Smoke and Mirrors

by Deborah Lake

  The admiral, like many senior officers, had no time for those he considered fools. Neither did he hesitate to slice his way through thickets of inconvenient regulations. He also, like many an admiral or general, had his blind spots. Campbell took meagre comfort from another officer’s comment that Bayly would either make him or break him.

  By mid-October, Queenstown – or ‘Q’, as it was known to the Navy – supported several decoys. Glendevon and Chevington, both colliers of around 4,000 tons, converted to transports, ploughed up and down the Irish Sea. These two new arrivals, like their predecessors, carried a merchant crew and navigating officer who served under a commanding officer appointed by the Admiralty. Regular or reservist ratings made up the gun crews.

  Queenstown probably gave its name to the decoys it served. Q-ships became a quick and easy way to refer to the jumble of steamers that always anchored in remote parts of the harbour. No proof exists, although the Services’ common use of abbreviations makes a strong case as to its origin. In due course, the Admiralty gave known decoys Q-numbers, a relatively short-lived system.

  The two colliers had little success. They sailed a fixed route, already well guarded by Bayly’s regular patrols.

  The Admiralty, in contrast to Bayly, felt that the highest secrecy should attach itself to Q-ships and their doings. Captains received stern warnings that their crews, both Service and mercantile, should say nothing about any combats with U-boats. The less the enemy learned about decoys, the more they might speculate. If U-boat captains became wary of every tramp steamer, gave each one the benefit of the doubt, more would survive.

  Campbell returned to Devonport. There he waited for his new command. After some days, she sailed into Plymouth Sound from Cardiff. SS Loderer, a dirty, scruffy creature of some 3,000 tons, filled with coal, was a long way from a smart destroyer or a hulking battlecruiser.

  The civilian crew took their discharge. A casual order came from the Admiral Commanding the Devonport dockyard to ‘fit her out’. Instructions seemed non-existent, although three 12-pounder guns and a machine gun arrived with the injunction that he was to ask for no more weaponry. The demands of war elsewhere took priority.

  In his own account, Campbell claimed that his only instructions from the Admiralty were to go to Devonport to await his ship. He added that nobody ever told him he was to hunt U-boats. Either Campbell could not resist a joke or his trip to London was an elaborate waste of time.

  Beswick had shared the inglorious episode on board Bittern. His prewar merchant experience with the Ocean Steamship Company, more familiarly known as the Blue Funnel Line, proved valuable as Loderer assumed her disguise.

  Before any work started, Campbell fumigated the ship. He professed that she was incredibly dirty if not verminous. After that essential task, dockyard workers fitted the guns. The heaviest of the 12-pounders sat on the centreline of the ship, arranged to swivel to either side. A dummy steering engine-house that collapsed when the ship went into action concealed it from curious eyes. The other two went one to each side. A broadside would thus be of two guns.

  The sides of the ship where the guns bore were cut and hinged. When Loderer went into action, the flaps collapsed. The machine gun lived in an apparent hen-coop on the boat deck, close to the funnel. This, too, fell away when needed.

  Campbell was nobody’s fool. He took on board a large supply of paint to alter funnel markings overnight. He ensured that all the deck stanchions could be moved. He built some dummy boats, which similarly changed position during the hours of darkness. Spare cowls and ventilators appeared and reappeared. Other fittings, including a telescopic main mast, added to Loderer’s ability to transform herself into a totally different beast.

  Despite an apparent air of secrecy, Loderer’s conversion attracted common dockyard gossip. The changes were hard to explain away. Loderer was not, in any event, the only ship under modification. At least seven other vessels changed from innocent steamers to armed decoys at about the same time.

  For some reason, the Admiralty became agitated if the ships’ identities became known. As decoys changed their name and appearance at sea, the peremptory order for Loderer to change her identity as her purpose was known appears superfluous. Campbell complied. As Farnborough, she duly entered the hall of fame.

  The arrival of a batch of decoys in the waters around the British Isles in the autumn of 1915 hardly registered with the Kaiserliche Marine. The U-boat arm had problems of its own.

