Q Ships and Their Story 9

Q Ships and Their Story 9

CHAPTER V

 

THE ‘MYSTERY’ SAILING SHIPS

 

 

Most people would have thought that the sail-driven decoys would have

had a very short life, and that they would speedily have succumbed.

On the contrary, though their work was more trying and demanded a

different kind of seamanship, these ‘mystery’ ships went on bravely

tackling the enemy.

 

The Lowestoft armed smacks, for instance, during 1916 had some pretty

stiff tussles, and we know now that they thoroughly infuriated the

Germans, who threatened to have their revenge. Looked at from the

enemy’s aspect, it certainly was annoying to see a number of sailing

smacks spread off the coast, each obviously trawling, but not to know

which of them would in a moment cut her gear and sink the submarine

with her gun. It was just that element of suspense which made a

cautious German officer very chary of going near these craft, whereas

he might have sunk the whole fishing fleet if he dared. It was not

merely annoying; it was humiliating that a small sailing craft should

have the impertinence to contend with the super-modern ship of a German

naval officer. That, of course, was not the way to look at the matter;

for it was a contest, as we have seen, in which brains and bravery

were factors more decisive than anything else. The average British

fisherman is ignorant of many things which are learnt only in nautical

academies, but the last you could accuse him of being is a fool or a

funk. His navigation in these sailing smacks is quaint and primitive,

but he relies in thick weather chiefly on the nature of the sea-bed. He

can almost smell his way, and a cast of the lead confirms his surmise;

he finds he is just where he expected to be. So with his character.

Hardened by years of fishing in all weathers, and angered to extreme

indignation during the war by the loss of good ships and lives of his

relatives and friends, this type of man, so long as his decoy smack had

any sort of gun, was the keenest of the keen.

 

One of these smacks was the _Telesia_, armed only with a 3-pounder,

and commanded by Skipper W. S. Wharton, who did extraordinarily well

in this dangerous service. On March 23, 1916, he was trawling roughly

thirty-five miles S.E. of Lowestoft, when about midday he sighted a

submarine three miles off, steering to the north-east. At 1.30 p.m.

the German, who was evidently one of the cautious type, and having

a careful scrutiny before attacking, approached within 50 yards of

the _Telesia’s_ starboard bow, and submerged with her periscope just

showing. She came back an hour later to have another look, and again

disappeared until 4.30 p.m., when she approached from the north-east.

Having got about 300 yards away she attacked, but she had not the

courage to fight on the surface a little sailing craft built of wood.

Instead, she remained submerged and fired a torpedo. Had that hit,

_Telesia_ and her men would have been blown to pieces; but it just

missed the smack’s bows by four feet. Skipper Wharton at once brought

his gun into action, and fired fifteen rounds at the periscope, which

was the only part of her that could be seen, and an almost impossible

target. The enemy disappeared, but arrived back in half an hour,

and this time the periscope showed on the starboard quarter, coming

straight for the smack, and rising out of the water at the same time.

Again she fired a torpedo, and it seemed certain to hit, but happily

it passed 40 feet astern. At a range of only 75 yards the smack now

fired a couple of shots as the enemy showed her deck. The first shot

seemed to hit the conning-tower, and then the fore part of the hull was

observed coming out of the water. The second shot struck between the

conning-tower and the hatch, whereupon the enemy went down by the bows,

showing her propeller. She was a big craft, judging by the size of

her conning-tower, and certainly larger than those which had recently

been sinking Lowestoft smacks. Skipper Wharton, whilst fishing, had

himself been chased, so he was fairly familiar with their appearance.

Whether the enemy was actually sunk is a matter of doubt. Perhaps she

was not destroyed, although UB 13 was lost this month; how and where

are unknown. One thing is certain, however, that the little _Telesia_

caused her to break off the engagement and disappear. The smack could

do no more, for the wind had now died right away, and this fact

demonstrated the importance of these decoy smacks being fitted with

motors, so that the craft would be able to manœuvre in the absence of

wind; and this improved equipment was now in certain cases adopted.

Skipper Wharton well deserved his D.S.C. for this incident, and two of

the ship’s company also received the D.S.M. The whole crew numbered

eight, consisting of Skipper Wharton, a naval chief petty officer, a

leading seaman, a marine, an A.B., and three fishermen.

 

On the following April 23 _Telesia_—this time under the name of

_Hobbyhawk_ and under the command of Lieutenant H. W. Harvey,

R.N.V.R.—together with a similar smack named the _Cheero_, commanded

by Lieutenant W. F. Scott, R.N.R., put to sea from Lowestoft. They

had recently been fitted with specially designed nets, to which were

attached mines. It had been found that with 600 yards of these nets

towing astern the smack could still sail ahead at a speed of 3 knots.

A bridle made out of a trawler’s warp was stopped down the towing wire

and from forward of the smack, so that she would look exactly like

a genuine smack when fishing with the ordinary trawl. All that was

required was that the submarine should foul these nets astern, when, if

everything worked as it should, destruction to the enemy would follow.

