Part 5 (2/2)
What I have said of the trawler skippers and crews also applies to those who man the North Sea drifters, which were taken from the fis.h.i.+ng grounds to do their work among the minefields. These drifters are for the most part manned by hardy Scotch fishermen, who, like the East Coast trawler men, took to their new work as a duck takes to water. These drifters are of lighter draught than the trawlers, and so can be employed in shallower waters. They proved of great service, not only in mine-sweeping, but also for laying mine nets and for carrying out exploratory sweeps. They also took part in the hydrophone patrols, when several of these craft used to drift noiselessly, listening by means of their hydrophones for the sound of enemy submarines travelling below the surface. When a submarine was heard to approach, working in combination, they used to ascertain its position by taking cross bearings of the directions of the sound as given by their respective hydrophones, and gradually closed in on it. When the position of the submarine was definitely located, an attendant vessel was signalled to, which did its best to drop depth charges on the submarine, or, if it came to the surface, attacked it with gunfire.
But it was, of course, possible for the enemy, who also carried his hydrophones, to slip away; and to successfully trap him by the above device was an event of rare occurrence. Like the trawlers, the drifters carry guns and depth charges.
The trawlers and drifters manned by the men who used to fish with these vessels before the war compose the greater portion of the Harwich auxiliary force. Shortly after the opening of the war the Admiralty took over a number of ordinary paddle pa.s.senger steamers for the purpose of mine-sweeping, of which several belong to the Harwich mine-sweeping unit. These are commanded by R.N.R. captains; carry six-pounder or twelve-pounder guns, and depth charges. Being of relatively high speed--some of them attaining a sweeping speed of ten knots--they can cover a good deal of ground, and being of shallow draught they are well adapted for mine-sweeping in the Harwich area.
For the tidal range in this portion of the North Sea is about eleven feet; consequently the paddle steamer, drawing considerably less than eleven feet, is enabled at high water to engage in sweeping without incurring much risk of striking a German mine, provided that the area has been searched at low water and no mines are visible on the surface. These paddle steamers, which in time of peace had carried thousands of pleasure-seekers on summer holidays, at once proved very successful in the work of war. In the year 1917 alone they destroyed approximately four hundred enemy mines in the immediate approaches to Harwich. On several occasions the vessels of this section had narrow escapes; one was twice mined, and one sank in fifty seconds after striking a mine.
And lastly we come to that interesting cla.s.s in this heterogeneous force--the motor launches--the compact M.L. boats and other power boats of various types, most of which were privately owned pleasure craft before the war. Handy, rapid, of light draught, these have proved of great service, especially in enclosed and shallow waters.
They are employed for patrol work, also for mine-sweeping, but are not powerful enough for this latter work, except under certain conditions.
The duty for which they are very well adapted is the exploration of enemy minefields at low water, and the sinking of such moored mines as appear above the surface, as is not infrequently the case in consequence of the inaccurate laying of the mines. The German mines, I may mention, were mostly laid at eight feet below the sea-level at low water.
The motor launches are commanded by R.N.V.R. officers, for the most part yachting men, among them being barristers, solicitors, stockbrokers, and other professional men. They have proved that our amateur sailors who used to handle their own craft in peace-time know their work, can quickly adapt themselves to war conditions, and are of the greatest service to their country in time of war. They were ever ready at the call of duty to push out into the North Sea when the weather conditions were such as would have prevented any sane man from venturing forth in time of peace with craft so small. Like the gentlemen adventurers of old, they were out for high adventure, and they found it.
The mine-sweeping on the enemy minefields was, of course, the princ.i.p.al function of the Harwich auxiliary base. The mined areas that had to be dealt with by this force extended from the south of Lowestoft to the Naze and twenty miles to seawards, while the mine-sweepers of the force were also employed in advance of the Harwich Force on the mined areas on the further side of the North Sea.
The Huns had diligently laid their mines in extraordinary numbers in the Harwich area. The German mine-laying submarines did their utmost to block the approaches to Harwich. Captured German mine charts testify to the magnitude of their operations. The Harwich auxiliary force had, therefore, to keep open a swept channel running along the coast, and also several other channels opening from this coast channel eastward, across the minefields, to the swept War-Channel beyond, which served as the highway for merchantmen and other vessels pa.s.sing up and down the North Sea. It was also part of the duty of the Harwich boats to sweep the War-Channel so far as this channel pa.s.ses along the Harwich area.
Throughout the war the mine-laying work of the Huns was continuous; that is, so fast as we cleared a channel of their mines, more were laid by their ever-busy submarines. Consequently the work of our mine-sweepers had also to be continuous. The Harwich mine-sweepers'
duty was to sweep the above-mentioned channels each day. As light was needed to see and sink the mines after they had been cut adrift, the mine-sweepers used to begin their work at daylight, whatever the conditions of tide or weather, and until they had completed their task no s.h.i.+pping was permitted to proceed up the channels. The risk at low water to the mine-sweepers was therefore very great, and heavy were their losses. They could not await the comparative security of high water, and the preparatory exploratory work of the shallow-draught craft at low water could only be carried out when low water happened to occur at a very early hour, and even then the time available for exploration was very limited. Since the armistice, the mine-sweeping is conducted in far safer conditions. No unnecessary risks are taken; the preliminary exploration at low water can be done thoroughly, and the mine-sweepers can do their part at high water.
