Religion here is more practical than theoretical. If a man swears when the “Padre” is present he pays a small fine, which goes to the recreation or other needy fund. The Commander is not immune from this law at the base under review, and has more than once been “heavily fined” for giving his true opinion of German sailors and winter weather.
The next cabin is that of the O.O.W., a seething mass of officers demanding “duty boats” and pinnaces to convey them to and from their ships lying out in the fair-way. Others are expostulating about being ordered to sea during their “stand-off,” informing everyone what a rotten service the navy is, crossing-sweeping is a sinecure compared with it. Then a few pass on to the cabin near the men’s quarters. Here the “Drafting Officer” is trying to palm off a deck hand on the C.O. of a trawler, who is vainly explaining that he must have a signalman. A telephone rings and news comes from the “Sick Bay” that an engineer has been badly burned and will be unable to go to sea with his ship. The distracted drafting officer searches through his lists of reserves for some competent man to take the place of the casualty.
Peace reigns in the adjoining department, where a grey-haired veteran is issuing charts, “Sailing Directions,” “Tide Tables” and “Warnings to Mariners.” In the near-by engineer-commander’s office worried experts are wrestling with innumerable problems relating to M.L. motors, steam capstans, steam steering gear, electric dynamos, damaged propellers, broken shafts, boiler cleaning and the numerous imperfections of overworked ships’ engines.
The Boom Defence staff is placidly serene. The turn of this department comes after a heavy gale has damaged the submarine nets, chains and buoys. The torpedo officers and their “parties” are discussing the best way of moving four of these steel monsters from a neighbouring depôt ship to a new “Q” boat with only a rowing-boat at their disposal—soon the O.O.W. will be called upon to supply a drifter for the purpose.
In the ordnance store a veteran P.O. is trying to make his list of returned brass shell-cases correspond with the number of shells supplied to various ships six months before. He knows the sailors’ fondness for shell-cases as ornaments in their little far-away homes, and, failing to make all the figures agree, decides that some must have been “washed overboard.”
The Port Minesweeping Officer is discussing with his sea commanders the clearing of a new mine-field laid by U-C-boats within the past few days, when a sudden stir is caused by the arrival of a signal from the wireless room to the effect that one of his vessels has struck a mine in lat. —— long. —— and is sinking. He appeals by telephone to the M.L. commander and in less than ten minutes a flotilla of fast launches is racing at 19 knots to the rescue.
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Mock-wheel and Compass-pedestal of the “Hyderabad”
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which collapse and leave a clear range for the guns
In the Admiral’s cabin there is to be a conference of senior officers later in the day to decide on the best means of ridding the seas within that area—and each base has its own area of sea—of a hostile submarine which has been inflicting undue loss upon shipping, its latest victim being a Danish barque.
The combined wardroom and gunroom has some twenty occupants, reading the newspapers and magazines, warming themselves before the two big fires, or talking in little groups. This base has suffered some heavy losses lately, but reference to those “gone aloft” is seldom made, except quietly and a little awkwardly. The talk is of theatres in neighbouring towns, the respective merits of certain types of ships and weapons, the prospects of early leave, the dirty warfare of “Fritz” or the “beauties” of the North Sea in winter.
In this room all questions of rank and precedence are more or less waived. There are, of course, differences, especially when the wardroom, or abode of senior officers, does duty also as a gunroom for the juniors. But here there is camaraderie and an absence of iron discipline, although a sub-lieutenant would be extremely ill advised either to drop the prefix “Sir” or to slap the Commander on the back in an excess of joviality, relying on “neutral territory” to save him from rebuke. It is, however, no uncommon event to see all ranks of officers engaged in a heated debate, or groups of juniors laughing round the fire while their elders are vainly trying to concentrate their minds on the latest Press dispatches. Games are played and glasses clink merrily, but in a gunroom there is a very strict limit as to both time and quantity, though none regarding volume or discordance of sound.
Passing on to the organisation of the flotillas for sea, we find in this large base six minesweeping units, two being composed of fast paddle sweepers and four of trawlers. The former are used for distant operations and comprise nine vessels. They work in pairs, but the extra ship is available to sink mines cut up by the sweeps of the others, and to be immediately ready to beat off submarine attacks.
The trawlers are engaged in sweeping daily the approaches to the harbour and a recognised channel up and down the coast. Their work overlaps with that done by the ships belonging to the neighbouring bases. In this way the “war channel,” about which more will be said later, was kept free of mines, and afforded a safe route for ships from the Thames to the Tyne, and in reality to the northernmost limit of Scotland.
This important duty was seldom left unperformed even for a day, except during fierce gales. Often the discovery of a distant mine-field caused many ships to be concentrated on clearing it, and the number available for the “routine sweeps” was consequently reduced, but longer hours of this arduous and dangerous work made up the difference, and the work went on in summer fog and winter snow for over four years.
