Smoke and Mirrors Read online

  In memory of those who went down to the sea in ships in the turbulent years of the First World War;who fought because words like Duty, Honour, Sacrifice had meaning.

  First published 2006

  This edition first published 2009

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port

  Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

  www.thehistorypress.co.uk

  This ebook edition first published in 2016

  All rights reserved

  © Deborah Lake, 2006, 2009

  The right of Deborah Lake to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 7907 8

  Typesetting and origination by The History Press

  eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

  Map showing U-boat and Q-ship waters in the First World War

  Prologue

  1. The Djinn Escapes the Bottle

  2. Friends in Peace. Friends for Ever

  3. Quit Ye like Men. Be Strong

  4. A Weapon to Turn the Tide

  5. Boil Prisoners in Oil – if You Take Any

  6. And the Sea Turned Red

  7. A Black and Bloody Ocean

  8. The Ace in the Hole

  9. Targets for the Plucking

  10. Very Good Piece of Work. Well Done

  11. Like Rats in a Trap

  12. Fortitude. Valour. Duty. Determination

  13. Glory in Dark Waters

  14. Throw the Confidential Books Overboard and Throw Me after Them

  15. The Oceans Became Bare and Empty

  16. Blue Smoke Came Out of Her

  17. A Nice Cup of English Tea

  Epilogue

  Bibliography and Sources

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Any writer who treads the paths and lanes of military non-fiction rapidly runs into debt: a debt of gratitude to curators, librarians, enthusiasts and others who all freely give their time and willing assistance. The list that follows is not in any way an order of merit. Every name is on a level par with every other.

  Simply for convenience, I first thank the staffs of the Imperial War Museum in Documents Section, Printed Books, and the Photographic Department. Close on their heels come the staff of the National Maritime Museum and those of the National Archives (which I feel should still be called the Public Records Office) at Kew. Without exception, every member of staff provided willing help during my visits with even the most irritating and abstruse enquiries.

  When it comes to enormous collections, I have to single out Kurt Erdmann of the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv at Freiburg. He dealt with my e-mail requests with charm and politeness, hunted down a particular U-boat war diary, and assisted my researches with considerable professional tolerance.

  I also record an ongoing debt of gratitude to the Central Branch of the Northumberland County Library at Morpeth. Municipal libraries remain the jewel in the crown of Victorian civic endeavour; that some politicians seem to believe that they are irrelevant and expensive in the modern age is simply a sad reflection of misguided priorities.

  If I mention other individuals, it is because they preside over smaller kingdoms with rather fewer staff. Despite this, they give a personal service with charm and efficiency. My thanks go to George Malcolmson of the RN Submarine Museum; to Allison Wareham of the RN Museum Library; and to Matt Little of the Royal Marines Archive at Eastney. All of them have suffered my e-mails and telephone requests for sometimes esoteric information; they all have displayed enviable patience and good humour. And, again, they willingly ransacked their collections for the answers.

  I also owe thanks to Emile Ramakers of the Bibliotheek Maastricht in the Netherlands. He triumphantly produced documents that the world may have thought had vanished long ago. Among my Dutch contacts, Caspar Nijland spent several long hours on my behalf tracking down information in the deepest recesses of the Dutch shipping archives. I also thank Bernd Langensiepen whose knowledge of Goethe makes mine appear puny.

  I must also thank Sue Satterthwaite for her courtesy in drawing my attention to her account of the life and career of Lieutenant Charles Bonner who served with Gordon Campbell on Pargust in 1917. This has enabled me to revise this text to ensure greater accuracy in respect of the officer’s career. Details of her book are in the bibliography.

  If no man is a hero to his valet, it is possibly also true that no author is a heroine to their agent. Malcolm Imrie deserves a special vote of thanks for his patience and efforts on my behalf. I also have to thank Jonathan Falconer of Sutton Publishing for his help and encouragement.

  Michael Lowrey very generously, without hesitation, made available almost any U-boat diary for which I asked. He also read this book in its early manuscript version to steer me away from the more hideous mistakes that I made in U-boat actions.

  Michael Forsyth also read the manuscript with a clinical gaze that saved me from various bear-traps. He also transcribed and translated some of the more illegible entries of watch officers in the German Imperial Navy as well as correcting my elementary errors.

  That said, all and any inaccuracies in translation are entirely my responsibility.

  I thank copyright holders for their permission to quote material; it was impossible to trace some owners. If anybody feels their copyright has been infringed, I will be happy to include the appropriate acknowledgement in further editions.

  As always, I thank Vanessa Stead for her steadfast support. Not only has she proofed the manuscript several times in its various incarnations; she has also shielded me from domestic routine including telephone calls from people who wish to sell double glazing, demands for food from hungry cats, and a variety of other distractions.

  PREFACE

  This book is about valiant men. It deals with British decoy vessels in the First World War, the ‘Q-ships’ and their opponents, the German U-boats. Readers who seek a long list of vessels used as decoys must search elsewhere. For this book is about the men who fought. Enthusiasts who desire excruciating detail as to how many rivets held a conning tower to a U-boat hull will look in vain for such information here. These pages look at the human story of one aspect of the 1914–18 war at sea.

