CHAPTER V

DECOYING SUBMARINES TO DESTRUCTION

My chief purpose in writing this book is to describe the activities during the World War of the United States naval forces operating in Europe. Yet it is my intention also to make clear the several ways in which the war against the submarine was won; and in order to do this it will be necessary occasionally to depart from the main subject and to describe certain naval operations of our allies. The most important agency in frustrating the submarine was the convoy system. An examination of the tonnage losses in 1917 and in 1918, however, discloses that this did not entirely prevent the loss of merchant ships. From April, 1917, to November, 1918, the monthly losses dropped from 875,000 to 101,168 tons. This decrease in sinkings enabled the Allies to preserve their communications and so win the war; however, it is evident that these losses, while not necessarily fatal to the Allied cause, still offered a serious impediment to success. It was therefore necessary to supplement the convoy system in all possible ways. Every submarine that could be destroyed, whatever the method of destruction, represented just that much gain to the Allied cause. Every submarine that was sent to the bottom amounted in 1917 to a saving of many thousands of tons per year of the merchant shipping that would have been sunk by the U-boat if left unhindered to pursue its course. Besides escorting merchant ships, therefore, the Allied navies developed several methods of hunting individual submarines; and these methods not only sank a considerable number of U-boats, but played an important part in breaking down the German submarine moral. For the greater part of the war the utmost secrecy was observed regarding these expedients; it was not until the early part of 1918, indeed, that the public heard anything of the special service vessels that came to be known as the "mystery" or "Q-ships"—although these had been operating for nearly three years. It is true that the public knew that there was something in the wind, for there were announcements that certain naval officers had received the Victoria Cross, but as there was no citation explaining why these coveted rewards were given, they were known as "mystery V.C.'s."

On one of my visits to Queenstown Admiral Bayly showed me a wireless message which he had recently received from the commanding officer of a certain mystery ship operating from Queenstown, one of the most successful of these vessels. It was brief but sufficiently eloquent.

"Am slowly sinking," it read. "Good-bye, I did my best."

Though the man who had sent that message was apparently facing death at the time when it was written, Admiral Bayly told me that he had survived the ordeal, and that, in fact, he would dine at Admiralty House that very night. Another fact about this man lifted him above the commonplace: he was the first Q-boat commander to receive the Victoria Cross, and one of the very few who wore both the Victoria Cross and the Distinguished Service Order; and he subsequently won bars for each, not to mention the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour. When Captain Gordon Campbell arrived, I found that he was a Britisher of quite the accepted type. His appearance suggested nothing extraordinary. He was a short, rather thick-set, phlegmatic Englishman, somewhat non-committal in his bearing; until he knew a man well, his conversation consisted of a few monosyllables, and even on closer acquaintance his stolidity and reticence, especially in the matter of his own exploits, did not entirely disappear. Yet there was something about the Captain which suggested the traits that had already made it possible for him to sink three submarines, and which afterward added other trophies to his record. It needed no elaborate story of his performances to inform me that Captain Campbell was about as cool and determined a man as was to be found in the British navy. His associates declared that his physical system absolutely lacked nerves; that, when it came to pursuing a German submarine, his patience and his persistence knew no bounds; and that the extent to which his mind concentrated upon the task in hand amounted to little less than genius. When the war began, Captain Campbell, then about thirty years old, was merely one of several thousand junior officers in the British navy. He had not distinguished himself in any way above his associates; and probably none of his superiors had ever regarded him as in any sense an unusual man. Had the naval war taken the course of most naval wars, Campbell would probably have served well, but perhaps not brilliantly. This conflict, however, demanded a new type of warfare and at the same time it demanded a new type of naval fighter. To go hunting for the submarine required not only courage of a high order, but analytical intelligence, patience, and a talent for preparation and detail. Captain Campbell seemed to have been created for this particular task. That evening at Queenstown he finally gave way to much urging, and entertained us for hours with his adventures; he told the stories of his battles with submarines so quietly, so simply and, indeed, so impersonally, that at first they impressed his hearers as not particularly unusual. Yet, after the recital was finished, we realized that the mystery ship performances represented some of the most admirable achievements in the whole history of naval warfare. We have laid great emphasis upon the brutalizing aspects of the European War; it is well, therefore, that we do not forget that it had its more exalted phases. Human nature may at times have manifested itself in its most cowardly traits, but it also reached a level of courage which, I am confident, it has seldom attained in any other conflict. It was reserved for this devastating struggle to teach us how brave modern men could really be. And when the record is complete it seems unlikely that it will furnish any finer illustration of the heroic than that presented by Captain Campbell and his compatriots of the mystery ships.

This type of vessel was a regular ship of His Majesty's navy, yet there was little about it that suggested warfare. To the outward eye it was merely one of those several thousand freighters or tramps which, in normal times, sailed sluggishly from port to port, carrying the larger part of the world's commerce. It looked like a particularly dirty and uninviting specimen of the breed. Just who invented this grimy enemy of the submarine is unknown, as are the inventors of many other devices developed by the war. It was, however, the natural outcome of a close study of German naval methods. The man who first had the idea well understood the peculiar mentality of the U-boat commanders. The Germans had a fairly easy time in the early days of submarine warfare on merchant shipping. They sank as many ships as possible with gunfire and bombs. The prevailing method then was to break surface, and begin shelling the defenceless enemy. In case the merchant ship was faster than the submarine she would take to her heels; if, as was usually the case, she was slower, the passengers and crews lowered the boats and left the vessel to her fate. In such instances the procedure of the submarine was invariably the same. It ceased shelling, approached the lifeboats filled with survivors, and ordered them to take a party of Germans to the ship. This party then searched the vessel for all kinds of valuables, and, after depositing time bombs in the hold, rowed back to the submarine. This procedure was popular with the Germans, because it was the least expensive form of destroying merchant ships. It was not necessary to use torpedoes or even a large number of shells; an inexpensive bomb, properly placed, did the whole job. Even when the arming of merchant ships interfered with this simple programme, and compelled the Germans to use long-range gunfire or torpedoes, the submarine commanders still persisted in rising to the surface near the sinking ship. Torpedoes were so expensive that the German Admiralty insisted on having every one accounted for. The word of the commander that he had destroyed a merchant ship was not accepted at its face value; in order to have the exploit officially placed to his credit, and so qualify the commander and crew for the rewards that came to the successful, it was necessary to prove that the ship had actually gone to the bottom. A prisoner or two furnished unimpeachable evidence, and, in default of such trophies, the ship's papers would be accepted. In order to obtain such proofs of success the submarine had to rise to the surface and approach its victim. The search for food, especially for alcoholic liquor, was another motive that led to such a manœuvre; and sometimes mere curiosity, the desire to come to close quarters and inspect the consequences of his handiwork, also impelled the Hun commander to take what was, as events soon demonstrated, a particularly hazardous risk.

