One of the great lessons of the Great War was the inter-relation of international politics and warfare. It was an old lesson indeed, but modern conditions emphasized it once more. We have already seen that the torpedoing in 1915 of the Atlantic liners Lusitania and Arabic caused pressure to be put on the German Government by the United States of America. In the spring of 1916 the submarine campaign, for the Germans, was proceeding very satisfactorily. In February they had sunk 24,059 tons of British merchant shipping, in March they sank 83,492 tons, in April 120,540 tons; but in May this dropped suddenly to 42,165 tons. What was the reason for this sudden fall?

The answer is as follows: On March 24, 1916, the cross-Channel S.S. Sussex was torpedoed by a German submarine, and it happened that many citizens of the U.S.A. were on board at the time and several were killed. This again raised the question of relations between the U.S.A. and Germany, the New York World going so far as to ask, ‘Whether anything is to be gained by maintaining any longer the ghastly pretence of friendly diplomatic correspondence with a Power notoriously lacking in truth and honour.’ On April 20, therefore, the U.S.A. presented a very sharp note to the German Government, protesting against the wrongfulness of the submarine campaign waged versus commerce, and threatened to break off diplomatic relations. The result of this was that Germany had to give way, and sent orders to her naval staff to the effect that submarine warfare henceforth was to be carried on in accordance with Prize Law: that is to say, the U-boats—so Admiral Scheer interpreted it—were ‘to rise to the surface and stop ships, examine papers, and all passengers and crew to leave the ship before sinking her.’

Now this did not appeal to the German mind at all. ‘As war waged according to Prize Law by U-boats,’ wrote Admiral Scheer,3 ‘in the waters around England could not possibly have any success, but, on the contrary, must expose the boats to the greatest dangers, I recalled all the U-boats by wireless, and announced that the U-boat campaign against British commerce had ceased.’ Thus we find that after April 26 the sinkings of British merchant ships became low until they began to increase in September, 1916, and then rapidly mounted up until in April, 1917, they had reached their maximum for the whole war with 516,394 tons. It is to be noted that after May 8, until July 5, 1916, no sinkings by U-boats occurred in home waters, although the sinkings went on in the Mediterranean, where risk of collision with American interests was less likely to occur.

Having regard to the increasing utility and efficiency of the Q-ships, we can well understand Admiral Scheer’s objection to U-boats rising to the surface, examining the ship’s papers, and allowing everyone to leave the ship before sinking her. This was the recognized law, and entirely within its rights the Q-ship made full use of this until she hoisted the White Ensign and became suddenly a warship. It shows the curious mental temper of the German that he would gamble only when he had the dice loaded in his favour. He had his Q-ships, which, under other names, endeavoured and indeed were able to pass through our blockade, and go raiding round the world; but until his submarines could go at it ruthlessly, he had not the same keenness. It was on February 1, 1917, that his Unrestricted Submarine Campaign began, and this was a convenient date, seeing that Germany had by this time 109 submarines. We know these facts beyond dispute, for a year after the signing of Armistice Germany held a ‘General National Assembly Committee of Inquiry’ into the war, and long accounts were published in the Press. One of the most interesting witnesses was Admiral von Capelle, who, in March, 1916, had succeeded von Tirpitz as Minister of Marine; and from the former’s lips it was learned that one of the main reasons why Germany in 1916 built so few submarines was the Battle of Jutland; for the damage inflicted on the High Sea Fleet necessitated taking workmen away from submarine construction to do repairs on the big ships. The number and intensity of the minefields laid by the British in German waters in that year caused Germany to build many minesweepers to keep clear the harbour exits. This also, he says, took men away from submarine building. It needed a couple of years to build the larger U-boats and a year to build the smaller ones; and though at the beginning of the Unrestricted Campaign in February, 1917, there were on paper 109 German submarines, and before the end of the war, in spite of sinkings by Allied forces, the number even averaged 127, yet there were never more than 76 actually in service at one time, and frequently the number was half this amount. For the Germans divided the seas up into so many stations, and for each station five submarines were required, thus: one actually at work in the area, one just relieved on her way home for rest and refit, a third on her way out from refit to relieve number one, while two others were being overhauled by dockyard hands. Geographically Germany was unfortunately situated for attacking the shipping reaching the British Isles from the Atlantic and Bay of Biscay. Before the submarines could get into the Atlantic they had either to negotiate the Dover Straits or go round the North of Scotland. The first was risky, especially for the bigger and more valuable submarines, and during 1918 became even highly dangerous; but the second, especially during the boisterous winter months, knocked the submarines about to such an extent that they kept the dockyards busier than otherwise.