  Most books about Q-ships that appeared between the two world wars were in English. Not surprisingly, they often seem to be written in red, white and blue ink, with a dust jacket of the Union flag. Even later books tend to be one-dimensional.

  Without doubt, the men who served on decoys performed great deeds. Other heroes also sailed the seas. The men of the Imperial German Navy’s underwater arm, too, fought with valour for their country. They, too, faced the prospect of an unpleasant death.

  Any book that touches on the First Battle of the Atlantic needs to nod in the direction of the gorilla that squatted firmly outside the offices of the British and German Admiralties. That was the land war. For both sides, destruction of the enemy’s supply lines meant, eventually, that his fighting soldiers would starve. In essence, it was siege warfare on an epic scale. The land war dominated. The land war decided priorities.

  The men who went to sea helped decide the outcome
on the Western Front, the Dardanelles and the Mediterranean, and the fate of Austria-Hungary. Politicians on both sides accepted that the civilian population might face hardships. That was regrettable. If men, munitions, supplies did not reach the trenches, the inevitable result was defeat.

  One perennial problem in writing about the period is the simple one of measurement. The British employed the imperial system of feet and inches; Germany used the metric system. With naval affairs, further complications arise. Both sides used knots or nautical miles per hour. Both sides used sea miles to express distance, although this is rarely stated in logbooks. It is taken for granted.

  I have chosen the easy option and left all measurements as they were originally written, even when I have paraphrased sources. In practice, this makes little difference. A comparison of a U-boat’s war diary and that of a Q-ship reveals that the Kapitänleutnant declares he opened fire from 6,000m. His opposite number informs his admiral that the range was 6,000yd. The U-boat commander commends his gunners for their accuracy at 3 nautical miles. The Q-ship captain agrees. The landlubber with an extremely long tape measure would accept 3½ miles as accurate. To litter the text with conversions on every page is impractical. Better by far to retain the measurements with which those who fought, and sometimes died, were familiar.

  For non-metric English-language readers, therefore, I suggest that it is useful to remember that 10cm equates to 4in; that 80 yd is very close to 74m; and that 8km is indistinguishable from 5 miles except by the arithmetically obsessed.

  Minor liberties occur with both British and German ranks. In the Royal Navy, the rank known today as lieutenant commander did not appear until shortly before the war began. It was a grade, designed to distinguish between lieutenants. All received the advancement when they reached eight years’ seniority. It was not a promotion. It was an automatic process to mark a senior lieutenant. The rank, originally, was written as ‘lieutenant-commander’; other navies had a similar ranking. The German equivalent was Kapitän-Leutnant. In both instances, I have simply adopted current practice and ditched the hyphen.

  The 24-hour clock has only become familiar in recent years. During 1914–18, logbooks, diaries, documents of all kinds stuck to a.m. and p.m. or their equivalents in other tongues. Where these times appear in original texts, I have retained them. Otherwise, I have used the present version of the clock, hence 1410hr, not 14.10 or 2.10 p.m.

  For readers who may wonder about the relative importance of the letters RN, RNR and RNVR that follow a British naval officer’s name, the rule is essentially simple. RN means a regular officer. RNR means an officer of the Reserve. This is not some superannuated mariner but a merchant navy officer who has agreed to serve in the Royal Navy in the event of war. RNVR applies to Volunteer Reserve officers who, unlike the RNR, usually had no formal qualifications but were enthusiastic amateur yachtsmen and the like.

  As usual, the lower deck, the ratings, summed up the differences in simple language: ‘A naval officer is an officer and a gentleman. An RNR officer is a seaman but no gentleman, and an RNVR officer is a gentleman but no seaman.’

  I also ask the indulgence of Scottish, Irish and Welsh readers. It is a fact that the inhabitants of Continental Europe habitually refer to ‘England’ and the ‘English’ when they mean ‘British’. When a Fregattenkapitän refers to the ‘English Navy’, he intends no insult to Gaels and Celts. In the interests of accuracy, I have not corrected quotations where this occurs; and I use it when paraphrasing recorded thoughts of mainland Europeans.

  Place names familiar to the men of 1914–18 have remained. Queenstown has not changed to Cobh, nor has Danzig become Gdansk. Astute readers will find others. This is not because I wish to deny developments in world political history. Simply, it is more convenient for the reader and, I believe, more accurate, to keep the names that the men of the Q-ships and U-boats knew and used.

  Readers may occasionally notice an apparent enormous discrepancy between a U-boat commander’s estimate of a ship’s size and its register size. This brings us into the thorny area of tonnage. This apparently simple measurement is, in fact, strewn with maritime caltraps. I have, in general, attempted to use ‘displacement tonnage’ which is the actual weight of the vessel and its contents. This is the figure normally quoted for naval vessels. Merchant ships follow a more esoteric course.