This simple fact that the submarine, even when the danger had been realized, insisted on rising to the surface and approaching the vessel which it had torpedoed, offered the Allies an opportunity which they were not slow in seizing. There is hardly anything in warfare which is more vulnerable than a submarine on the surface within a few hundred yards of a four-inch gun. A single, well-aimed shot will frequently send it to the bottom. Indeed, a U-boat caught in such a predicament has only one chance of escaping: that is represented by the number of seconds which it takes to get under the water. But before that time has expired rapidly firing guns can put a dozen shots into its hull; with modern, well-trained gun crews, therefore, a submarine which exposes itself in this way stands practically no chance of getting away. Clearly, the obvious thing for the Allies to do was to send merchant ships, armed with hidden guns, along the great highways of commerce. The crews of these ships should be naval officers and men disguised as merchant masters and sailors. They should duplicate in all details the manners and the "technique" of a freighter's crew, and, when shelled or torpedoed by a submarine, they should behave precisely like the passengers and crews of merchantmen in such a crisis; a part—the only part visible to the submarine—should leave the vessel in boats, while the remainder should lie concealed until the submarine rose to the surface and approached the vessel. When the enemy had come within two or three hundred yards, the bulwarks should fall down, disclosing the armament, the white battle ensign go up, and the guns open fire on the practically helpless enemy.

Such was the mystery ship idea in its simplest form. In the early days it worked according to this programme. The trustful submarine commander who approached a mystery ship in the manner which I have described promptly found his resting-place on the bottom of the sea. I have frequently wondered what must have been the emotions of this first submarine crew, when, standing on the deck of their boat, steaming confidently toward their victim, they saw its bulwarks suddenly drop, and beheld the ship, which to all outward appearances was a helpless, foundering hulk, become a mass of belching fire and smoke and shot. The picture of that first submarine, standing upright in the water, reeling like a drunken man, while the apparently innocent merchant ship kept pouring volley after volley into its sides, is one that will not quickly fade from the memory of British naval men. Yet it is evident that the Allies could not play a game like this indefinitely. They could do so just as long as the Germans insisted on delivering themselves into their hands. The complete success of the idea depended at first upon the fact that the very existence of mystery ships was unknown to the German navy. All that the Germans knew, in these early days, was that certain U-boats had sailed from Germany and had not returned. But it was inevitable that the time should come when a mystery ship attack would fail; the German submarine would return and report that this new terror of the seas was at large. And that is precisely what happened. A certain submarine received a battering which it seemed hardly likely that any U-boat could survive; yet, almost by a miracle, it crept back to its German base and reported the manner of its undoing. Clearly the mystery ships in future were not to have as plain sailing as in the past; the game, if it were to continue, would become more a battle of wits; henceforth every liner and merchantman, in German eyes, was a possible enemy in disguise, and it was to be expected that the U-boat commanders would resort to every means of protecting their craft against them. That the Germans knew all about these vessels became apparent when one of their naval publications fell into our hands, giving complete descriptions and containing directions to U-boat commanders how to meet this new menace. The German newspapers and illustrated magazines also began to devote much space to this kind of anti-submarine fighting, denouncing it in true Germanic fashion as "barbarous" and contrary to the rules of civilized warfare. The great significance of this knowledge is at once apparent. The mere fact that a number of Q-ships were at sea, even if they did not succeed in sinking many submarines, forced the Germans to make a radical change in their submarine tactics. As they could no longer bring to, board, and loot merchant ships, and sink them inexpensively and without danger by the use of bombs, they were obliged not only to use their precious torpedoes, but also to torpedo without warning. This was the only alternative except to abandon the submarine campaign altogether.

Berlin accordingly instructed the submarine commanders not to approach on the surface any merchant or passenger vessel closely enough to get within range of its guns, but to keep at a distance and shell it. Had the commanders always observed these instructions the success of the mystery ship in sinking submarines would have ended then and there, though the influence of their presence upon tactics would have remained in force. The Allied navies now made elaborate preparations, all for the purpose of persuading Fritz to approach in the face of a tremendous risk concerning which he had been accurately informed. Every submarine commander, after torpedoing his victim, now clearly understood that it might be a decoy despatched for the particular purpose of entrapping him; and he knew that an attempt to approach within a short distance of the foundering vessel might spell his own immediate destruction. The expert in German mentality must explain why, under these circumstances, he should have persisted in walking into the jaws of death. The skill with which the mystery ships and their crews were disguised perhaps explains this in part. Anyone who might have happened in the open sea upon Captain Campbell and his slow-moving freighter could not have believed that they were part and parcel of the Royal Navy. Our own destroyers were sometimes deceived by them. The Cushing one day hailed Captain Campbell in the Pargust, having mistaken him for a defenceless tramp. The conversation between the two ships was brief but to the point:

Cushing: What ship?
Pargust: Gordon Campbell! Please keep out of sight.

