Another well-known trawler was the Lord Roberts. During her long career of patrol work in the Harwich area she went to the assistance of many mined ships and rescued a very large percentage of their crews. Unfortunately, she was mined and lost in October 1916, with a loss of one officer and eight men. The Lord Roberts had become a familiar and welcome sight to the merchant vessels using the channels off Harwich, and there was sorrow when she was lost. One Trinity House pilot, missing her from her usual patrol ground, wrote a letter to the authorities asking what had become of "our old friend, the Lord Roberts."
As I have shown, a large vessel with watertight compartments has a fair chance of surviving the effect of a mine. But with the small vessel it is otherwise, and on her the effect of the explosion of a German mine is indeed terrible. Thus the official message reporting the loss, March 31, 1917, of the drifter Forward III., of 89 tons, read, "Forward III. mined. No survivors." As far as can be gathered from the circumstances, the drifter must have struck the mine with her keel dead amidships, and when the smoke cleared away there was nothing to be seen on the water beyond a few broken pieces of wood. A large section of her wooden keel came down on end, pierced the deck of the drifter White Lilac, and remained standing upright, looking, as it was put to me, like "a monument to the gallant men who had gone."
The loss of the trawler Burnley in November 1916 affords another example of the total disappearance of vessel and crew after the striking of a mine. The Burnley was in charge of a subdivision of trawlers carrying out a patrol in the vicinity of the Shipwash light-vessel. At the close of the day the senior officer in the Burnley, relying on the superior speed of his vessel to overtake the others, ordered the two trawlers under him to proceed to their anchorage in Hollesley Bay. What exactly happened after this will never be known, but it is surmised that the Burnley stopped to investigate something suspicious. The Holdene, the senior of the other two trawlers, reached the anchorage as night was setting in, and had just dropped her anchor when a flash was seen on the eastern horizon. This was followed by a dull, heavy explosion, which shook the Holdene from stem to stern. The anchor was immediately weighed and the Holdene steamed at full speed to the scene of the explosion; but, though she cruised about for two hours in the darkness, nothing was to be seen of the Burnley or her crew. On the following day a fresh group of mines was discovered in the vicinity, so it is probable that the Burnley had struck one of this group very soon after the mines had been laid by German submarines.
Among the losses of the Harwich mine-sweepers may be noted that of the paddle steamer Queen of the North, which was mined and sunk while engaged in mine-sweeping. Despite the gallant efforts of her consorts, one officer and nineteen men only were saved, seven officers and twenty-two men being lost. Mine-sweeping in the War-Channel, as I have explained, had to be carried out whatever the weather, and in winter the weather conditions often made the work extremely hazardous. For example, on one occasion a division had swept up eleven enemy mines. Before any of these mines could be sunk by rifle fire a blinding snowstorm swept over the sea, making it impossible for the vessels to distinguish either each other or the drifting mines. Nevertheless the R.N.R. officer who was in command of the division, by exercise of good judgment, extricated his vessels from the dangerous area, and twenty minutes later, when the weather cleared, he was enabled to destroy all the mines.
One of the many dangers that attend mine-sweeping is caused by the occasional failure of the sweep wire to cut a mine adrift. The mine and its sinker come up the sweep wire when the latter is hove in, at the great risk of causing an explosion under the vessel's stern. Thus, the paddle steamer Mercury, while sweeping off the Sunk, brought up three mines and their sinkers in this way. An explosion resulted, which blew her stern off. Fortunately, no lives were lost. She was towed into port and placed in dry dock for repairs. She was an unlucky ship, for on her very first trip after the repairs had been effected she struck another mine while sweeping close to the scene of her former accident. On this occasion her bows were blown away and two lives were lost. Again she was towed back to port and repaired, and she is now once more engaged in mine-sweeping.
There is also a serious danger of a mine fouling a vessel's anchor and coming up with it to explode under the vessel's bows, as is shown in the case of the drifter Cape Colony, whose crew experienced a miraculous escape from death. On the evening of January 7, 1917, in company of other drifters, the Cape Colony laid her mine nets under cover of the darkness. She was then told off with another drifter to anchor in the vicinity of the Shipwash to work the hydrophones during the night. At daylight on the following morning the signal was given to weigh anchor. The mate of the Cape Colony, leaning over the bow to see the cable come in, suddenly saw the horns of a mine, apparently foul of the anchor, on the edge of the water and within a foot of the stem. With great presence of mind he jumped to the capstan and stopped heaving in, but was unable to reverse and lower away. He immediately shouted a warning, ran aft, and jumped into the sea, followed by the rest of the crew. The last man had just got into the water when a heavy swell rolled along, lifted the drifter's bow, and exploded the mine, which blew half the drifter into matchwood. She pitched forward and quickly sank by the head. The crew were rapidly picked up by the boat from the other drifter, none the worse for their adventure.
Mines in their tens of thousands still lie about the North Sea to endanger shipping, and probably it will take a year to clear them. For sweeping up these mines the Admiralty are giving the men a special rate of pay, and only those who volunteer are now employed. The danger incurred is practically negligible when compared with the risk that attended these operations in war-time.