CHAPTER VII
Mystery Ships
The “Q” boat, or mystery ship, has been surrounded by so much secrecy that to most people its very being is an unknown quantity. Yet it is to these curious vessels of all sizes and types that the destruction of many hostile submarines was due, and the dangerous work performed by their intrepid crews equalled anything described in sea romance.
The mystery ship was not a specially constructed war vessel, such as a destroyer or cruiser, but merely a merchantman converted into a powerfully armed patrol ship, camouflaged to give the appearance of genuine innocence, but with masked batteries, hulls stuffed with wood to render them almost unsinkable, hidden torpedo tubes, picked gunners, a roving commission and a daring commander and crew. Their work was performed on the broad highways of the sea, and they hunted singly or in pairs, often fighting against overwhelming odds with certain death as the price of failure.
The number of these vessels was not large, possibly 180, but their operations extended far and wide. They roamed the North Sea, the Atlantic, the English Channel, the Mediterranean, the Arctic Ocean and even the Baltic, but until challenged were quite unknown to all other vessels of the Allied navies. Theirs was a secret service, performed amidst great hardships, with no popular applause to spur them on.
As all “Q” boats—as they were officially called—differed from each other in size and armament, any description given here can only be taken as applying to one or more vessels with which the writer was personally familiar. Some of these so-called mystery ships were old sailing schooners, others fine steamships, while quite a number were converted fishing smacks, drifters and trawlers, the method being to give the prospective commander a free hand in the conversion of his ship from a peaceable merchantman to a camouflaged man-of-war, and many were the ingenious devices used.
One vessel fitted out for this desperate duty at a Scottish base was a steamer of about 400 tons burden. She was armed with a 4.7 quick-firing gun hidden in a deck-house with imitation glass windows, the sides of which could be dropped flat on to the deck for the gun to be trained outboard by simply pressing an electric button on the steamer’s bridge. Two life-boats, one on each side of the aft deck, were bottomless, and formed covers for two additional 12-pounder guns. A false deck in the bow shielded a pair of wicked-looking torpedo tubes, each containing an 18-inch Whitehead ready for launching; and the crew for each gun were able to reach their respective weapons, without appearing on deck, by means of specially constructed gangways and hatches. The very act of dropping the sides of the aft gun-house hoisted the White Ensign, and technically converted this unsuspicious-looking merchantman, which asked only to be allowed to pursue its lawful vocation on the high seas, into a heavily armed warship.
This “Q” boat had, when met and challenged by the writer’s ship, already accounted for no less than three German submarines which had opened the attack from close range, thinking her defenceless.
Another smaller mystery ship was a converted fishing drifter with a single 12-pounder gun on a specially strengthened platform fitted in the fish-hold, which had been cleaned, matchboarded and painted to provide accommodation for the crew of picked gunners. This little ship had no torpedo tubes and the muzzle of her gun was hidden beneath fishing nets.
There were, however, some very large and elaborately fitted “Q” boats. These had specially constructed torpedo tubes low down in the hull, masked 4.7-inch guns in more than one position, special chutes for depth charges, coal bunkers arranged round the vital machinery to protect it from shell-fire, and, moreover, were filled with wood to make them almost unsinkable even if torpedoed.
Each such vessel was provided with a “panic party,” whose duty was to rush to the life-boats when the ship was attacked by a submarine. This gave the final touch to the disguise, and often induced the submarine to save further torpedoes by coming to the surface and continuing the assault with gun-fire.
The story of the sinking of the last German submarine in the war by the “Q 19” will give some idea of how these vessels worked. It occurred in the Straits of Gibraltar, about twenty-four hours before the signing of the Armistice. The Q 19 was waiting in the Straits expecting to intercept three big U-boats on their way back to Heligoland. About midnight the first of these craft came along, and sighting the innocent-looking “Q” boat prepared to attack her with gun-fire. For nearly an hour the mystery ship “played” the submarine by pretending to make frantic efforts to escape, but all the time allowing the under-water craft to draw closer and closer.
The “Q” boat was under a heavy fire from the submarine, one shell wounding eleven out of the crew of sixty, another carrying away the mast and a portion of the funnel, but no sign of a gun was yet displayed on board the surface ship. This withholding of fire until the last moment, when the range has become short and the effect certain, is one of the great nerve tests imposed on the crews of all mystery ships. It is an essential of success, for a few wild shots at long range would disclose the fact that the vessel was heavily armed, and the attacking submarine would either sheer off or else submerge and use her torpedoes.
When the chase had been on for about fifty minutes, and the submarine was only 200 yards astern, the “panic party” in the “Q” boat rushed for the life-boats. The shells were now doing serious damage to both hull and upper works, and the submarine was creeping close to give the
At this, the psychological moment, the order to open fire was given. The collapsible deck-house, shielding the 4.7 gun, fell away on its hinges. Eleven shots were fired in quick succession, all of which struck the submarine. One blew the commander off the conning-tower and another rent a gaping hole in the vessel’s hull. In less than fifteen minutes the fight was over and the last U-boat to be sunk in the Great War of civilisation had disappeared beneath the waters of the Straits of Gibraltar.4
CHAPTER VIII
A Typical War Base
The last few chapters have dealt mainly with the weapons used in anti-submarine warfare. We now come to the naval bases on which the fleets armed with these curious devices were stationed for active operations.
Around the coasts of the British Isles there were about forty of these war bases, each with its own patrol flotillas, minesweeping units and hunting squadrons. The harbours, breakwaters and docks had to be furnished with stores, workshops, wireless stations, quarters for officers and men, searchlights, oil-storage tanks, coal bunkers, magazines, fire equipment, guard-rooms, signal stations, hospitals, pay offices, dry docks, intelligence centres and all the vitally necessary stores, machinery and equipment of small dockyards.
To do this in the shortest possible time, and to maintain the supplies of such rapidly consumed materials as oil fuel, coal, food, paint, rope and shells for perhaps a hundred ships for an indefinite number of years, it was often necessary to lay down metals and sidings to connect the base with the nearest railway system. At many bases secure moorings had also to be laid by divers, and the channels and fair-ways dredged. The larger bases also required temporary shore defences, and booms arranged across the harbour entrances to prevent hostile under-