  Reference sources, from varied authorities, use different measurements. Ships are described by ‘gross registered tonnage’, which is the internal volume of a vessel plus cargo space available on deck; the same ship may also be defined by ‘net registered tonnage’. This is the ‘gross registered tonnage’ less the volume of space that does not hold cargo, such as the engine rooms, bunkers and so forth. To confuse matters even more, these tonnages, based on volume, are expressed in gross tons, measurement tons or cubic metres. As these sizes often influenced port and pilotage fees, owners preferred low tonnage assessments. Governments opted for higher ones.

  When gross, net or displacement tonnage do not serve, a ship can be specified by its ‘deadweight tonnage’. This is the maximum weight the ship can safely carry when fully loaded. This includes the crew, fuel, water and other stores.

  As a final complication a ton may be long, short or metric; a measurement ton or a freight ton.

  Luckily, U-boat commanders had a simple way to calculate size. All they had to do was to estimate how many litres of water the hull beneath the surface displaced. As 1 litre weighs almost precisely 1 kilogram, the answer in metric tons was immediate.

  It was all exceedingly simple. As long the captain got the first bit right.

  For submarines, tonnage varies simply as to whether the boat is above or below the surface. In general, I have used surface tonnage. It is for this reason that figures of tonnage sunk is, at best, an uneasy compromise between several sets of conflicting figures. Any readers who wish to quarrel with my statistics, therefore, are asked to refrain from sending rude letters via the publisher.

  U-boat and Q-ship waters in the First World War.

  PROLOGUE

  On 15 October 1918, HMS Cymric, based at Granton on the Forth, sank the final victim to fall to the Admiralty’s Special Service Ships, the mystery vessels known as ‘Q-ships’. Cymric, a barquentine of 226 gross tonnage, carried one 4in gun, two 12-pounder guns and a single 7½in howitzer, each one concealed from sight.

  At 1520, approximately 50 miles out to sea from the Northumberland port of Blyth, in visibility of 6,000yd, her captain and lookouts spotted a large submarine, dead ahead on an opposite course. The alarm sounded. The crew went to action stations.

  When the suspect was off the starboard bow, the Cymric’s captain decided she was friendly. He told his gun crews to stand by, nonetheless, in case the stranger proved hostile.

  U 6. A German U-boat. The letter and number showed clearly on her conning tower. More, crewmen manned it, close to a large gun on a platform in front of the tower. An ensign flew from a short mast, indistinguishable against the sky. The submarine came up on the beam, at an angle of 90 degrees. The captain stared hard. So did the other men on the bridge. U 6. Nobody doubted it. Clearly unable to dive, she showed a bold front, making off to Germany as fast as she could on the surface.

  Cymric hoisted the White Ensign. Rumours of peace suggested that the war would soon end. No reason, all the same, to let a Hun escape. The stranger did not react to the Royal Navy’s battle flag. Seconds ticked away. U 6 continued on her escape course.

  The Q-ship opened fire a near half-minute later. The starboard 12-pounder fired twice, both shells falling short. The 4in gun made a direct hit with its first round. Its shot flew into the hull on the waterline in front of the conning tower. The 12-pounder found the range. Its third effort also smacked into the pressure hull on the waterline, this time some 10ft behind the conning tower.

  Both guns continued to fire. After about ten rounds, a man on the after deck waved a white object. At the same time, a thread of black smoke curled into
the air above the conning tower. Cymric ceased fire.

  The submarine maintained its speed and course. It was close to vanishing in the smoke and haze when the decoy opened fire again. Escape was not an option.

  ONE

  THE DJINN ESCAPES THE BOTTLE

  Their Victorian Lordships at the Admiralty detested underwater craft by whatever fancy name their inventors called them. The world’s most powerful navy had no interest in crackpot contraptions. The Admiralty saw no point in devices whose purpose was to destroy proper warships by stealth. Only inferior fleets had any interest in such infernal machines. The Russians, perhaps, who envied Britain’s hold on India. The French, almost certainly. Despite their status as allies in the Crimea, they were not totally to be trusted.

  The designers of such imbecilities were cranks, eccentrics, wild-eyed visionaries, even lunatics, according to taste. Certainly not serious inventors. So said the Lords Commissioners to anyone who cared to listen.

  A Dutchman produced the first practical submarine. Employed at the Court of James I, Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel invented a whole series of useful products. He formulated a scarlet dye, devised a thermostat for a self-regulating oven, easily adapted to control a successful incubator for duck and chicken eggs, produced a perpetual motion machine, developed the double convex lens microscope and designed a chimney.

  One day in 1621, before the king and thousands of onlookers, he and some intrepid oarsmen demonstrated a wooden rowing boat, encased in greased leather, on the Thames. They submerged and moved underwater 12ft below the surface. Hollow tubes poking above the water solved the vital problem of air supply. Although these failed to keep the air fresh, Cornelis had a trick of his own. He uncorked a large jar in which was the result of another experiment. ‘Salt-petre,’ Cornelis explained vaguely, ‘broken up by the power of fire, was thus changed into something of the nature of the air.’ In simple terms, he had discovered how to make oxygen a mere 150 years before anybody else.