  The policy of warning liners and sinking them only if the passengers were in no danger severely inhibited the campaign against Britain’s trade. Under it, U-boats sank an average of 100,000 tons of British shipping every month. This formed a tiny bite into a mercantile register of some 20 million tons but it destroyed ships at twice the current rate of replacements.

  Admiral von Pohl believed that the Kaiser’s less than iron resolution hamstrung the underwater arm. Even without a deliberate slackening of the offensive, the shortage of U-boats forced the campaign to dwindle.

  The euphoria that accompanied great successes obscured another problem. Men like Valentiner, who racked up some 75,000 tons of destruction in his 25-day patrol in August, were an exception. Of thirty U-boats that took part in the 1915 onslaught, just ten sank ten or more ships, if tiddlers are ignored. Of the ten, only U 20 (Schwieger), U 28 (von Forstner), U 38 (Valentiner), U 39 (Forstmann) and U 41 (Hansen) destroyed twenty or more. Thirteen commanders managed a mere five or less kills. The Kaiserliche Marine could only hope that the less successful improved as time passed.

  The cost of sending nearly 750,000 tons of British and Allied shipping to the ocean floor was the loss of twelve deep-water boats. Four of the prefabricated UB and UC boats also failed to return to harbour. The UB were coastal craft; the UC were minelayers that carried no torpedoes. They formed the backbone of the Flanders Flotilla that operated from Ostend and Zeebrugge.

  Nine new boats came from the shipyards. Together with the survivors of the campaign, nineteen boats were available to bring Britain to surrender. More joined as each month passed.

  The U-boats caused considerable difficulties to the Royal Navy and its allies. They operated with little hindrance in the Channel and the Western Approaches. The number of vessels in the Dover Patrol and on guard elsewhere rose steadily. Many had the sole task of hunting U-boats. They enjoyed limited success. Further support came from more than 2,000 vessels of the Auxiliary Patrol. The waters around Britain were patrolled by 691 armed trawlers and drifters, 270 minesweepers, 156 motorboats, 786 net drifters, and a further 198 trawlers and drifters with the sole task of boom defence.

  The U-boat men held most of the cards in a deadly game. Their hunters, the destroyers, the armed trawlers and, indeed, the Q-ships suffered in bad weather. U-boats simply vanished beneath the surface for a while if the weather became too rowdy.

  The Admiralty took many months to learn that U-boats operated independently over long distances. They were positive that U-boats used secret bases in remote spots around the coastline. Stolid country constables solemnly checked sales of petrol at rural garages close to the sea, even though U-boats used diesel oil. Similar reasoning suggested that, if no bases existed, U-boats replenished fuel and ammunition through a Teutonically efficient network of heavily disguised merchant ships. These fantasies were ably accelerated by sighting reports from warships, merchant vessels, enthusiastic coast watchers, imaginative boy scouts and practical jokers. Whales, dolphins, floating bottles, bits of wood and seals all became U-boats for the happily credulous.

  The cessation of the all-out campaign around the British Isles sent the U-boats to the Mediterranean. There they wreaked havoc. Pickings were easy. Kapitänleutnant Otto Hersing and U 21 had shown how to do it in the waters around the Gallipoli peninsula. Far fewer neutrals sailed in the Mediterranean, a factor that reduced the risk of further offending a touchy America.

  Not only German actions upset the United States and other uncommitted countries. Washington kne
w too well that a considerable proportion of its population came from German stock. In November 1915, America complained that Royal Navy ships, enforcing the blockade, repeatedly broke international law. They followed up this criticism with a further observation, in January 1916, that arming merchant ships simply demonstrated the Law of Unintended Consequences. U-boat commanders did not trouble to surface, stop, visit and search their targets. They torpedoed them without warning.

  Britain ignored the suggestion. Merchant ships had been armed in time of war as long as anybody could remember. Clear proof existed that armed merchantmen dissuaded U-boat attack.

  In a neat attempt to regain the initiative, and to put Q-ships in the wrong, Germany promptly and publicly issued instructions that all armed merchant ships should be treated as warships and sunk without warning as long as the guns were visible.

  Even at the end of 1915, neither side believed the war would drag on without respite. On both sides, Army commanders convinced themselves that one more offensive, one more effort, one more plan that corrected earlier mistakes, would bring victory. Both sides had absorbed the lessons of the 1915 campaigns. They knew how to win the war on land.

