

time to sink him, there was nothing for it but to get the other side

of the horizon and alter the appearance of the ship. To the landsman

this may seem rather an impossible proposition. I admit at once that

in the case of the Q-sailing-ships this was rather a tall order, for

the plain reason that topsail schooners and brigantines in these modern

days of maritime enterprise are comparatively few in number. But the

greatest part of our sea-borne trade is carried on in small steamers

of more or less standardized type or types. Vessels of the type such

as _Penshurst_ and _Suffolk Coast_ are to be seen almost everywhere in

our narrow seas: except for the markings on their funnels they are as

much like each other as possible. In a fleet of such craft it would

be about as easy for a German to tell one from another as in a Tokio

crowd it would be for an Englishman to tell one Japanese from another.

The points which distinguish these craft the one from the other are of

minor consideration, such as the colour of the hull, the colour of the

funnel, the device on the funnel, the number of masts, the topmast,

derricks, cross-trees, and so on. Thus, in the case of _Penshurst_

there were any amount of disguises which in a few hours would render

her a different ship. For instance, by painting her funnel black, with

red flag and white letters thereon, she might easily be taken for one

of the Carron Company’s steamers, such as the _Forth_. By giving

her a black funnel with a white =V= she might be the _Gloucester

Coast_ of the Powell, Bacon, and Hough Lines, Ltd.; by altering the

funnel to black, white, red, white, and black bands she might have

been the _Streatham_, owned by Messrs. John Harrison, Ltd. Other

similar craft, such as the _Blackburn_ and _Bargang_, had no funnel

marks; so here again were more disguises. _Penshurst_ further altered

her appearance at times by taking down her mizzen-mast altogether,

by filling in the well deck forward, by adding a false steam-pipe to

the funnel, by shortening and levelling the derricks, by removing the

main cross-trees, by painting or varnishing the wood bridge-screen, by

giving the deckhouses a totally different colour, by showing red lead

patches on the hull, and varying the colour of the sides with such hues

as black to-day, next time green or grey or black, and adding a sail on

the forestay.

 

If you will examine the photos of Commander Douglas’s Q-ship

_Barranca_, you will see how cleverly, by means of a little faking,

even a much bigger ship could be disguised. In one picture you see

her alley-ways covered up by a screen, funnel markings altered, and

so on; whilst in another the conspicuous white upper-works, the white

band on the funnel, and the dark hull make her a different ship, so

that, he tells me, on one occasion after passing a suspicious neutral

steamer and not being quite satisfied, he was able to steam out of

sight, change his ship’s appearance, and then overtake her, get quite

close and make a careful examination without revealing his identity.

To the landsman all this may seem impossible, but inasmuch as the

sea is traversed nowadays by steamers differing merely in minute

details, distinguished only to the practised eye of the sailor, such

deception is possible. I remember on one occasion during the war a

surprising instance of this. Being in command of a steam drifter off

the south-west Irish coast, I obtained Admiral Bayly’s permission at

my next refit to have the ship painted green, the foremast stepped,

the funnel and markings painted differently, and a Dublin fishing

letter and number painted on the bows, a suitable name being found in

the Fisherman’s Almanack. The 6-pounder gun forward was covered with