Q-Ships and Their Story

by E. Keble Chatterton

Fig. 9.—Diagram to Illustrate Approximate Movements of ‘Penshurst’ in her Engagement with Submarine on November 29, 1916.

Commander F. H. Grenfell, R.N., was a retired officer who, like so many others, had come back to the service after the outbreak of war. After serving for a year in the 10th Cruiser Squadron as second-in-command of Cedric, he was appointed to command Penshurst, cruised up and down first off the north of Scotland, then off Ireland, and in the English Channel for nearly a year without any luck. On November 29, 1916, a year after her advent into this special service, Penshurst, who, with her three masts, low freeboard, and funnel aft, resembled an oil-tanker, was steaming down the English Channel at 8 knots. The time was 7.45 a.m., and her course was S. 81 W. (Mag.), her position at this time being Lat. 49.45 N., Long. 4.40 W. She was definitely on the look-out for a certain submarine which had been reported at 4.30 the previous afternoon in Lat. 50.03 N., Long. 3.38 W. As Penshurst went jogging along, picture a smooth sea, a light south-west wind, and the sun just rising. Fine on the port bow 7 miles away was the British merchant steamer Wileyside, armed, as many ships were at this time, defensively with one gun aft; while hull down on Penshurst’s starboard bow was a sailing ship of sorts. Then, of a sudden, a small object was sighted on the port beam against the glare of the horizon, so that it was difficult to make out either its nature or its distance. However, at 7.52 a.m. this was settled by the object firing a shot and disclosing herself as a submarine. The shot fell 60 yards short, but a few minutes later came another which passed over the mainmast without hitting. The range was about five miles, but owing to the bad light Captain Grenfell could not see whether the enemy was closing. In order to induce her so to do, at 8 a.m. he altered course to N. 45 W.

This brought the enemy nearly astern, and at the same time Penshurst slowed down to half speed. By this time the sun was above the horizon, and the light was worse than before, but the submarine was apparently altering course to cut off the Wileyside, and ignoring Penshurst. Therefore, at 8.6 a.m. the latter altered course so as again to bring the submarine abeam. This had the desired effect, for at 8.10 a.m. the submarine fired a third shot, which fell about 200 yards short of Penshurst, and this proved that Q-ship and submarine were closing. Two minutes later Penshurst stopped her engines and the usual ‘panic’ evolution was carried out, by which time the submarine had closed to within 3,000 yards, and turned on a course parallel with the Q-ship, reducing to slow speed and being just abaft the Penshurst’s port beam and silhouetted against the glare of the sun, three Germans being seen standing in the conning-tower. In order to spin out the time, the Q-ship’s boats were being turned out and lowered as clumsily as possible, and now the U-boat sent along a couple more shots, one of which fell over and the other short.

Thus far it had been a contest of brain, and Captain Grenfell had succeeded in making the enemy conform to the British will. At 8.20 a.m., as there seemed no possibility of inducing the submarine to come any closer, Penshurst opened fire, but there was time to fire only a couple of rounds from the 12-pounder and 6-pounder and three rounds from the 3-pounder before the German hurriedly dived, for all three guns had dropped their shots pretty close to the target. The shooting had been done under difficult circumstances, for it was at a black spot against a strong glare. When once the enemy submerged, Penshurst went full speed to the spot and dropped a depth charge, but the German had escaped, and she would live to warn her sister submarines about the Q-ship which had surprised her.

For this U-boat had had a careful look at Penshurst, and Captain Grenfell could hardly hope to surprise the submarine again and bring her to action, so he altered course to the eastward with the object of intercepting another U-boat, whose presence had been reported at 11.15 that forenoon 5 miles north of Alderney. Very likely the submarine with whom he had just been engaged would send out by her telefunken wireless a full description of the Q-ship, so, as she steamed along, Penshurst now altered her appearance by painting herself a different colour and by lowering the mizzen-mast during the night. Thus, when the sun rose on November 30, on what was to be Penshurst’s lucky day, she seemed to be a totally different ship.

Fig. 10.—Diagram to Illustrate Approximate Movements of ‘Penshurst’ in her Action with Submarine on November 30, 1916.

During the forenoon of November 30 we should have seen this transformed Penshurst going down Channel again well south of the Dorset chalk cliffs. At noon she was in the position Lat. 50.11 N., Long. 2.31 W. (see track chart), steering N. 89 W., when she intercepted a wireless signal from the Weymouth-Guernsey S.S. Ibex that a submarine had been seen at 11.44 a.m. 20 miles N.W. of the Casquets; so the Q-ship altered course towards this position, and at 1.50 p.m. the conning-tower of a submarine was observed 5 miles to the southward, apparently chasing a steamer to the westward. A few minutes later the German turned eastward and then submerged. It was then that Penshurst saw a seaplane, which had come across the Channel from the Portland base, fly over the submarine’s position and drop a bomb without effect. This caused Captain Grenfell to reconstruct his plans, for it was hopeless now to expect that the submarine would engage on the surface. On the other hand, the Q-ship with her speed would be superior to this type of submarine, which, when submerged, could not do better than 6 knots at her maximum, but would probably be doing less than this. The weapon should, therefore, be the depth charge, and not the gun. He decided to co-operate with the seaplane, and ran down towards her.