  The German army prepared to strike the final blow in the west, against the French at Verdun in early 1916. The German Chief of the General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, anticipated a sweeping success that would destabilise and dishearten the Allies. If French armies disintegrated, Britain’s growing strength would be dissipated in a desperate attempt to hold the line.

  At sea, the strategic situation had not changed. The Hochseeflotte remained numerically inferior to the Grand Fleet. But German naval officers believed, even more firmly, that she still possessed the weapon that could win the war. Das Unterseeboot.

  The Royal Navy still had no means of finding U-boats in the wide seas. New weapons, new technology, though, offered a glimmer of hope. The first depth charges, primitive efforts simply tossed overboard, were on their way. They came into service in January 1916. One, issued to the larger and faster ships, contained 300lb of explosive. Smaller ships used a version with 120lb. Both varieties employed a hydrostatic pistol to explode them at either 40 or 80ft.

  The other weapon in the armoury was the hydrophone, intended to detect the sound of U-boats under the waves. Crude, unrefined, lowered into the water from a stationary ship with stopped engines, it achieved little. Even if the operator heard a submarine, he had no idea where it was. Nonetheless, it was an advance.

  As 1915 faded towards the history books, three men met in Berlin. Grossadmiral von Tirpitz, the War Minister, General von Falkenhayn and Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, the newly appointed Chief of the Naval Staff. They agreed that a new U-boat campaign was necessary. The USA might be hostile but that was a matter for the civilians to resolve. Militarily, nothing stood in the way. Destroy the French at Verdun. Roll back any attempt by the British to help. Starve England to death.

  Holtzendorff believed that Britain could be beaten inside six months. Twice as many boats were in service than a year earlier. The newest were much better. They went faster, dived more quickly, had greater reliability, a longer range and, most important of all, carried more torpedoes. Boats ordered early in the war were coming into service. An average month commissioned ten new boats, more than enough to compensate and expand the striking force. In 1915, the Unterseeboote had fought a reasonably successful campaign, even though their numbers went down. Larger flotillas would drive Allied shipping from the oceans. If, as was eminently possible, the U-boats destroyed over 600,000 tons a month, British resistance would collapse.

  On 4 March 1916, a decisive meeting in Berlin reviewed the course of the war. On land, everything looked good. Russia was a spent force. Serbia was crushed. On the Western Front, the Verdun attacks showed signs of success. The British had made no gains in 1915. There was every expectation that they would fail again in 1916, despite their new commander, the dour, deliberate and highly competent Haig. On the other hand, they would defend their lines with a fierce pugnacity in the face of German attacks.

  All in all, the military situation was most satisfactory, even if outright victory remained tantalisingly out of reach. The economic scene presented a far gloomier picture. The British blockade against the Fatherland clamped like a vice. Few quarrelled with the assessment that the Allies could hold out longer than Germany and her supporters. The mainstay of Allied endurance was England, damnable England. She had to be brought to her knees. The conclusion was clear, as von Holtzendorff summarised. ‘We are not wrong in assuming that an injury inflicted upon England that persuades her to regard peace as preferable could force the others to peace as well. England can be hurt only by war on her trade.’

  Neutrals would have to like it or lump it. If the United States joined the war, so be it. The generals and the admirals agreed. American entry could be contained. The politicians felt otherwise but reluctantly acceded to the decision. A campaign that observed the Prize Regulations would begin on 15 March 1916. This would melt into unrestricted warfare by the U-boat arm on 1 April 1916.

  Bethmann-Hollweg remained sceptical. He continued to argue against the military conclusions. He doubted if the U-boats, dedicated as they were, could really destroy 4 million tons of Allied shipping inside six months. Even if they could, he doubted that that alone would force the British to negotiate. Further, the results of the 1915 offensive did not necessarily validate a new campaign. England, fighting for her life, would undoubtedly resist ‘to the last man and the last penny’. She would surely produce new methods of combating U-boats, increase her shipbuilding, perhaps seize German ships in neutral ports. And, he argued, it was no simple matter to dismiss the United States. Apart from any other consideration, she would give fresh heart to the enemy if she joined the conflict on their side. Conversely, American involvement would depress German morale.