The anti-submarine patrols were composed of five ships each, under the command of the senior officer of the unit—frequently a lieutenant with the responsibility of a captain. Their work lay out on the wastes of sea lying between England and Germany. It was seldom that the whole five vessels of each unit cruised together, the usual method being to scatter over the different “beats” and rendezvous in a given latitude and longitude at a specified time and date. They were usually able to communicate with each other and with the base on important matters by wireless. Their periods at sea varied from ten days to three weeks, with a four days’ “stand off” when they came into harbour. But of this time one day at least was spent in coaling and provisioning the ship ready for the next patrol. This ceaseless vigilance on the grey-green seas of England’s frontier was seldom interrupted for more than a few days in the year by impossible gales. Anything short of literally mountainous seas did not prevent the trawler patrols from riding out the storm carefully battened down and with just sufficient speed to keep head to sea.
The drifters were divided into patrol units, boom defence flotillas and under-water or mine-net units. Their work was thus more varied but equally as arduous and risky, as the loss of 30 per cent. of the entire fleet of over 1000 ships affords undeniable proof. The periods of sea duty were similar to those of the trawlers.
The motor launches at each base had some hundred square miles of sea to guard, and hunted in fives. The rough weather these plucky little ships endured in the open sea in mid-winter, the intense cold—for there was no proper heating appliance—and the state of perpetual wetness made their duties among the most arduous in the sea war. Later pages of true narrative will show to the full the work of these gnats of the sea.
In addition to all these flotillas there were convoy ships, whaler patrols, “Q” boats and a number of special duty ships. The work of the former was of the most exacting character, and left the crews of these vessels but little time ashore. In the base under review so arduous were the duties of the convoy ships that it became a matter of self-congratulation for patrol and sweeper officers and men that their ships were not so employed, and this by men who sailed submarine and mine infested seas for an average of 270 days in each year!
It must not be assumed that when in harbour there were no duties to be performed by either officers o
r men of sea-going ships. They had, on the contrary, to furnish anchor watches, shore sentries, duty crews for emergency pickets, prisoner guards, working and church parties, to attend drills, rifle practice, gun practice and instructional parades. The officers had similar shore duties to perform, which left them little time to rest from the strain of keeping watch and ward on the death-strewn seas.
CHAPTER IX
The Convoy System
Although the convoy system was employed at the beginning of the war for the transport of the Imperial armies to France, and subsequently for all the Allied troop movements overseas, it was some three years later before it was extended to the entire British Mercantile navy, on which the United Kingdom depended for too many of the necessities of civilised life.
The rapid development of submarine piracy, however, compelled the Admiralty, early in the year 1917, to resort to what was merely a new form of the old system of protecting sea-borne trade. This comprised the collection of all merchant ships passing through the danger zones into nondescript fleets, and the provision of light cruisers, destroyers, torpedo-boats, trawlers and occasionally (for coastal convoys) of patrol launches to escort them. Certain types of aircraft were also frequently used for observation and scouting purposes.
Previous to the adoption of the convoy system a merchantman, whether it was a fast-moving liner or a sturdy but slow ocean tramp, zigzagged through the danger zones with lights out and life-boats ready. Many were the exciting runs made in this way, with shells ploughing up the water around and torpedoes avoided only by the quick use of the helm; but the courage of our merchant seamen was of that indomitable character exhibited now for over three centuries, since the days of Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh and the other sea-dogs of old.
But the danger zones grew wider as the radius of action of newer and larger German submarines increased. At last no waters were immune, from the Arctic circle to the Equator, or from Heligoland to New York.
The hour was one of extreme peril for the sea-divided Empire. To lose several hundred ships, with many thousands of lives and much-needed cargoes of food and munitions, when the valiant armies of civilisation were battling with the Teuton hordes, was bad enough; but if the enemy had been able, by casting aside the laws of humanity and sea war, to compel British ships to remain in harbour or meet certain destruction on the high seas, the result could only have been the complete failure of the Allied cause, the conquest of Europe and the fall of the greatest political edifice since Imperial Rome.
Between the world and these catastrophes, however, stood the undefeated Mercantile Marine and the Allied navies. Councils were held in the historic rooms of Whitehall and the old convoy system emerged from the archives of Nelson’s day. The commerce raiders were no longer the canvas-pressed privateers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, who fought a clean fight, often against great odds, but were submarine pirates of the mechanical age, who only appeared from the sea depths when their victims had been placed hors de combat.
It is an old axiom of war that new weapons of attack are invariably met by new methods of defence. So it was with the convoy system which gave the death-blow to German hopes of a submarine victory. In order to understand this new method it is necessary to study the accompanying diagram, which, however simple it may appear on paper, is extremely difficult to carry out in practice.
At each great port there was a convoy officer, who assembled the merchant ships when they had been loaded and explained to their captains the exact position each ship was to occupy when the fleet was at sea. Printed instructions were handed round urging each vessel to keep its correct station, stating the procedure to be adopted in the event of an engine breakdown, giving the manœuvres which were instantly to be carried into effect when an attack was threatened, and finally the special signals arranged for communication between the merchantmen and their escort by day and by night.
