Q-Sailing-Ship Rentonl (Gun Crew) - - - The Master of the Collier Farnhorough - - - 192 Q-Ship Famborough - - - - - - 192 Q-Ship Famborough - - - - - - 194 Q-Ship Farnhorough - - - - - - 196 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi TO PACK PACK S.S. Lodorer - - - - - - - 196 Q-Ship Pargust - - - - - - 198 Q-Ship Sarah Jones - - - - - - 198 Q-Ship Dunraven ...... 200 Bi-idge of Q-Ship Dunraven ----- 202 After the Battle --...- 204 Dimraven Doomed ------ 206 Q-Ship Dunraven ------ 208 Q-Ship Dimraven - - - - - - 212 Q-Ship Du7iraveti - - - - - - 214 Officers and Crew of the Q-Ship Dimraven - - - 21 6 Q-Ship Barranca (Two Illustrations) - - - 220 Q-Ship Barranca (Two Illustrations) - - - 222 Q-Ship Transformation - _ . . - 234 Q-Ship Barranca at Sea . . - . - 234 Q-ship service was representative of every species of seamen. There were officers and men of the Royal Navy both active and retired, of the Royal Naval Reserve, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and men from the Royal Fleet Reserve. From warship, bar- racks, office, colony, pleasure yacht, fishing vessel, liner, sailing ship, tramp steamer, and elsewhere these seafarers went forth in unarmoured, slow-moving, lightly-armed vessels to perform the desperate ad- venture of acting as live-bait for a merciless enemy. It was an exploit calling for supreme bravery, com- bined with great fighting skill, sound seamanship, and a highly developed imagination. The successes which were attained were brought about by just this com- bination, so that the officers, especially the command- ing officers, and the men had to be hand-picked. The slow-reasoning, hesitating type of being was useless in a Q-ship ; equally out of place would have been the wild, hare-brained, dashing individual whose excess of gallantry would simply mean the loss of ship and lives. In the ideal Q-ship captain was found something of the virtues of the cleverest angler, the most patient stalker, the most enterprising big-game hunter, together with the attributes of a cool, unper- turbed seaman, the imagination of a sensational novelist, and the plain horse-sense of a hard business man. In two words, the necessary endowment was brains and bravery. It was easy enough to find at least one of these in hundreds of officers, but it was difficult to find among the many volunteers a plucky fighter with a brilliant intellect. It is, of course, one of the happy results of sea training that officer or man 4 Q-SHIPS AND THEIR STORY learns to think and act quickly without doing foolish things. The handling of a ship in bad weather, or in crowded channels, or a strong tideway, or in going alongside a quay or other ship — all this practice makes a sailor of the man, makes him do the one and only right thing at the right second. But it needed ' something plus ' in the Q-ship service. For six months, for a year, she might have wandered up and down the Atlantic, all over the submarine zone, with never a sight of the enemy, and then, all of a sudden, a torpedo is seen rushing straight for the ship. The look-out man has reported it, and the officer of the watch has caused the man at the wheel to port his helm just in time to allow the torpedo to pass harm- lessly under the ship's counter. It was the never- ceasing vigilance and the cool appreciation of the situation which had saved the ship. But the incident is only beginning. The next stage is to lure the enemy on, to entice him, using your own ship as the bait. It may be one hour or one day later, perhaps at dusk, or when the moon gets up, or at dawn, but it is very probable that the submarine will invisibly follow you and attack at the most awkward time. The hours of suspense are trying ; watch has succeeded watch, yet nothing happens. The weather changes from good to bad ; it comes on thick, it clears up again, and the clouds cease to obliterate the sun. Then, apparently from nowhere, shells come whizzing by, and begin to hit. At last in the distance you see the low-lying enemy engaging you with both his guns, firing rapidly, and keeping discreetly out of your own guns' range. Already some of your men have been knocked out ; the ship has a couple of bad holes below the water- line, and the sea is pouring through. To add to THE HOUR AND THE NEED 5 the anxiety a fire is reported in the forecastle, and the next shell has made rather a mess of the funnel. What are you going to do ? Are you going to keep on the bluff of pretending you are an innocent mer- chantman, or are you going to run up the White Ensign, let down the bulwarks, and fire your guns the moment the enemy comes within range and bearing ? How much longer is it possible to play with him hi the hope that he will be fooled into doing just what you would like him to do ? If your ship is sinking, will she keep afloat just long enough to enable you to give the knock-out blow as the inquiring enemy comes alongside ? These are the crucial questions which have to be answered by that one man in command of the ship, who all the time finds his bridge being steadily smashed to pieces by the enemy's fire. ' If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you ; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too ; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting . . .' then, one may definitely assert, you have in you much that goes to the making of an ideal Q-ship captain and a brave warrior. As such you might make a first-class commanding officer of a destroyer, a light cruiser, or even a battleship ; but something more is required. The enemy is artful ; you must be super-artful. You must be able to look across the tumbling sea into his mind behind the conning tower. What are his intentions ? What will be his next move ? Take in by a quick mental calculation the conditions of wind, wave, and sun. Pretend to run away from him, so that you get these just right. Put your ship head on to sea, so that the enemy 6 Q-SHIPS AND THEIR STORY with his sparse freeboard is being badly washed down and his guns' crews are thinking more of their wet feet and legs than of accurate shooting. Then, when you see him submerging, alter course quickly, reckon his probable position by the time you have steadied your ship on her course, and drop a series of depth- charges over his track. ' If you can fill the unfor- giving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance, run ' ; if you have acted with true seamanship and sound imagination, you will presently see bits of broken wreckage, the boil of water, quantities of oil, perhaps a couple of corpses ; and yours is the U-boat below, my son, and a D.S.O. ; and a thousand pounds in cash to be divided amongst the crew ; and you're a man, my son !