All this variation of U-boat activity reacted on the rise, development, and wane of the Q-ship. In the early part of 1917, when the submarine campaign was at its height, the Q-ships were at the top of their utility. It was no longer any hole-and-corner service, relying on a few keen, ingenious brains at one or two naval bases, but became a special department in the Admiralty, who selected the ships, arranged for the requisite disguises, and chose the personnel. The menace to the country’s food had by this time become so serious—a matter of a very few weeks, as we have since learned, separated us from starvation—that every anti-submarine method had to be carried out with vigour, and at that time no method promised greater success than these mystery ships. Altogether about 180 vessels of various sorts were taken up and commissioned as Q-ships. Apart from the usual tramp steamers and colliers and disguised trawlers, thirty-four sloops and sixteen converted P-boats, named now ‘PQ’s,’ were equipped. The P-boat, as mentioned on a previous page, was a low-lying craft rather like a torpedo-boat; but her great feature was her underwater design. She was so handy and had a special forefoot that if once she got near to a submarine the latter would certainly be rammed; in one case the P-boat went clean through the submarine’s hull. The next stage, then, was to build a suitable superstructure on this handy hull, so that the ship had all the appearance of a small merchant ship. Because of her shallow, deceptive draught she was not likely to be torpedoed, whereas her extreme mobility was very valuable.

In every port all over the country numerous passenger and tramp steamers and sailing ships were inspected and found unsuitable owing to their peculiar structure or the impossibility of effective disguise combined with a sufficient bearing of the disguised guns. All this meant a great deal of thought and inventive genius, the tonnage as a rule ranging from 200 to 4,000, and the ships being sent to work from Queenstown, Longhope, Peterhead, Granton, Lowestoft, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Falmouth, Milford, Malta, and Gibraltar. And when you ask what was the net result of these Q-ships, the whole answer cannot be given in mere figures. Generally they greatly assisted the merchantman, for it made the U-boat captain very cautious, and there are instances where he desisted from attacking a real merchant ship for the reason that something about her suggested a Q-ship. In over eighty cases Q-ships damaged German submarines and thus sent them home licking their wounds, anxious only to be left alone for a while. This accounts for some of those instances when a merchant ship, on seeing a submarine proceeding on the surface, was surprised to find that the German did not attack. Thus the Q-ship had temporarily put a stop to sinkings by that submarine. But apart from these indirect, yet no less valuable, results, no fewer than eleven submarines were directly sent to their doom of all the 203 German U-craft sunk during the war from various causes, including mines and accidents.

But as time went on it became inevitable that the more a Q-ship operated the more likely would she be recognized and the less useful would be her work. By August, 1917, Q-ships were having a most difficult time, and during that month alone six Q-ships were lost. By September their success, broadly speaking, was on the wane. This, however, does not mean that their service had ceased to be productive or that they were no longer deemed worth while. On the contrary, as we shall see presently, they were to perform more wonderful work, and the number of Q-ships was actually increased, especially in respect of sailing ships in home waters; but those which happened to make an unsuccessful attack were at once ordered to return to their base and alter both rig and disguise. Similarly, in the Mediterranean, where the submarines were doing us so much harm, the number of Q-ships was increased, and one was cleverly included in the outward-bound convoys, to drop astern as soon as in the danger zone, after the manner of many a lame-duck merchantman whose engines had caused him to straggle. Then would come the Q-ship’s chance, when she revealed herself as a warship and fooled the submarine from attacking the convoy, which had just disappeared over the horizon in safety.

The converted ‘flower’ class sloops, originally built as minesweepers, but by the able work of the naval dockyard staff now made to resemble little merchantmen, were having a busy time. Tulip (Q 12), for instance, which had begun her Q-ship service at the end of August, 1916, was sunk eight months later by a submarine in the Atlantic and her captain taken prisoner, though eighty survivors were picked up by the British destroyer Mary Rose and landed in Queenstown.4 The sloop Viola began this special work towards the end of September, 1916, and a month later was shelled by a submarine, who suddenly gave up the attack and made off to the northward, having evidently realized the sloop’s disguise, which none but an expert seafarer could have penetrated. Now, in each submarine there was usually carried as warrant navigating officer a man who had served in German liners and freighters and would be familiar with the shipping normally to be found in the area to which each U-boat was assigned. In this particular incident his practised eye had evidently been struck by the position of the above-water discharge being vertically under the imitation cargo hatch and derrick forward of the mainmast. These were important details which had to be watched if the disguise was to be successful.

