Q-Ships and Their Story

by E. Keble Chatterton

To face p. 220

If, by a piece of bad luck, your identity as a Q-ship had been revealed—and this did occur—so that the enemy got away before you had time to sink him, there was nothing for it but to get the other side of the horizon and alter the appearance of the ship. To the landsman this may seem rather an impossible proposition. I admit at once that in the case of the Q-sailing-ships this was rather a tall order, for the plain reason that topsail schooners and brigantines in these modern days of maritime enterprise are comparatively few in number. But the greatest part of our sea-borne trade is carried on in small steamers of more or less standardized type or types. Vessels of the type such as Penshurst and Suffolk Coast are to be seen almost everywhere in our narrow seas: except for the markings on their funnels they are as much like each other as possible. In a fleet of such craft it would be about as easy for a German to tell one from another as in a Tokio crowd it would be for an Englishman to tell one Japanese from another. The points which distinguish these craft the one from the other are of minor consideration, such as the colour of the hull, the colour of the funnel, the device on the funnel, the number of masts, the topmast, derricks, cross-trees, and so on. Thus, in the case of Penshurst there were any amount of disguises which in a few hours would render her a different ship. For instance, by painting her funnel black, with red flag and white letters thereon, she might easily be taken for one of the Carron Company’s steamers, such as the Forth. By giving her a black funnel with a white V she might be the Gloucester Coast of the Powell, Bacon, and Hough Lines, Ltd.; by altering the funnel to black, white, red, white, and black bands she might have been the Streatham, owned by Messrs. John Harrison, Ltd. Other similar craft, such as the Blackburn and Bargang, had no funnel marks; so here again were more disguises. Penshurst further altered her appearance at times by taking down her mizzen-mast altogether, by filling in the well deck forward, by adding a false steam-pipe to the funnel, by shortening and levelling the derricks, by removing the main cross-trees, by painting or varnishing the wood bridge-screen, by giving the deckhouses a totally different colour, by showing red lead patches on the hull, and varying the colour of the sides with such hues as black to-day, next time green or grey or black, and adding a sail on the forestay.

If you will examine the photos of Commander Douglas’s Q-ship Barranca, you will see how cleverly, by means of a little faking, even a much bigger ship could be disguised. In one picture you see her alley-ways covered up by a screen, funnel markings altered, and so on; whilst in another the conspicuous white upper-works, the white band on the funnel, and the dark hull make her a different ship, so that, he tells me, on one occasion after passing a suspicious neutral steamer and not being quite satisfied, he was able to steam out of sight, change his ship’s appearance, and then overtake her, get quite close and make a careful examination without revealing his identity. To the landsman all this may seem impossible, but inasmuch as the sea is traversed nowadays by steamers differing merely in minute details, distinguished only to the practised eye of the sailor, such deception is possible. I remember on one occasion during the war a surprising instance of this. Being in command of a steam drifter off the south-west Irish coast, I obtained Admiral Bayly’s permission at my next refit to have the ship painted green, the foremast stepped, the funnel and markings painted differently, and a Dublin fishing letter and number painted on the bows, a suitable name being found in the Fisherman’s Almanack. The 6-pounder gun forward was covered with fishing gear, which could be thrown overboard as soon as the ship came into action. Discarding naval uniform and wearing old cloth caps and clothes, we left Queenstown, steamed into Berehaven, and tied up alongside a patrol trawler with whom we had been working in company for nearly a year. The latter’s crew never recognized us until they saw our faces, and even then insisted that we had got a new ship! In fact, one of them asserted that he knew this Dublin drifter very well, at which my Scotch crew from the Moray Firth were vastly amused.

Q-ship “Barranca”
Disguised as a different ship with yellow funnel and black boot-top.

Q ship “Barranca”
Appearance changed by closing up alley-ways, painting hull, ship’s boats, and funnel so as to resemble a freighter of the P. & O. Line.

To face p. 222

Routine at sea of course differed in various Q-ships, but it may be interesting to set down the following, which prevailed in that well-organized ship Penshurst:

SEA ROUTINE.