Q-Ships and Their Story

by E. Keble Chatterton

This was a sad blow to the Zylpha people, but whilst waiting for the arrival of the U.S. destroyer Drayton and two Queenstown tugs which were being sent to her, Zylpha actually made sail with what little canvas she had, and made good at 1½ knots. At noon of the fourteenth she was picked up by H.M. sloop Daffodil, and was then taken in tow. Next day, at 1 p.m., tugs reached her, but she could not last out the night, and, after having been towed for most of 200 miles, she gradually sank when quite near to the west coast, finally disappearing at 11.20 p.m. near the Great Skelligs. So ended Zylpha.

Cullist was commanded by an officer who had served a long time off this coast in a sloop. Her real name was the Westphalia, but she was also known as the Jurassic, Hayling, and Prim. She was of 1,030 gross tons, and in the spring of 1917 was lying at Calais, when she was requisitioned and sent to Pembroke Naval Dockyard to be fitted out. She was commissioned on May 12 by Lieut.-Commander Simpson, and Admiral Bayly then sent her to cruise along certain trade routes. She was capable of steaming about 10 knots, and was armed with a 4-inch and two 12-pounder guns, as well as a couple of torpedo-tubes, and all these had been well concealed. A few weeks later, on July 13, Cullist was between the Irish and French coasts, and it was just after 1 p.m. when a submarine appeared on the horizon.

About two minutes later the enemy from very long range opened fire, but as his shots were falling about 3,000 yards short, he increased speed towards the Cullist. By 1.30 a large merchant ship was seen coming up from the south, so Cullist hoisted the signal ‘You are standing into danger,’ whereupon the big steamer altered course away. Cullist then zigzagged, keeping always between sun and enemy, and by dropping eight smoke-boxes at various intervals succeeded in enticing the submarine down to a range of 5,000 yards, a distance which was maintained for the rest of the action. From 1.45 the enemy continually straddled Cullist so that the decks were wet with the splashes, and shell splinters were rattling on masts and deck. By 2.7 the enemy had fired sixty-eight rounds, but had not hit once. Cullist now decided to engage, and her third round was seen to hit just below the submarine’s gun, the remainder hitting regularly along the deck and on the conning-tower, causing bright red flames which rose higher than the conning-tower. Three minutes after Cullist had opened fire the enemy sank by the bows in flames, and then the ship steamed to the spot and dropped a depth charge. Three of Cullist’s crew saw a corpse dressed in blue dungarees, floating face upwards, but the submarine was never seen again. By 3.30 H.M.S. Christopher arrived on the scene and both ships searched for the enemy. He was evidently seriously damaged, but he had made his escape. Lieut.-Commander Simpson, for this engagement, was awarded a D.S.O; Lieutenant G. Spencer, R.N.R., a D.S.C.; Sub-Lieutenant G. H. D. Doubleday, R.N.R., also a D.S.C.; while two other officers were ‘mentioned.’

Cullist’s next adventure was on August 20 in the English Channel, when she was shelled for most of two and a half hours at long range, during which the submarine expended over eighty rounds with only one hit. This, however, had penetrated the waterline of the stokehold, injuring both firemen who happened to be on watch, and causing a large rush of water into the stokehold. By plugging the hole and shoring it up this defect was for the present made good. At 7.25 p.m., inasmuch as the light was fading and the enemy declined to come nearer than 4,000 yards, Cullist started shelling and seemed to make two direct hits on the base of the conning-tower. This was enough for the German, who then dived very rapidly and made off. Cullist was practically uninjured, for the only other hits on her had been that the port depth charge had been struck with shell splinters and the patent log-line had been shot away.

But on the eleventh of the following February a much more serious attack was made, and this illustrates the statement that suddenly without the slightest warning a Q-ship might find herself in the twinkling of an eye changed from an efficient man-of-war into a mere wreck. Cullist at the time was steaming on a southerly course down the Irish Sea, Kingstown Harbour being to the westward. The officer of the watch and the look-out men were at their posts, and Lieut.-Commander Simpson was walking up and down the deck. Suddenly, from nowhere, the track of a torpedo was seen approaching, and this struck the ship between the engine-room and No. 3 hold. Lieut.-Commander Simpson was hurled into the air and came down on to the edge of the deck with a very painful arm. Realizing the condition of the Cullist, he ordered his men to abandon ship, but such was the zeal of the crew in remaining at action stations until the last moment that many of them were drowned: for in less than two minutes Cullist had gone to the bottom. This part of the Irish Sea then consisted of a number of Englishmen swimming about or keeping alive on a small Carley float. The submarine when half a mile astern of where Cullist sank, came to the surface and rapidly approached. Then she stopped, picked up two men, inquired for the captain, examined survivors through glasses, and having abused them by words and gestures, made off to the southward. After swimming about for some time, Lieut.-Commander Simpson was then pulled on to the Carley float, which is a special kind of raft, very shallow, painted Navy grey, and usually supplied with a paddle such as you find in a Canadian canoe. It was a bleak February afternoon, and here were a few men able to keep from death by joining hands on this crowded raft. As the hours went on, the usual trying thirst assailed them and the fatal temptation to drink the sea-water, but the captain wisely and sternly prevented this. How long they would be left crowded in this ridiculous raft, cold and miserable, no one knew: it was obvious that human strength could not last out indefinitely.