For an officer in charge of the War-Channel sweepers the responsibility was very great, and often he had to come to a quick decision when two or more possible courses of action were open to him and it was not easy to foresee which would be the right course, while to take the wrong one would probably mean horrible disaster. I will now give an example of such a situation. In the first place, let it be borne in mind that the conveyance by sea of our foodstuffs, munitions of war, and men was a matter of vital importance to England, and that delays in transportation had to be reduced to a minimum. The Germans, knowing this, for a long time directed all their mine-laying energy to that great highway of s.h.i.+pping, the swept War-Channel extending from the Sunk to the s.h.i.+pwash light-vessels--the channel the daily sweeping of which was the charge of the Harwich mine-sweepers. Very often, owing to the tides being quite unsuitable for sweepers, the choice had to be made between two evils--stopping all traffic, or risking the sweepers and convoying the traffic through the danger zone.
Now, on the occasion to which I am referring the War-Channel sweepers commenced their work at daylight near the Sunk light-vessel, and sweeping northwards found themselves at 8 a.m., it being dead low water, in the middle of a dangerous freshly laid minefield about half way between the Sunk and the s.h.i.+pwash lights.h.i.+ps, and close to the line of buoys. As some of the mines were showing on the surface, and the others must necessarily have been close underneath, the order was given to stop all traffic. Unfortunately the traffic, and particularly the south-bound portion of it, was very heavy that day, and before all the vessels could be stopped and anch.o.r.ed many of them were in close proximity to the minefield. All, however, were safely anch.o.r.ed, and two hours later, when the flood tide was making, light-draught steamers were set to sweep the area. The job was a difficult one, for the sweepers had to twist and turn among the anch.o.r.ed vessels, and in two cases mines were swept up within fifty feet of these.
In these circ.u.mstances it became apparent that the area could not be properly cleared while the merchant vessels lay there at anchor, and some further action was necessary. The officer in charge was faced by a very difficult problem--either he had to keep the whole fleet held up indefinitely, or take the risk of losing one or two of them. In the words of one who told me this story, ”If the officer in charge delayed the traffic the powers that be would d.a.m.n him, and if he lost any of the s.h.i.+ps he would be twice d.a.m.ned.” So the officer in charge relied upon his lucky star to preserve him from both calamities. Choosing the most favourable time of tide, he ordered all vessels to weigh anchor and steam out of the minefield on a course at right angles to it.
Happily all the s.h.i.+ps got under weigh safely; the sweepers carried on and swept up eight mines on the ground where the merchantmen had been anch.o.r.ed, thus proving how dangerous had been the situation; and very soon after there were sixty-five vessels in sight steaming north and south along the line of buoys that mark the channel. As my informant said to me, ”If anyone spoke of this incident to the officer who gave the order, he would probably shrug his shoulders and say, 'I was lucky'; but he, and he alone, knows what that dreadful hour of anxiety meant to him.”
Despite all precautions, many merchant vessels were mined in the War-Channel in the course of the war; but these disasters were largely due to the carelessness of s.h.i.+pmasters, who at times neglected to comply with the instructions that had been given to them. How well the Harwich auxiliary vessels carried out their work, and how heavy that work was, the following figures show. In the year 1917, the total number of enemy mines swept up and destroyed by the mine-sweepers of the thirty-three bases of the British Isles amounted to 3400, of which over 1000 stand to the credit of the Harwich base. It is a notable fact, too, that in the same year 500 mines were destroyed consecutively in this area without the loss of a single merchantman, whereas the average for the United Kingdom had been one merchantman lost to thirteen mines destroyed.
CHAPTER XII
WORK OF THE AUXILIARIES
CHAPTER XII
WORK OF THE AUXILIARIES
Mine-sweeping methods--Indicator nets--Heavy losses--Brilliant rescues.
Without going into technical details, I will now give a brief explanation of the usual methods employed by the mine-sweeping trawlers of the Harwich base. Two trawlers steaming abreast at about four hundred yards distance apart tow a sweep wire eight hundred yards in length, an end of which is attached to each trawler. The wire thus drags astern in a great loop, which is kept at the requisite depth--that is, at a depth well exceeding the draught of the deepest s.h.i.+p which would travel across that area--by kites. This sweep wire is serrated, so that when towing it quickly saws through the moorings of the mines, which are thus released and rise to the surface. When two or more pairs of trawlers are sweeping in unison they adopt what may be termed an echelon formation. The second pair of mine-sweepers follows the first pair, at a safe distance astern, on a parallel course, but on an alignment that causes the s.p.a.ce swept by the following pair of vessels to somewhat overlap that swept by the leading pair, so that no unswept s.p.a.ce is left between the two. If a third pair of vessels follows, it takes up a similar position astern of the second pair; and so on, if there be other pairs engaged in the sweep. When a strong cross tide is running, to carry out this operation accurately is no easy task. But the skilled North Sea fishermen who man the trawlers are the right men for this sort of work. They rapidly acquire all the tricks of sweeping, and soon learn to detect a mine that has been caught in the sweep by the singing of the sweep wire, the feel of it, and other delicate signs. The mine-sweeping trawlers are accompanied by a vessel whose duty it is to sink or explode by rifle fire the released mines as they appear on the surface.
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