Days to Remember: The British Empire in the Great War

by John Buchan; Sir Henry John Newbolt

The Germans quickly perceived the deadliness of this new method, which made every attack on a merchant vessel a possible disaster for the U-boat, and their press was instructed to complain of the unscrupulousness of an enemy who used disguised ships and took the attacker by surprise. Commanders of U-boats were instructed to use greater caution in approaching their victims, and it soon became evident to Commander Campbell that they would no longer venture to come near a live ship. He determined to tempt them with a wounded one.

When his new ship, Q5, was attacked by a U-boat early in 1917, he manoeuvred intentionally to get her torpedoed. The crew then abandoned ship as before, while Commander Campbell and his gunners lay hidden in the water-logged vessel, watching until the timid enemy should venture to the surface to finish her off. It took the U-boat twenty minutes to make up her mind. She then came up within 300 yards, and approached to fire a second torpedo, with her captain visible on his conning-tower. The first shot fired from Q5 took off his head, and the boat was then completely shattered; one officer and one man were picked up alive. Q5, with water in her engine-room, boiler-rooms, and holds, then signalled for help, and was taken in tow by Lieutenant-Commander W. W. Hallwright of the Laburnum, with the assistance of the Narwhal, the Buttercup, and the trawler Luneta; after a night of heroic exertions and great danger she was brought safely into port. Commander Campbell received the Victoria Cross. Of his officers and crew he wrote: "They may almost be said to have passed through the supreme test of discipline. The chief engineer and the engine-room watch remained at their posts and kept the dynamos going until driven out by water. They then had to hide on top of the engine-room. The guns' crews had to remain concealed in their gun-houses for nearly half an hour, where we could feel the ship going down by the stern. At that time it appeared touch and go whether the ship would sink before we sank the enemy."

Four months afterwards Campbell and his men were out again, in the Special Service ship Pargust, and were again successful in being torpedoed. This time the U-boat, after some hesitation, came within 50 yards, and was so much injured by the Pargust's fire as to be incapable of submerging. Her crew made tokens of surrender, but when Commander Campbell ceased fire, attempted to make away upon the surface. The Pargust, of course, could not follow, but by a lucky shot she exploded a torpedo aboard the U-boat and destroyed her, saving only two of her crew. She was then herself towed into port by the Crocus. This time the Victoria Cross was given to Lieutenant R. N. Stuart, D.S.O., R.N.R., and to Seaman William Williams, D.S.M., R.N.R., to be worn on behalf of the whole ship's company.

Captain Campbell's next command was the Special Service ship Dunraven, disguised as an armed British merchant vessel. She was zigzagging at eight knots in rough water, when a U-boat opened fire upon her at 5,000 yards. Captain Campbell ran up the white ensign, and returned the fire with a 2-½-pounder, intentionally firing short, and making terrified signals for the U-boat's benefit. Then, as the shells fell closer, he let off a cloud of steam to indicate boiler trouble, and ordered a "panic abandon ship." The Germans now became more confident, and began to make hits; one shell exploded a depth charge on the Dunraven's poop, and blew Lieutenant Charles Bonner, D.S.C., R.N.R., out of his control station. The U-boat then ceased fire, and came past within 500 yards; but she was partly hidden by the smoke from the Dunraven's burning poop, and though Captain Campbell knew that his magazine and depth charges must explode sooner or later, he decided to trust his men and wait until the enemy gave him a better chance.

The U-boat kept him waiting just too long. She was passing the Dunraven's stern, when the poop blew up, hurling the 4-inch gun and the gun's crew into the air, and starting the "open fire" buzzers at the guns. The U-boat was hit, but not fatally, and at once submerged. Captain Campbell hastily collected his wounded, turned hoses on to the burning poop, where the magazine was still intact, and signalled to an approaching warship to keep away and deflect traffic, as his action was not yet ended. The second stage was begun by the enemy torpedoing the Dunraven abaft the engine-room. Captain Campbell at once ordered a "Q abandon ship"—that is, he left his guns visible and pretended that the concealed gunners were now leaving after being detected. The ship continued to burn, and the submarine circled cautiously round, shelling her for forty minutes, then submerged again.

Captain Campbell had still two torpedoes left, and both of these he fired at the submarine. One just missed her head, and the other passed two feet abaft her periscope. He had now lost his last chance of a kill, and signalled urgently for assistance, preparing at the same time for a last fight with a single gun. The American vessel Noma came up immediately, followed by the Attack and the Christopher. The U-boat was driven off, the fire extinguished, and the ship taken in tow by the Christopher. During the night it was found necessary to take off her crew and her wounded, and the Dunraven was sunk at last by a British gunshot.

In reporting this action Captain Campbell brought specially to notice the extreme bravery of Lieutenant Bonner, who received the Victoria Cross, and the 4-inch gun's crew, to whom the same honour was given. "Lieutenant Bonner, having been blown out of his control by the first explosion, crawled into the gun hatch with the crew. They there remained at their posts with a fire raging in the poop below, and the deck getting red hot. One man tore up his shirt to give pieces to the gun's crew to stop the fumes getting into their throats; others lifted the boxes of cordite off the deck to keep it from exploding; and all the time they knew that they must be blown up, as the secondary supply and magazine was immediately below. They told me afterwards that communication with the main control was cut off, and although they knew they would be blown up, they also knew that they would spoil the show if they moved, so they remained until actually blown up with their gun. Then when, as wounded men, they were ordered to remain quiet in various places during the second action, they had to lie there unattended and bleeding, with explosions continually going an aboard, and splinters from the enemy's shell-fire penetrating their quarters. Lieutenant Bonner, himself wounded, did what he could for two who were with him in the wardroom. When I visited them after the action they thought little of their wounds, but only expressed their disgust that the enemy had not been sunk. Surely such bravery is hard to equal."

It may be added that such bravery is still harder to defeat. The discipline and devotion which the genius of this commander had imparted to his ship's company, when added to the long-descended seamanship and enterprise of our Service, proved too much for the unscrupulous courage and mechanical skill of the enemy. It cannot be doubted that in any imaginable war at sea the same qualities would produce the same result; for the mystery, after all, lay rather in the men than in the ships.

CHAPTER XXV.

JUTLAND.