The next morning another enemy submarine met her fate at the hands of Captain Campbell, and although the Cushing had kept far enough away not to interfere with the action, she had the honour of escorting the injured mystery ship into port and of receiving as a reward three rousing cheers from the crew of the Pargust led by Campbell. A more villainous-looking gang of seamen than the crews of these ships never sailed the waves. All men on board were naval officers or enlisted men; they were all volunteers and comprised men of all ranks—admirals, captains, commanders, and midshipmen. All had temporarily abandoned His Majesty's uniform for garments picked up in second-hand clothing stores. They had made the somewhat disconcerting discovery that carefully trained gentlemen of the naval forces, when dressed in cast-off clothing and when neglectful of their beards, differ little in appearance from the somewhat rough-and-tumble characters of the tramp service. To assume this external disguise successfully meant that the volunteers had also to change almost their personal characteristics as well as their clothes. Whereas the conspicuous traits of a naval man are neatness and order, these counterfeit merchant sailors had to train themselves in the casual ways of tramp seamen. They had also to accustom themselves to the conviction that a periscope was every moment searching their vessel from stem to stern in an attempt to discover whether there was anything suspicious about it; they therefore had not only to dress the part of merchantmen, but to act it, even in its minor details. The genius of Captain Campbell consisted in the fact that he had made a minute study of merchantmen, their officers and their crews, and was able to reproduce them so literally on this vessel that even the expert eye was deceived. Necessarily such a ship carried a larger crew than the merchant freighter; nearly all, however, were kept constantly concealed, the number appearing on deck always representing just about the same number as would normally have sailed upon a tramp steamer. These men had to train themselves in slouchiness of behaviour; they would hang over the rails, and even use merchant terms in conversation with one another; the officers were "masters," "mates," "pursers," and the like, and their principal gathering-place was not a wardroom, but a saloon. That scrupulous deference with which a subordinate officer in the navy treats his superior was laid aside in this service. It was no longer the custom to salute before addressing the commander; more frequently the sailor would slouch up to his superior, his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth. This attempt to deceive the Hun observer at the periscope sometimes assumed an even more ludicrous form. When the sailor of a warship dumps ashes overboard he does it with particular care, so as not to soil the sides of his immaculate vessel; but a merchant seaman is much less considerate; he usually hurls overboard anything he does not want and lets the ship's side take its chances. To have followed the manner of the navy would at once have given the game away; so the sailors, in carrying out this domestic duty, performed the act with all the nonchalance of merchant seamen. To have messed in naval style would also have been betraying themselves. The ship's cook, therefore, in a white coat, would come on deck, and have a look around, precisely as he would do on a freighter. Even when in port officers and men maintained their disguise. They never visited hotels or clubs or private houses; they spent practically all their time on board; if they occasionally went ashore, their merchant outfit so disguised them that even their best friends would not have recognized them in the street.

The warlike character of their ships was even more cleverly hidden. In the early days the guns were placed behind the bulwarks, which, when a lever was pulled, would fall down, thus giving them an unobstructed range at the submarine. In order to make the sides of the ships collapsible, certain seams were unavoidably left in the plates, where the detachable part joined the main structure. The U-boat commanders soon learned to look for these betraying seams before coming to the surface. They would sail submerged around the ship, the periscope minutely examining the sides, much as a scientist examines his specimens with a microscope. This practice made it necessary to conceal the guns more carefully. The places which were most serviceable for this purpose were the hatchways—those huge wells, extending from the deck to the bottom, which are used for loading and unloading cargo. Platforms were erected in these openings, and on these guns were emplaced; a covering of tarpaulin completely hid them; yet a lever, pulled by the gun crews, would cause the sides of the hatchway covers to fall instantaneously. Other guns were placed under lifeboats, which, by a similar mechanism, would fall apart, or rise in the air, exposing the gun. Perhaps the most deceptive device of all was a gun placed upon the stern, and, with its crew, constantly exposed to public gaze. Since most merchantmen carried such a gun, its absence on a mystery ship would in itself have caused suspicion; this armament not only helped the disguise, but served a useful purpose in luring the submarine. At the first glimpse of a U-boat on the surface, usually several miles away, the gun crew would begin shooting; but they always took care that the shots fell short, thus convincing the submarine that it had the advantage of range and so inducing it to close.

Captain Campbell and his associates paid as much attention to details in their ships as in their personal appearance. The ship's wash did not expose the flannels that are affected by naval men but the dungarees that are popular with merchant sailors. Sometimes a side of beef would be hung out in plain view; this not only kept up the fiction that the ship was an innocent tramp, but it served as a tempting bait to the not too well-fed crew of the submarine. Particularly tempting cargoes were occasionally put on deck. One of the ships carried several papier-mâché freight cars of the small European type covered with legends which indicated that they were loaded with ammunition and bound for Mesopotamia. It is easy to imagine how eagerly the Hun would wish to sink that cargo!

These ships were so effectively disguised that even the most experienced eyes could not discover their real character. For weeks they could lie in dock, the dockmen never suspecting that they were armed to the teeth. Even the pilots who went aboard to take them into harbour never discovered that they were not the merchant ships which they pretended to be. Captain Hanrahan, who commanded the U.S. mystery ship Santee, based on Queenstown, once entertained on board an Irishman from Cork. The conversation which took place between this American naval officer—who, in his disguise, was indistinguishable from a tramp skipper of many years' experience—disclosed the complete ignorance of the guest concerning the true character of the boat.

"How do you like these Americans?" Captain Hanrahan innocently asked.