That, in a few phrases, is the kind of work, and 
shows the circumstances of the Q-ship in her 

busiest 
period. As we set forth her wonderful story, so 
gallant, so sad, so victorious, and yet so nerve-trying, 
we shall see all manner of types engaged in this great 
adventure ; but we cannot appreciate either the 
successes or losses until we have seen the birth and 
growth of the Q-ship idea. As this volume is the 
first effort to present the subject historically, we shall 
begin at the beginning by showing the causes which 
created the Q-ship. We shall see the consecutive 
stages of development and improvement, the evolu- 
tion of new methods, and, indeed we may at once say 
it, of a new type of super-seamen. How did it all 
begin ? 

Turn your attention back to the autumn of 1014. 
It was the sinking of the three Ci^essys on Septem- 
ber *22 by U 9 that taught Gerinany what a 
wonderful weapon of offence she had in the sub- 
marine. Five days later the first German submarine 




An Early Q-ship 
Q-ship "Antwerp" entering Harwich harbour. 




Q-SHiP " Antwerp " 

Commander Herbert is on the port side of the bridge, the ^Mercantile Chief 
Officer and Quartermaster being in the foreground. 

To face p. 6 



THE HOUR AND THE NEED 7 

penetrated the Dover Straits. This was U 18, who 
actually attacked the light cruiser Attentive. But it 
was not until October 20 that the first merchant ship, 
the British S.S. Glitru in the North Sea, was sunk by 
a submarine. Six days later the French S.S. Amhal 
Ganteaame, with Belgian refugees, was attacked by 
a German submarine. A month passed, and on 
November 23 the S.S. Malachite was attacked by 
U 21, and after being on fire sank. Three days 
later the S.S. Primo was sunk also by U 21. It was 
thus perfectly clear that we had before us a most 
difficult submarine campaign to contend with, and 
that merchant ships would not be immune. On the 
last day of October H.M.S. Hermes was torpedoed 
oflf Calais, and on November 11 H.M.S. Niger had a 
similar fate near Deal. 

What was to be done ? The creation of what 
eventually became known as the Auxiliary Patrol, 
with its ever increasing force of armed yachts, 
trawlers, drifters, and motor craft ; the use of de- 
stroyers and our own submarines formed part of the 
scheme. But even at this early stage the Q-ship 
idea came into being, though not actually under 
that name. Officially she was a special-service ship, 
whose goings and comings were so mysterious that 
even among service men such craft were spoken of in 
great secrecy as mystery ships. This first mystery 
ship was the S.S. Vittoria, who was commissioned on 
November 29, 1914. She had all the appearance of 
an ordinary merchant ship, but she was armed, and 
went on patrol in the area where submarines had been 
reported. It was an entirely novel idea, and very few 
people knew anything about her. She never had any 
luck, and was paid off early in January, 1915, without 
ever having so much as sighted a submarine. The 



8 Q-SHIPS AND THEIR STORY 

idea of decoy ships suggested itself to various naval 
officers during December, 1914, and their suggestions 
reached the Admiralty. The basic plan was for the 
Admiralty to take up a number of merchantmen and 
fishing craft, arm them with a few light quick-firing 
guns, and then send them forth to cruise in likely 
submarine areas, flying neutral colours. This was 
perfectly legitimate under International Law, provided 
that before opening fire on the enemy the neutral 
colours were lowered and the White Ensign was 
hoisted. Seeing that the enemy was determined to 
sink merchantmen, the obvious reply was to send 
against them armed merchantmen, properly com- 
missioned and armed, but outwardly resembling any- 
thing but a warship. Thus it came about that on 
January 27, 1915, the second decoy ship was com- 
missioned. This was the Great Eastern Railway S.S. 
Antwerp (originally called Vienna)^ which operated in 
the English Channel. She was placed under the com- 
mand of Lieut. -Commander Godfrey Herbert, R.N., 
one of the most experienced and able officers of our 
submarine service. The choice was a happy one, for 
a submarine officer would naturally in his stalking be 
able to realize at once the limitations and possibilities 
of his opponent. It was a most difficult task, for the 
U-boats at this time were still very shy, and only took 
on certainties. Neither in boats nor in personnel had 
Germany yet any to spare, and there were periods 
when the submarine campaign fluctuated. Tlius, day 
after day, week after week, went by, and Aiitxverp 
never had any cliance. The enemy was now beginning 
to operate lurther afield, and at the end of January, 
1915, ior the first time, a U-boat made its way up the 
Irish Sea as far us off Liverpool, and tlien, on Feb- 
ruary 18, was inaugurated the Ciennau Submarine