 

At 5.45 that afternoon, when 10 miles N.E. of the Smith’s Knoll

Pillar Buoy, the nets were shot and the batteries connected up to

the net-mines. The wind was light, so _Cheero_, towing away to the

south-east, was going ahead very slowly. Each of these two smacks was

fitted with a hydrophone by means of which the beat of a vessel’s

engines could be heard, the noise of a submarine’s being very different

from that of reciprocating engines in a steamer. About 7 p.m. _Cheero_

distinctly heard on her instrument the steady, quick, buzzing,

unmistakable noise of a submarine, and the noise gradually increased.

About three-quarters of an hour later the wire leading to the nets

suddenly became tight and stretched along the smack’s rail. The strain

eased up a little, became tight again, then an explosion followed in

the nets, and the sounds of the submarine’s engines were never heard

again. The sea was blown by the explosion 20 feet high, and as the

water was settling down another upheaval took place, followed by

oil. The crew remained at their stations for a few minutes awaiting

further developments, and then were ordered to haul the nets, but a

great strain was now felt, so that instead of two men it required

six. As the second net was coming in, the whole fleet of nets took a

sharp angle down, and a small piece of steel was brought on board.

Other pieces of steel came adrift and fell into the sea. As the third

net was being hauled in, the whole of the nets suddenly became free

and were got in quite easily, whilst the crew remarked on the strong

smell of oil. It was found that one mine had exploded, and when the

nets were eventually further examined ashore in Lowestoft there could

be no doubt but that a submarine had been blown up, and more pieces

of steel, some of considerable size, dropped out. Thus UC 3, with all

hands, was destroyed. She was one of the small mine-layers which used

to come across from Zeebrugge fouling the shipping tracks along the

East Anglian coast with her deadly cargoes, and causing the destruction

of merchant shipping, Allied and neutral alike. On May 18 of the same

year _Hobbyhawk_ (_Telesia_) and a similar smack, the _Revenge_ (alias

_Fame_), had a stiff encounter with a submarine in about the same

place, but there is reason to suppose that in this case the enemy was

not sunk.

 

This idea of commissioning sailing smacks as Q-ships now began to be

adopted in other areas. Obviously only that kind of fishing craft could

be employed which ordinarily were wont to fish those particular waters;

otherwise the submarine would at once have become suspicious. Thus, at

the end of May, a couple of Brixham smacks, which usually fished out

of Milford, were fitted out at Falmouth, armed each with a 12-pounder,

and then sent round to operate in the Milford district. These were the

_Kermes_ and _Strumbles_ respectively. They were manned by a specially

selected crew, and the two commanding officers were Lieutenant E. L.

Hughes, R.N.R., and Sub-Lieutenant J. Hayes, R.N.R. But although they

were given a good trial, these craft were not suitable as soon as the

autumn bad weather came on. Their freeboard was too low, they heeled

over too much in the strong prevailing winds, so that it was difficult

to get the gun to bear either to windward or leeward; and, except when

on the top of a sea, their range of vision was limited, so before

November was out these ships ceased to be men-of-war and were returned

to their owners.

 

Along the Yorkshire coast is found a type of open boat which is never

seen farther north than Northumberland and never farther south than

Lincolnshire. This is the cobble, a peculiar and rather tricky kind

of craft used by the fishermen of Whitby, Scarborough, Bridlington,

Filey, and elsewhere. They carry one lug-sail and can be rowed, a

single thole-pin taking the place of a rowlock. The smaller type of

cobble measures 28 feet long by 2-1/4 feet deep, but the larger type,

capable of carrying nine tons, is just under 34 feet long by 4-3/4 feet

deep. Here, then, was a boat which, with her shallow draught, could

with safety sail about in the numerous minefields off the Yorkshire

coast. No submarine would ever suspect these as being anything but

fishermen trying to snatch a living. In the early summer of 1916 two of

these boats, the _Thalia_ and _Blessing_, were commissioned. They were

sailing cobbles fitted with auxiliary motors, and were sent to work

south-east of the Humber in the Silver Pit area. Here they pretended

to fish, towing 300 yards of mine-nets, 30 feet deep, in the hope that,

as had happened off Lowestoft, the submarine would come along and be

blown up. However, they had no luck, and after a few months’ service

these boats also were returned to their owners. But in spite of this,

Q-sailing-ships were still being taken up, the difficulty being to

select the right type. Even in the Mediterranean the idea was employed.

Enemy submarines had been destroying a number of sailing vessels, so

the Admiralty purchased one local craft, gave her a small auxiliary

motor, and towed her to Mudros, where she could be armed and equipped

in secrecy. One day she set forth from Malta in company with a British

submarine, and two days later was off the coast of Sicily. Here the

sailing craft attracted a large enemy submarine, the British submarine

of course watching, but submerged. Unfortunately, just when the enemy

might have been torpedoed, the heavy swell caused the British submarine

to break surface. The enemy was quick to observe this, dived for his

life, and disappeared. The rest of the story is rather ludicrous. The

British submarine remained submerged in the hope that the enemy would

presently come to the surface, while the sailing craft lost touch

with her consort and turned towards Malta, using her motor. The next

incident was that she sighted 6 miles astern an unmistakable submarine,