"They are eating us out of house and home!" the indignant Irishman remarked. The information was a little inaccurate, since all our food supplies were brought from the United States; but the remark was reassuring as proving that the ship's disguise had not been penetrated. Such precautions were the more necessary in a port like Queenstown where our forces were surrounded by spies who were in constant communication with the enemy.

I can personally testify to the difficulty of identifying a mystery ship. One day Admiral Bayly suggested that we should go out in the harbour and visit one of these vessels lying there preparatory to sailing on a cruise. Several merchantmen were at anchor in port. We steamed close around one in the Admiral's barge and examined her very carefully through our glasses from a short distance. Concluding that this was not the vessel we were seeking, we went to another merchantman. This did not show any signs of being a mystery ship; we therefore hailed the skipper, who told us the one which we had first visited was the mystery ship. We went back, boarded her, and began examining her appliances. The crew was dressed in the ordinary sloppy clothes of a merchantman's deck-hands; the officers wore the usual merchant ship uniform, and everything was as unmilitary as a merchant ship usually is. The vessel had quite a long deckhouse built of light steel. The captain told us that two guns were concealed in this structure; he suggested that we should walk all around it and see if we could point out from a close inspection the location of the guns. We searched carefully, but were utterly unable to discover where the guns were. The captain then sent the crew to quarters and told us to stand clear. At the word of command one of the plates of the perpendicular side of the deckhouse slid out of the way as quickly as a flash. The rail at the ship's side in front of the gun fell down and a boat davit swung out of the way. At the same time the gun crew swung the gun out and fired a primer to indicate how quickly they could have fired a real shot. The captain also showed us a boat upside down on the deckhouse—merchantmen frequently carry one boat in this position. At a word a lever was pulled down below and the boat reared up in the air and revealed underneath a gun and its crew. On the poop was a large crate about 6 x 6 x 8 or 10 feet. At a touch of the lever the sides of this crate fell down and revealed another gun.

III

For the greater part of 1917 from twenty to thirty of these ships sailed back and forth in the Atlantic, always choosing those parts of the seas where they were most likely to meet submarines. They were "merchantmen" of all kinds—tramp steamers, coasting vessels, trawlers, and schooners. Perhaps the most distressing part of existence on one of these ships was its monotony: day would follow day; week would follow week; and sometimes months would pass without encountering a single submarine. Captain Campbell himself spent nine months on his first mystery ship before even sighting an enemy, and many of his successors had a similar experience. The mystery boat was a patient fisherman, constantly expecting a bite and frequently going for long periods without the slightest nibble. This kind of an existence was not only disappointing but also exceedingly nerve racking; all during this waiting period the officers and men had to keep themselves constantly at attention; the vaudeville show which they were maintaining for the benefit of a possible periscope had to go on continuously; a moment's forgetfulness or relaxation might betray their secret, and make their experiment a failure. The fearful tediousness of this kind of life had a more nerve-racking effect upon the officers and men than the most exciting battles, and practically all the mystery ship men who broke down fell victims not to the dangers of their enterprise, but to this dreadful tension of sailing for weeks and months without coming to close quarters with their enemy.

About the most welcome sight to a mystery ship, after a period of inactivity, was the wake of a torpedo speeding in its direction. Nothing could possibly disappoint it more than to see this torpedo pass astern or forward without hitting the vessel. In such a contingency the genuine merchant ship would make every possible effort to turn out of the torpedo's way: the helmsman of the mystery ship, however, would take all possible precautions to see that his vessel was hit. This, however, he had to do with the utmost cleverness, else the fact that he was attempting to collide with several hundred pounds of gun-cotton would in itself betray him to the submarine. Not improbably several members of the crew might be killed when the torpedo struck, but that was all part of the game which they were playing. More important than the lives of the men was the fate of the ship; if this could remain afloat long enough to give the gunners a good chance at the submarine, everybody on board would be satisfied. There was, however, little danger that the mystery ship would go down immediately; for all available cargo space had been filled with wood, which gave the vessel sufficient buoyancy sometimes to survive many torpedoes.

Of course this, as well as all the other details of the vessel, was unknown to the skipper of the submerged submarine. Having struck his victim in a vital spot, he had every reason to believe that it would disappear beneath the waves within a reasonable period. The business of the disguised merchantman was to encourage this delusion in every possible way. From the time that the torpedo struck, the mystery ship behaved precisely as the every-day cargo carrier, caught in a similar predicament, would have done. A carefully drilled contingent of the crew, known as the "panic party," enacted the rôle of the men on a torpedoed vessel. They ran to and fro on the deck, apparently in a state of high consternation, now rushing below and emerging with some personal treasure, perhaps an old suit of clothes tucked under the arm, perhaps the ship's cat or parrot, or a small handbag hastily stuffed with odds and ends. Under the control of the navigating officer these men would make for a lifeboat, which they would lower in realistic fashion—sometimes going so far, in their stage play, as to upset it, leaving the men puffing and scrambling in the water. One member of the crew, usually the navigator, dressed up as the "captain," did his best to supervise these operations. Finally, after everybody had left, and the vessel was settling at bow or stern, the "captain" would come to the side, cast one final glance at his sinking ship, drop a roll of papers into a lifeboat—ostensibly the precious documents which were so coveted by the submarine as an evidence of success—lower himself with one or two companions, and row in the direction of the other lifeboats. Properly placing these lifeboats, after "abandoning ship," was itself one of the finest points in the plot. If the submarine rose to the surface it would invariably steer first for those little boats, looking for prisoners or the ship's papers; the boats' crews, therefore, had instructions to take up a station on a bearing from which the ship's guns could most successfully rake the submarine. That this manœuvre involved great danger to the men in the lifeboats was a matter of no consideration in the desperate enterprise in which they were engaged.