  The Kaiser agreed. The campaign was postponed while German diplomats tried to persuade Washington to use its influence to relax the British blockade.

  While the German High Command pondered, a handful of boats from the North Sea and Flanders Flotilla went to war. Among them were U 68, on her maiden war patrol, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Ludwig Güntzel of the Hochseeflotte Flottille IV, and Oberleutnant zur See Herbert Pustkuchen with his UB 29 from Zeebrugge.

  In the Irish Sea, a shabby merchantman tramped along the sea lanes. His Majesty’s Ship Farnborough was ready for action.

  NINE

  TARGETS FOR THE PLUCKING

  Lieutenant Commander Gordon Campbell spent the months after October 1915 in bringing HMS Farnborough up to standard. She was, after all, a properly commissioned warship in the Navy of His Majesty King George V. An enquiring mind at the Admiralty had realised that Baralong and the others, pressed into service without such formality, were, in legal terms, nothing less than privateers, even pirates.

  Fighting under the Red Ensign, as opposed to the white, was a slightly dubious procedure. Enemy reactions suggested that francs-tireurs might be the most polite term bandied around by a German court-martial board. No rule existed, however, that forbade grubby tramp steamers from service under the White Ensign. ‘HMS’ replaced ‘SS’ to solve any niggling legal doubts. Later in the war, the defensive arming of merchant ships quietly ignored the problem.

  One side-effect of commissioning decoys into the Royal Navy was that the mixed service and civilian crew disappeared. Every man either joined the Royal Naval Reserve or left the ship. This draconian approach had a financial benefit. Decoys often had living conditions to depress the brightest. The ship carried, in essence, twice its typical complement. Under normal conditions, many sailors thought their living space improved on the slums of their boyhood. With doubled-up crews, even this consolation vanished.

  The Admiralty had the answer. ‘Hard-lying money’ compensated sailors whose conditions were below the minimum provided in normal service. As this inducement often doubled the wages of an ordinary seaman, decoy crews pocket
ed the cash, grinned and got on with the job.

  The virtual cessation of offensive U-boat operations resulted in weeks of fruitless cruising for Farnborough. Campbell, though, was no Godfrey Herbert. His world-weary freighter hid a tightly regulated crew who practised their roles time and time again. Campbell believed in discipline and training. He took extraordinary care to present his ship as harmless. He transmitted wireless signals to fictitious owners, claimed faulty engines or broken steering in the hope that a listening U-boat would investigate.

  Each day, Campbell plotted every report of U-boat activity to help him guess where the enemy might go. On 20 March 1916, Campbell read a report of a U-boat west of Ireland. He gambled that she would probably try to sight one of the lights at the south-west corner before setting off for her patrol area. He set Farnborough on an interception course.

  When morning came, on 22 March 1916, Campbell was off the west coast. Farnborough flew no colours while she pounded northwards toward the Arctic Ocean at a steady 8 knots. The Outer Hebrides lay some 120 miles to the east.

  At 0640hr, when the grey dawn had not yet turned to daylight, the port lookout glimpsed something on the horizon, 5 miles distant. Campbell’s binoculars showed a U-boat, barely surfaced. He sounded action stations and signalled Queenstown: ‘From Farnborough. 6.40. Hull of submarine seen. Position, latitude 57° 56' 30" N, longitude 10° 53' 45" W.’

  Minutes passed. The U-boat submerged.

  Farnborough held her course, a neutral on her way north. The few men on deck puffed idle cigarettes, lounged, chatted.

  Twenty minutes slid past. From the starboard side, a torpedo wake bubbled towards the Farnborough. Every man tensed. Every man relaxed fractionally as the track slithered under the forecastle. The first torpedo fired in anger from U 68 failed.

  Campbell sailed serenely onwards. A neutral tramp, he reasoned, would not keep a sharp eye open at the end of a long night. Every man waited for another torpedo strike. Kapitänleutnant Ludwig Güntzel had other ideas. Water seethed to Farnborough’s port side as U 68 surfaced. Her gun crew sprinted forward. A shot banged across the water to splash ahead of the tramp. The cautious U-boat promptly submerged in case her prey tried to ram her.