Q-Ships and Their Story - E. Keble Chatterton

To face p. 216

Special arrangements had been made in the event of casualties. Thus, if the captain were laid out a certain officer was to carry on and take over command. Similar arrangements were made in the event of all officers on the bridge becoming casualties, an eventuality that was far from improbable. In fact, Captain Grenfell gave orders that if a shell burst on or near the bridge a certain officer was to be informed in any case; and if the latter did not receive word of this explosion he was to assume that everyone on the bridge was a casualty and he was to be ready to open fire at the right time. One of the possibilities in the preliminary stages of these attacks was always that owing to the hitting by the enemy’s shells, or, more likely still, by the explosion of his torpedo against the side of the ship, some portion of the screens or dummy deckhouses might have been damaged, and thus the guns be revealed to the enemy. So, while Penshurst’s captain was busily engaged watching the movements of the submarine, the information as to this unfortunate fact might have been made known. It was therefore a standing rule that the bridge was to be informed by voice-pipe of such occurrences. Damage received in the engine-room was reported up the pipe to the bridge. Conversely there were placed three men at the voice-pipes—one on the bridge, one in the gunhouse aft, and one at the 12-pounder—whose duty it was to pass along the messages, the first-mentioned passing down the varying bearing and range of the submarine and the state of affairs on the bridge, and when no orders were necessary he was to keep passing along the comforting remark ‘All right.’ By this means the hidden officers and guns’ crews were kept informed of the position of affairs and able to have the guns instantly ready to fire at the very moment the screens were let down. Obviously victory and the very lives of every man in the ship could be secured only if the vessel came into action smartly and effectively without accident or bungling.

Sometimes victory was conditional only on being torpedoed, so that the enemy might believe he had got the steamer in a sinking condition and the vessel was apparently genuinely abandoned. Inasmuch as the submarine on returning home had to afford some sort of evidence, the U-boat captain would approach the ship and endeavour to read her name. It was then that the Q-ship’s opportunity presented itself, and the guns poured shells into the German. Special drills were therefore made in case Penshurst should be hit by torpedo, and in this eventuality the boat ‘panic party’ was to lower away and at once start rowing off from the ship, whilst the remainder hid themselves at their respective stations. As for the engineers, their duty was to stop the engines at once, but to try to keep the dynamo running as long as possible so that wireless signals could still be sent out. The engine-room staff were to remain below as long as conditions would allow, but if the water rose so that these were compelled to come up, their orders were to crawl out on to the deck on the disengaged side and there lie down lest the enemy should see them. As these Q-ships usually carried depth charges and the latter exploded under certain conditions of pressure from the sea, it was one of the first duties on being torpedoed that these should be secured.

Now, supposing the Q-ship were actually sunk and the whole crew were compelled really to abandon ship, what then? The submarine would certainly come alongside the boats and make inquiries. She would want to know, for instance, the name of the ship, owners, captain, cargo, where from, where bound. That was certain. She would also, most probably, insist on taking the captain prisoner, if the incident occurred in the last eighteen months of the war. All these officers and men would, of course, be wearing not smart naval uniform, but be attired in the manner fitting the personnel of an old tramp. The captain would be wearing a peaked cap, with the house-flag of his Company suitably intertwined in the cap badge, while the men would be attired in guernseys, old suits, and mufflers, with a dirty old cloth cap. Now, if the U-boat skipper was a live man and really knew his work he would, of course, become suspicious on seeing so many hands from one sunken tramp. ‘This,’ he would remark, ‘is no merchant ship, but a proper trap,’ and would proceed to cross-examine the boats’ crews. It was therefore the daily duty of Q-ship men to learn a suitable lie which would adequately deceive the German. Here is the information which Penshurst was, at a certain period of her Q-ship career, ready to hand out to any inquisitive Hun if the latter had sunk the ship.

In answer to questions the crew would reply: ‘This is the S.S. Penshurst, owned by the Power Steam Ship Company of London. Her master was Evan Davies, but he has gone down with the ship, poor man. Cargo? She was carrying coal, but she was not an Admiralty collier.’ Then the enemy would ask where from and to. If it happened that Penshurst was in a likely locality the reply would be: ‘From Cardiff’; otherwise the name of a well distant coal port, such as Newcastle or Liverpool, was decided upon. For instance, if Penshurst were sunk in the neighbourhood of Portland Bill whilst heading west it would be no good to pretend you were from the Mersey or Bristol Channel. When the German commented on the singularly large number of the crew, he would get the reply: ‘Yes, these aren’t all our own chaps. We picked up some blokes two days ago from a torpedoed ship.’ Then in answer to further questions one of the survivors from the latter would back up the lie with the statement that they were the starboard watch of the S.S. Carron, owned by the Carron Company, 2,350 tons, bound with a cargo of coal from Barry (or Sunderland) to a French port. In this case Captain Grenfell would pretend to be the master of the Carron, and of Penshurst’s four officers one would pretend he was the first mate of the Carron, another the first mate of the collier Penshurst, another the Penshurst’s second mate, whilst the assistant-paymaster, not being a navigator, passed as chief steward. Thus, every little detail was thought out for every possible contretemps. To surprise the enemy and yet not to let him surprise you was the aim.

Q-ship “Barranca”
In one form of disguise. Hull painted a light colour, black boot-top to funnel, funnel painted a light colour, alley ways open. She is here seen in her original colour as a West Indian fruit-carrier.

Q-ship “Barranca”
Appearance altered by painting hull black and funnel black with white band. She is here disguised as a Spaniard, with Spanish colours painted on the ship’s side just forward of the bridge, though not discernable in the photograph.