Thus to all outward appearance this performance was merely the torpedoing of a helpless merchant vessel. Yet the average German commander became altogether too wary to accept the situation in that light. He had no intention of approaching either lifeboats or the ship until entirely satisfied that he was not dealing with one of the decoy vessels which he so greatly feared. There was only one way of satisfying himself: that was to shell the ship so mercilessly that, in his opinion, if any human beings had remained aboard, they would have been killed or forced to surrender. The submarine therefore arose at a distance of two or three miles. Possibly the mystery ship, with one well-aimed shot, might hit the submarine at this distance, but the chances were altogether against her. To fire such a shot, of course, would immediately betray the fact that a gun crew still remained on board, and that the vessel was a mystery ship; and on this discovery the submarine would submerge, approach the vessel under water, and give her one or two more torpedoes. No, whatever the temptation, the crew must "play 'possum," and not by so much as a wink let the submarine know that there was any living thing on board. But this experience demanded heroism that almost approaches the sublime. The gun crews lay prone beside their guns, waiting the word of command to fire; the captain lay on the screened bridge, watching the whole proceeding through a peephole, with voice tubes near at hand with which he could constantly talk to his men. They maintained these positions sometimes for hours, never lifting a finger in defence, while the submarine, at a safe distance, showered hundreds of shells upon the ship. These horrible missiles would shriek above their heads; they would land on the decks, constantly wounding the men, sometimes killing whole gun crews—yet, although the ship might become a mass of blood and broken fragments of human bodies, the survivors would lie low, waiting, with infinite patience, until the critical moment arrived. This was the way they took to persuade the submarine that their ship was what it pretended to be, a tramp, that there was nothing alive on board, and that it could safely come near. The still cautious German, after an hour or so of this kind of execution, would submerge and approach within a few hundred yards. All that the watchful eye at the peephole could see, however, was the periscope; this would sail all around the vessel, sometimes at a distance of fifty or a hundred feet. Clearly the German was taking no chances; he was examining his victim inch by inch, looking for the slightest sign that the vessel was a decoy. All this time the captain and crew were lying taut, holding their breath, not moving a muscle, hardly winking an eyelid, the captain with his mouth at the voice pipe ready to give the order to let the false works drop the moment the submarine emerged, the gun crews ready to fire at a second's warning. But the cautious periscope, having completed the inspection of the ship, would start in the direction of the drifting lifeboats. This ugly eye would stick itself up almost in the faces of the anxious crew, evidently making a microscopical examination of the clothes, faces, and general personnel, to see if it could detect under their tramp steamer clothes any traces of naval officers and men.

Still the anxious question was, would the submarine emerge? Until it should do so the ship's crew was absolutely helpless. There was no use in shooting at the submerged boat, as shots do not penetrate the water but bounce off the surface as they do off solid ice. Everybody knew that the German under the water was debating that same question. To come up to the surface so near a mystery ship he knew meant instant death and the loss of his submarine; yet to go away under water meant that the sinking ship, if a merchantman, might float long enough to be salvaged, and it meant also that he would never be able to prove that he had accomplished anything with his valuable torpedo. Had he not shelled the derelict so completely that nothing could possibly survive? Had he not examined the thing minutely and discovered nothing amiss? It must be remembered that in 1917 a submarine went through this same procedure with every ship that did not sink very soon after being torpedoed, and that, in nearly every case, it discovered, after emerging, that it had been dealing with a real merchantman. Already this same submarine had wasted hours and immense stores of ammunition on vessels that were not mystery ships, but harmless tramps, and all these false alarms had made it impatient and careless. In most cases, therefore, the crew had only to bide its time. The captain knew that his hidden enemy would finally rise.

"Stand by!"

This command would come softly through the speaking tubes to the men at the guns. The captain on the bridge had noticed the preliminary disturbance on the water that preceded the emergence of the submarine. In a few seconds the whole boat would be floating on top, and the officers and crews would climb out on the deck, eager for booty. And this within a hundred yards of four or five guns!

"Let go!"

This command came at the top of the voice, for concealment was now no longer necessary. In a twinkling up went the battle flag, bulwarks fell down, lifeboats on decks collapsed, revealing guns, sides dropped from deckhouses, hen-coops, and other innocent-looking structures. The apparently sinking merchantman became a volcano of smoke and fire; scores of shells dropped upon the submarine, punching holes in her frail hull, hurling German sailors high into the air, sometimes decapitating them or blowing off their arms or legs. The whole horrible scene lasted only a few seconds before the helpless vessel would take its final plunge to the depths, leaving perhaps two or three survivors, a mass of oil and wood, and still more ghastly wreckage, to mark the spot where another German submarine had paid the penalty of its crimes.

It was entirely characteristic of this strange war that the greatest exploit of any of the mystery ships was in one sense a failure—that is, it did not succeed in destroying the submarine which attacked it.

On an August day in 1917 the British "merchant steamer" Dunraven was zigzagging across the Bay of Biscay. Even to the expert eye she was a heavily laden cargo vessel bound for Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, probably carrying supplies to the severely pressed Allies in Italy and the East. On her stern a 2½-pounder gun, clearly visible to all observers, helped to emphasize this impression. Yet the apparently innocent Dunraven was a far more serious enemy to the submarine than appeared on the surface. The mere fact that the commander was not an experienced merchant salt, but Captain Gordon Campbell, of the Royal Navy, in itself would have made the Dunraven an object of terror to any lurking submarine, for Captain Campbell's name was a familiar one to the Germans by this time. Yet it would have taken a careful investigation to detect in the rough and unkempt figure of Captain Campbell any resemblance to an officer of the British navy, or to identify the untidy seamen as regularly enrolled British sailors. The armament of the Dunraven, could one have detected it, would have provided the greatest surprises. This vessel represented the final perfection of the mystery ship. Though seemingly a harmless tramp she carried a number of guns, also two torpedo tubes, and several depth charges; but even from her deck nothing was visible except the usual merchant gun aft. The stern of the Dunraven was a veritable arsenal. Besides the guns and depth charges, the magazine and shell-rooms were concealed there; on each side of the ship a masked torpedo tube held its missile ready for a chance shot at a submarine; and the forward deck contained other armament. Such was the Dunraven, ploughing her way along, quietly and indifferently, even when, as on this August morning, a submarine was lying on the horizon, planning to make her its prey.