The number of vessels composing a convoy varied, but often exceeded twenty big cargo ships, carrying some 120,000 tons of merchandise, or six liners, with 20,000 troops on board, while the escorting flotilla consisted of a light cruiser, acting as flag-ship, six destroyers, two special vessels (“P” boats) towing observation airships, and some eight or ten trawlers, with possibly one or more seaplanes and several M.L.’s for the first few miles of the voyage. The destroyers were spread out ahead and on the flanks of the fleet, and by using their greatly superior speed were able to zigzag and circle round the whole convoy.
Fig. 18.—Diagram showing the disposition of a convoy of troops, munitions or food.
In the event of an attack the whole fleet turned off from the course they were steering at a sharp angle, showing only their sterns to the U-boat. A destroyer acted as rearguard to prevent any of the convoyed ships from straggling. When the fleet had arrived at a rendezvous far out in the open sea, where the danger of a submarine attack was much less, the escort handed over their charges to one or two ocean-going cruisers, which stayed with the merchant ships throughout the remainder of their voyage.
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A Motor Launch Cleared for Action
The escorting flotilla then cruised about in the vicinity of the rendezvous until an incoming convoy appeared. These ships were then taken over from their mid-ocean cruiser guard and escorted back through the danger zone to port, and so the game of war continued until months became years.
All this may sound straightforward and quite simple, but there were difficulties, to say nothing of dangers, which made it a most arduous operation. First came the speed problem. Every merchant ship differed in this important respect, so the speed of the slowest unit became the speed of the entire fleet, and this reduction made an attack by under-water craft much easier of accomplishment. Hence the call for “standard ships,” which is a point that should be borne in mind by future generations as a safeguard against blockade. Then came the question of destination, which increased the number of escorting flotillas, and especially ocean cruiser guards, required for a given number of cargo ships. Next there was the loading and unloading to be considered, involving long hours and hard work by the men on the quaysides. This great difficulty was one of the reasons for the formation of docker battalions. Coaling such big fleets by given times caused many grey hairs to appear where otherwise they would not have been. Finally there was the danger of mines having been laid in the fair-ways leading to the port, which necessitated every convoy being met by special vessels to sweep the seas in front of each incoming and outgoing fleet.
Fig. 19.—Diagram showing the convoy system.
All this and more had to be contended with and overcome before each convoy was able to sail. Then danger and difficulty came hand-in-hand. On a bright morning, with probably a fresh breeze blowing and a choppy sea, the work of the escorting flotilla was easy, but with such climatic conditions the risk of attack was so great in the waters around the coasts that troopships usually left harbour under cover of night. No lights were then allowed, and it will not be difficult for readers to imagine what it meant to be pounding through a black void in a fast-moving destroyer, against, possibly, a heavy head sea, with some twenty or thirty big ships in the darkness and spray around. Thick sea-mists were the cause of endless trouble, for the safety of an invisible fleet depended on the vigilance of a half-blind escort. Winter gales scattered the ships and rendered signals invisible. Attacks came from the most unexpected quarters and often from more than one point of the compass at the same time. However, relief came at last, on that never-to-be-forgotten morning when Sir David Beatty and his admirals accepted the unconditional surrender of the German fleet and its unsunk submarines.
Were this chapter to end with the foregoing description of the convoy system the reader would not be in possession of the full facts from which to gauge the importance of the work. Something must be said of what was accomplished. First in order of importance came the transport of many millions of soldiers not only from England to France, but also to and from every
colony and dominion of the world-wide Empire. By August, 1915, the British navy had transported, across seas infested with submarines and mines, a million men without the loss of a single life or a single troopship.5 The first Canadian army of 33,000 men crossed the Atlantic in one big fleet of forty liners, under the escort of four cruisers and a battleship, in October, 1914, without accident. Transports to the number of 60 were required to convey the first Australian army over the 14,000 miles of sea to Europe, and it was while convoying this huge fleet that the cruiser Sydney chased and destroyed the German raider Emden. The Russian force which rendered valuable service in France was safely convoyed over the 9000 miles of sea from Dalny to Marseilles. Never once during the four and a half years of war was the supply of food, munitions and reinforcements, or the return of the wounded—to and from the many theatres of land operations—seriously hindered by the German, Austrian or Turkish navies.
Turning to the gigantic task of guarding England’s food supply, we find, in one notable case, an example of the good work performed almost daily for nearly five years. Over 4500 merchant ships had been escorted across the North Sea to Scandinavian ports alone before the disaster of 14th October 1917 befell the convoy on that route. On that occasion the anti-submarine escort of three destroyers were intercepted, midway between the Shetland Islands and Norway, by two heavily armed German cruisers. The destroyers fought to the last to save their charges, but unfortunately only three merchant ships succeeded in getting safely away. Five Norwegian ships, three Swedish and one Danish ship were sunk. From this it will be observed that not only British merchantmen were protected by escorts.
Submarine Warfare of To-Day Page 8