Another converted sloop was Tamarisk, who began that rÔle at the end of July, 1916, and was commanded by Lieutenant John W. Williams, R.N.R. Towards the end of November she was shelled by a submarine at long range, so that the Q-ship had to declare herself and reply, whereupon the enemy beat a retreat and dived. Hitherto the excellent Q-ship gunnery had depended on the fact that first-class men had been selected who would be able at short range to score hits with the first or second rounds. But this incident of the Tamarisk, involving at least 6,000 yards range, showed that a small range-finder would be very useful, and this was accordingly supplied. Other sloops thus converted to resemble merchantmen were the Begonia, Aubrietia, Salvia, Heather, and so on.

The Q-ships operated not merely in the North Atlantic, English Channel, North Sea, and Mediterranean, but in such areas as off Lapland and the other side of the North and South Atlantic. For instance, the S.S. Intaba (Q 2), under Commander Frank Powell, on December 8, 1916, was in action with a submarine not far from the Kola Inlet, and had been sent to these northern latitudes inasmuch as German submarines for some time had been sinking our merchant ships off that coast. Another Q-ship operated with a British E-class submarine near Madeira and the Canaries; and another Q-ship was in the South Atlantic looking for a German raider, At other times there were the ocean-going submarines Deutschland and Bremen to be looked out for. There was thus plenty of work to be carried out by these decoy vessels in almost every sea.

But it was especially those Q-ships based on Queenstown who had to bear the brunt of the submarine warfare. Strategically, Queenstown was an outpost of the British Isles, and there was scarcely a day in the week when one Q-ship was not leaving or entering Queenstown, or in the Haulbowline Dockyard being got ready for her next ‘hush’ cruise. Bearing in mind that this base was in a country whose inhabitants were largely anti-British, that there had been a great rising in Dublin at Eastertide, 1916, and that the German disguised S.S. Aud had made an ineffectual attempt to land a cargo of arms, and that Sir Roger Casement had arrived, it may well be realized how great was the responsible task of enshrouding these decoys in secrecy. Perhaps for weeks a recently requisitioned ship would be alongside the dockyard quay having her necessary disguises made, and yet the enemy knew nothing about it until he found himself surprised, and forced to keep at long range or hide himself in the depths of the sea. Sound organization, constant personal attention on the part of the Commander-in-Chief, and loyal, enthusiastic co-operation on the part of the officers and men, achieved the successes which came to this difficult work of Q-ships. It was all such a distinctly novel kind of sea service, which was of too personal and particular a kind to allow it to be run by mere routine. During the whole of its history it was experimental, and each cruise, each engagement, almost each captain added to the general body of knowledge which was being rapidly accumulated. It seemed for the professional naval officer as if the whole of his previous life and training had been capsized. Instead of his smart, fast twin-screw destroyer, he found himself in command of an awkward, single-screw, disreputable-looking tramp, too slow almost to get out of her own way. On the other hand, officers of the Mercantile Marine, fresh from handling freighters or liners, in whom throughout all their lives had been instilled the maxim ‘Safety first,’ now found they had to court risks, look for trouble, and pretend they were not men-of-war. Q-ship work was, in fact, typical of the great upheaval which had affected the whole world.

In some cases the transition was gradual. Some officers, having come from other ships to command sloops, found their aspirations satisfied not even in these ships, whose work went on unceasingly—escorting all but the fastest Atlantic liners, patrolling, minesweeping, picking up survivors or salvaging stricken ships, or whatever duty came along. Transferring as volunteers from sloops to sloops rebuilt as Q-ships, they had to forget a great deal and acquire much more. One of such officers was Lieut.-Commander W. W. Hallwright, R.N., who, after doing very fine work as captain of one of H.M. sloops based on Queenstown, took over command of the disguised sloop Heather (Q 16). One April day in 1917, while cruising in the Atlantic about breakfast time, Heather was suddenly attacked by a submarine, whose sixth shot killed this keen officer, a piece of shell passing through his head whilst he was watching the movements of the German through a peep-hole on the starboard side of the bridge. Lieutenant W. McLeod, R.N.R., then took command, opened fire, but the submarine dived and made off as usual.

Other Q-ship captains perished, and that is all we know. On a certain date the ship left harbour; perhaps a couple of days later she had reported a certain incident in a certain position. After that, silence! Neither the ship nor any officers or crew ever returned to port, and one could but assume that the enemy had sent them to the bottom. In spite of all this, the number of volunteers exceeded the demand. From retired admirals downwards they competed with each other to get to sea in Q-ships. Bored young officers from the Grand Fleet yearning for something exciting; ex-mercantile officers, yachtsmen, and trawler men, they used every possible means to become acceptable, and great was their disappointment if they were not chosen.