As soon as the disguised merchantman spotted this enemy she began to behave in character. When an armed merchant ship got within range of a submarine on the surface she frequently let fly a shot on the chance of a hit. That was therefore the proper thing for the Dunraven to do; it was really all a part of the game of false pretence in which she was engaged. However, she took pains that the shell should not reach the submarine; this was her means of persuading the U-boat that it outranged the Dunraven's gun and could safely give chase. The decoy merchantman apparently put on extra steam when the submarine started in her direction at top speed; here, again, however, the proper manœuvre was not to run too fast, for her real mission was to get caught. On the other hand, had she slowed down perceptibly, that in itself would have aroused suspicion; her game, therefore, was to decrease speed gradually so that the U-boat would think that it was overtaking its enemy by its own exertions. All during this queer kind of a chase the submarine and the cargo ship were peppering each other with shells, one seriously, the other merely in pretence. The fact that a naval crew, with such a fine target as an exposed submarine, could shoot with a conscious effort not to hit, but merely to lure the enemy to a better position, in itself is an eloquent evidence of the perfect discipline which prevailed in the mystery ship service. Not to aim a fair shot upon the detested vessel, when there was a possibility of hitting it, was almost too much to ask of human nature. But it was essential to success with these vessels never to fire with the intention of hitting unless there was a practical certainty of sinking the submarine; all energies were focussed upon the supreme task of inducing the enemy to expose itself completely within three or four hundred yards of the disguised freighter.

In an hour or two the submarine landed a shot that seemed to have done serious damage. At least huge clouds of steam arose from the engine-room, furnishing external evidence that the engines or boilers had been disabled. The submarine commander did not know that this was a trick; that the vessel was fitted with a specially arranged pipe around the engine-room hatch which could emit these bursts of steam at a moment's notice, all for the purpose of making him believe that the vitals of the ship had been irreparably damaged. The stopping of the ship, the blowing off of the safety valve, and the appearance of the "panic party" immediately after this ostensible hit made the illusion complete. This "panic party" was particularly panicky; one of the lifeboats was let go with a run, one fall at a time, thus dumping its occupants into the sea. Ultimately, however, the struggling swimmers were picked up and the boat rowed away, taking up a position where a number of the Dunraven's guns could get a good shot at the submarine should the Germans follow their usual plan of inspecting the lifeboats before visiting the sinking merchantman.

So far everything was taking place according to programme; but presently the submarine reopened fire and scored a shot which gave the enemy all the advantages of the situation. I have described in some detail the stern of the ship—a variegated assortment of depth charges, shell, guns, and human beings. The danger of such an unavoidable concentration of armament and men was that a lucky shot might land in the midst of it. And this is precisely what now happened. Not only one, but three shells from the submarine one after the other struck this hidden mass of men and ammunition. The first one exploded a depth charge—300 pounds of high explosive—which blew one of the officers out of the after-control station where he lay concealed and landed him on the deck several yards distant. Here he remained a few moments unconscious; then his associates saw him, wounded as he was, creeping inch by inch back into his control position, fortunately out of sight of the Germans. The seaman who was stationed at the depth charges was also wounded by this shot, but, despite all efforts to remove him to a more comfortable place, he insisted on keeping at his post.

"'Ere I was put in charge of these things," he said, "and 'ere I stays."

Two more shells, one immediately after the other, now landed on the stern. Clouds of black smoke began to rise, and below tongues of flame presently appeared, licking their way in the direction of a large quantity of ammunition, cordite, and other high explosives. It was not decoy smoke and decoy flame this time. Captain Campbell, watching the whole proceeding from the bridge, perhaps felt something in the nature of a chill creeping up his spine when he realized that the after-part of the ship, where men, explosives, and guns lay concealed in close proximity, was on fire. Just at this moment he observed that the submarine was rapidly approaching; and in a few minutes it lay within 400 yards of his guns. Captain Campbell was just about to give the orders to open fire when the wind took up the dense smoke of the fire and wafted it between his ship and the submarine. This precipitated one of the crises which tested to the utmost the discipline of the mystery ship. The captain had two alternatives: he could fire at the submarine through the smoke, taking his chances of hitting an unseen and moving target, or he could wait until the enemy passed around the ship and came up on the other side, where there would be no smoke to interfere with his view. It was the part of wisdom to choose the latter course; but under existing conditions such a decision involved not only great nerve, but absolute confidence in his men. For all this time the fire at the stern was increasing in fierceness; in a brief period, Captain Campbell knew, a mass of ammunition and depth charges would explode, probably killing or frightfully wounding every one of the men who were stationed there. If he should wait until the U-boat made the tour of the ship and reached the side that was free of smoke the chances were that this explosion would take place before a gun could be fired. On the other hand, if he should fire through the smoke, there was little likelihood of hitting the submarine.