But just as it was getting dusk, about 6 p.m., a trawler was seen. Relief at last! Someone who held the Canadian paddle kept it high to make it more easy for the trawler to recognize them. It was a patrol trawler, for the gun was visible; in a few moments they would be rescued. But just then these sopping-wet survivors were horrified to see the trawler manning her gun and laying it on to the raft. What hideous mistake was this? ‘Sing at the top of your voices.’ So they sang ‘Tipperary’ with all the strength they had left. Then a slight pause was followed by the trawler dismissing the gun’s crew and coming towards them as quickly as her engines would go round. The survivors were picked up and taken into Kingstown, where they landed about 10 p.m., and none too soon for some of them. By the time they were in hospital they were almost done. But what was the trawler’s explanation? She had sighted something in the half-light which resembled a submarine, and on examining it again it still more resembled such a craft. There was the conning-tower painted grey, and there was the periscope too. It was only when the unmistakable sound of British voices chanting ‘Tipperary’ reached their ears that they looked again and found that the ‘periscope’ was the Canadian paddle, and the ‘conning-tower’ was the men linked together imposed on the grey Carley float.

But it had been a near thing!

Even more varied was the career of the Privet (alias Island Queen, Q 19, Swisher, and Alcala). This was a small steamer of 803 tons, which had begun her service in December, 1916, her captain being Lieut.-Commander C. G. Matheson, R.N.R. On the following twelfth of March she was on passage from Land’s End to Alderney, and was steaming at 9 knots, when just before three in the afternoon a torpedo was seen to pass under the ship at the engine-room. Privet was presently shelled by the submarine, who rose to the surface on the starboard side aft, the first nine rounds hitting Privet five times. One of these rounds burst among the ‘abandon ship’ party, causing many casualties and destroying the falls of both boats. Privet’s hull had been badly holed, and she was compelled to send out a wireless S.O.S. signal, stating that her engines were disabled, but two minutes later she opened fire with her port battery—she was armed with four 12-pounders—and during the first seven rounds the enemy received punishment, being hit abreast the fore part of the conning-tower, and twice well abaft the conning-tower. The German now tried to escape by submerging, but evidently he found his hull leaking so badly that he was seen trying to reach the surface again by using his engines and hydroplanes. Thus Privet managed to get in a couple more hits and then the U-boat disappeared stern first at an angle of forty-five degrees. Privet in this manner had definitely sunk U 85, belonging to the biggest U-class submarines, 230 feet long, armed with two guns and twelve torpedoes. The whole incident, from the moment the torpedo was fired to the destruction of the attacker, had covered forty minutes; but now, ten minutes later, Privet’s engine-room was reported to be filling up with water owing to one of the enemy’s shells getting home. Twenty minutes later the chief engineer reported that the water was now over the plates and rising. Efforts were made to plug the hole with hammocks and timber, but this was found impossible, and this small ship, in spite of her victory, was in great peril. After another few minutes the men and wounded were ordered into the lifeboat and skiff, for the engine-room was full of water and the after bulkhead might give way suddenly any minute. Half an hour later this actually happened, but by this time the two British destroyers Christopher and Orestes had arrived on the scene.

Privet was in a pitiable condition, and, after throwing overboard confidential books and rendering the depth charges safe, she was finally abandoned, though she did not at once sink. In fact, an hour and a half later she was still afloat; so Lieut.-Commander Matheson, his officers, a seaman, and a working party from Orestes went back on board her, and within an hour Orestes had begun to tow her under great difficulties. However, everything went fairly well until they were approaching Plymouth Sound, when Privet’s last bulkheads collapsed, and she started now to settle down quickly. This was rather hard luck, having regard to what she had gone through, but there was no mistake about it, she was sinking fast. Those in charge of her are to be congratulated, for they were able just in time to get her into shoal water, and she sank in only 4½ fathoms opposite the Picklecomb Fort, and that closed chapter one in her not uninteresting career.