Those who are acquainted with the practical philosophy which directed operations in this war will readily foresee the choice which was now made. The business of mystery ships, as of all anti-submarine craft, was to sink the enemy. All other considerations amounted to nothing when this supreme object was involved. The lives of officers and men, precious as they were under ordinary circumstances, were to be immediately sacrificed if such a sacrifice would give an opportunity of destroying the submarine. It was therefore Captain Campbell's duty to wait for the under-water boat to sail slowly around his ship and appear in clear view on the starboard side, leaving his brave men at the stern exposed to the fire, every minute raging more fiercely, and to the likelihood of a terrific explosion. That he was able to make this decision, relying confidently upon the spirit of his crew and their loyal devotion to their leader, again illustrates the iron discipline which was maintained on the mystery ships. The first explosion had destroyed the voice tube by means of which Captain Campbell communicated with this gun crew. He therefore had to make his decision without keeping his men informed of the progress of events—information very helpful to men under such a strain; but he well knew that these men would understand his action and cheerfully accept their rôle in the game. Yet the agony of their position tested their self-control to the utmost. The deck on which they lay every moment became hotter; the leather of their shoes began to smoke, but they refused to budge—for to flee to a safer place meant revealing themselves to the submarine and thereby betraying their secret. They took the boxes of cordite shells in their arms and held them up as high as possible above the smouldering deck in the hope of preventing an explosion which seemed inevitable. Never did Christian martyrs, stretched upon a gridiron, suffer with greater heroism.

It was probably something of a relief when the expected explosion took place. The submarine had to go only 200 yards more to be under the fire of three guns at a range of 400 yards, but just as it was rounding the stern the German officers and men, standing on the deck, were greeted with a terrific roar. Suddenly a conglomeration of men, guns, and unexploded shells was hurled into the air. The German crew, of course, had believed that the vessel was a deserted hulk, and this sudden manifestation of life on board not only tremendously startled them, but threw them into a panic. The four-inch gun and its crew were blown high into the air, the gun landing forward on the well deck, and the crew in various places. One man fell into the water; he was picked up, not materially the worse for his experience, by the Dunraven's lifeboat, which, all this time, had been drifting in the neighbourhood. It is one of the miracles of this war that not one of the members of that crew was killed. The gashed and bleeding bodies of several were thrown back upon the deck; but there were none so seriously wounded that they did not recover. In the minds of these men, however, their own sufferings were not the most distressing consequences of the explosion; the really unfortunate fact was that the sudden appearance of men and guns in the air informed the Germans that they had to deal with one of the ships which they so greatly dreaded. The game, so far as the Dunraven was concerned, was apparently up. The submarine vanished under the water; and the Englishmen well knew that the next move would be the firing of the torpedo which could confidently be expected to end the Q-boat's career. Some of the crew who were not incapacitated got a hose and attempted to put out the fire, while others removed their wounded comrades to as comfortable quarters as could be found. Presently the wake of the torpedo could be seen approaching the ship; the explosion that followed was a terrible one. The concussion of the previous explosion had set off the "open-fire" buzzers at the gun positions—these buzzers being the usual signals for dropping the false work that concealed the guns and beginning the fight. The result was that, before the torpedo had apparently given the Dunraven its quietus, all the remaining guns were exposed with their crews. Captain Campbell now decided to fight to the death. He sent out a message notifying all destroyers and other anti-submarine craft, as well as all merchant ships, not to approach within thirty miles. A destroyer, should she appear, would force the German to keep under water, and thus prevent the Dunraven from getting a shot. Another merchant ship on the horizon might prove such a tempting bait to the submarine that it would abandon the Dunraven, now nearly done for—all on fire at one end as she was and also sinking from her torpedo wound—and so prevent any further combat. For the resourceful Captain Campbell had already formulated another final plan by which he might entice the submarine to rise within range of his guns. To carry out this plan, he wanted plenty of sea room and no interference; so he drew a circle in the water, with a radius of thirty miles, inclosing the space which was to serve as the "prize ring" for the impending contest.

His idea was to fall in with the German belief that the Dunraven had reached the end of her tether. A hastily organized second "panic party" jumped into a remaining lifeboat and a raft and rowed away from the sinking, burning ship. Here was visible evidence to the Germans that their enemies had finally abandoned the fight after nearly four hours of as frightful gruelling as any ship had ever received. But there were still two guns that were concealed and workable; there were, as already said, two torpedo tubes, one on each beam; and a handful of men were kept on board to man these. Meanwhile, Captain Campbell lay prone on the bridge, looking through a peephole for the appearance of the submarine, constantly talking to his men through the tubes, even joking them on their painful vigil.

"If you know a better 'ole," he would say, quoting Bairnsfather, "go to it!"

"Remember, lads," he would call at another time, "that the King has given this ship the V.C."

Every situation has its humorous aspects. Thus one gun crew could hardly restrain its laughter when a blue-jacket called up to Captain Campbell and asked if he could not take his boots off. He came of a respectable family, he explained, and did not think it becoming to die with his boots on. But the roar of the fire, which had now engulfed the larger part of the ship, and the constantly booming shells, which were exploding, one after another, like mammoth fire-crackers, interfered with much conversation. For twenty minutes everybody lay there, hoping and praying that the U-boat would emerge.

The German ultimately came up, but he arose cautiously at the stern of the ship, at a point from which the guns of the Dunraven could not bear. On the slim chance that a few men might be left aboard, the submarine shelled it for several minutes, fore and aft, then, to the agony of the watching Englishmen, it again sank beneath the waves. Presently the periscope shot up, and began moving slowly around the blazing derelict, its eye apparently taking in every detail; he was so cautious, that submarine commander, he did not propose to be outwitted again! Captain Campbell now saw that he had only one chance; the conflagration was rapidly destroying his vessel, and he could spend no more time waiting for the submarine to rise. But he had two torpedoes and he determined to use these against the submerged submarine. As the periscope appeared abeam, one of the Dunraven's torpedoes started in its direction; the watching gunners almost wept when it missed by a few inches. But the submarine did not see it, and the periscope calmly appeared on the other side of the ship. The second torpedo was fired; this also passed just about a foot astern, and the submarine saw it. The game was up. What was left of the Dunraven was rapidly sinking, and Captain Campbell sent out a wireless for help. In a few minutes the U.S. armed yacht Noma and the British destroyers Alcock and Christopher, which had been waiting outside the "prize ring," arrived and took off the crew. The tension of the situation was somewhat relieved when a "jackie" in one of the "panic" boats caught sight of his beloved captain, entirely uninjured, jumping on one of the destroyers.

"Gawd!" he shouted, in a delighted tone, "if there ain't the skipper still alive!"

"We deeply regret the loss of His Majesty's ship," said Captain Campbell, in his report, "and still more the escape of the enemy. We did our best, not only to destroy the enemy and save the ship, but also to show ourselves worthy of the Victoria Cross which the King recently bestowed on the ship."

They did indeed. My own opinion of this performance I expressed in a letter which I could not refrain from writing to Captain Campbell:

My dear Captain:

I have just read your report of the action between the Dunraven and a submarine on August 8th last.

I have had the benefit of reading the reports of some of your former exploits, and Admiral Bayly has told me about them all; but in my opinion this of the Dunraven is the finest of all as a military action and the most deserving of complete success.

It was purely incidental that the sub escaped. That was due, moreover, to an unfortunate piece of bad luck. The engagement, judged as a skilful fight, and not measured by its material results, seems to me to have been perfectly successful, because I do not think that even you, with all your experience in such affairs, could conceive of any feature of the action that you would alter if you had to do it over again. According to my idea about such matters, the standard set by you and your crew is worth infinitely more than the destruction of a submarine. Long after we both are dust and ashes, the story of this last fight will be a valuable inspiration to British (and American) naval officers and men—a demonstration of the extraordinary degree to which the patriotism, loyalty, personal devotion, and bravery of a crew may be inspired. I know nothing finer in naval history than the conduct of the after-gun's crew—in fact, the entire crew of the Dunraven. It goes without saying that the credit of this behaviour is chiefly yours....

With my best wishes for your future success, believe me, my dear Captain,

Faithfully yours,
Wm. S. Sims.

The records show that the mystery ships sank twelve submarines, of which Captain Campbell accounted for four; yet this was perhaps not their most important achievement. From the German standpoint they were a terribly disturbing element in the general submarine situation. Externally a mystery ship, as already described, was indistinguishable from the most harmless merchantman. The cleverness with which the Allied officers took advantage of the vicious practices of the submarine commanders bewildered them still further. Nothing afloat was sacred to the Hun; and he seemed to take particular pride in destroying small vessels, even little sailing vessels. The Navy decided to turn this amiable trait to good account, and fitted out the Prize, a topsail schooner of 200 tons, and placed her under the command of Lieut. William Sanders, R.N.R. This little schooner, as was expected, proved an irresistible bait. A certain submarine, commanded by one of the most experienced U-boat captains, attacked her by gun fire from a safe distance and, after her panic party had left, shelled her until she was in a sinking condition; many of her crew had been killed and wounded, when, confident that she could not be a Q-ship, the enemy came within less than 100 yards. It was promptly fired on and disappeared beneath the surface. The panic party picked up the German captain and two men, apparently the only survivors, who expressed their high admiration for the bravery of the crew and assisted them to get their battered craft into port. The captain said to Lieutenant Sanders: "I take off my hat to you and your men. I would not have believed that any men could stand such gun fire." For this exploit Lieutenant Sanders was awarded the Victoria Cross. Within about four days from the time of this action the Admiralty received an inquiry via Sweden through the Red Cross asking the whereabouts of the captain of this submarine. This showed that the vessel had reached her home port, and illustrated once more the necessity for caution in claiming the destruction of U-boats and the wisdom of declining to publish the figures of sinkings. Unfortunately, the plucky little Prize was subsequently lost with her gallant captain and crew.

So great was the desire of our people to take some part in the mystery ship campaign that I took steps to satisfy their legitimate ambition. As the Navy had fitted out no mystery ships of our own, I requested the Admiralty to assign one for our use. This was immediately agreed to by Admiral Jellicoe and, with the approval of the Navy Department, the vessel was delivered and named the Santee, after our old sailing man-of-war of that name. We called for volunteers, and practically all the officers and men of the forces based on Queenstown clamoured for this highly interesting though hazardous service. Commander David C. Hanrahan was assigned as her commander, and two specially selected men were taken from each of our vessels, thus forming an exceedingly capable crew. The ship was disguised with great skill and, with the invaluable advice of Captain Campbell, the crew was thoroughly trained in all the fine points of the game.

One December evening the Santee sailed from Queenstown for Bantry Bay to carry out intensive training. A short time after she left port she was struck by a torpedo which caused great damage, but so solidly was her hull packed with wood that she remained afloat. The panic party got off in most approved style, and for several hours the Santee awaited developments, hoping for a glimpse of the submarine. But the under-water boat never disclosed its presence; not even the tip of a periscope showed itself; and the Santee was towed back to Queenstown.

The Santee's experience was that of many mystery ships of 1918. The Germans had learned their lesson.

For this reason it is desirable to repeat and emphasize that the most important accomplishment of the mystery ships was not the actual sinking of submarines, but their profound influence upon the tactics of the U-boats. It was manifest in the beginning that the first information reaching Germany concerning the mystery ships would greatly diminish the chances of sinking submarines by this means, for it would cause all submarines to be wary of all mercantile craft. They were therefore obliged largely to abandon the easy, safe, and cheap methods of sinking ships by bombs or gun fire, and were consequently forced to incur the danger of attacking with the scarce and expensive torpedo. Moreover, barring the very few vessels that could be sunk by long-range gun fire, they were practically restricted to this method of attack on pain of abandoning the submarine campaign altogether.