World War 1 in the North Sea: Sailing Craft versus U-Boats

Though the “Age of Fighting Sail” ended around 1840 as regards major warships, small sailing craft were to play a very important role in World War 1 in Britain’s battle against Germany’s U-Boats. The following may give some flavour of what was involved.

Typical small sailing coaster
Still common in WW1 period - and no radio!

The mental image that most of us have of sinkings of British merchant shipping by German submarines, U-Boats, in World War 1 is by means of torpedoes. This was to a great extent a last resort however. Only limited numbers of torpedoes could be carried in the small submarines of the time and as such were to be reserved for large targets. In this period a major portion of all seaborne freight was carried in small vessels, many of them still sailing craft. Until Britain’s introduction the convoy system in 1917 all merchant ships sailed individually.  Encountered alone on an empty sea, and almost certainly without radio (an innovation confined to warships and larger merchantmen) a small ship could be approached with impunity by a surfaced U-Boat. Gunfire could then be used to sink her or, even more economically, she could be boarded so that explosive charges could be placed below the waterline.

For much of the war Germany refrained from unrestricted submarine warfare and internationally-accepted “Prize Rules” were applied, these dating, scarcely modified, from the age of fighting sail. These stated that passenger ships could not be sunk, that crews of merchant ships must be placed in safety before their ships were sunk (life boats were not considered a place of safety unless close to land) and only warships and merchant ships that are a threat to the attacker might be sunk without warning. Germany’s surface raiders – notably the SMS Emden – applied these rules scrupulously and so too did the U-Boats for a major portion of the war. Departure from these rules was ultimately to trigger American entry into the war.

Anti-submarine technology was also in its infancy. Only limited progress had been made on detection methods – Sonar, or in British parlance, Asdic, would only become effective after the end of hostilities – and without them the use of the primitive depth charges of the time was likely to be ineffective. The most likely method of destroying a U-Boat was to catch her on the surface and to finish her by gunfire or ramming. The challenge was therefore to lure the U-Boat to the surface.

Typical Q-Ship crew. Note the mix of civilian
and merchant-service clothing

Observance of the “Prize Rules” was to make U-Boats vulnerable to being trapped by apparently innocent-looking merchant or fishing craft which carried concealed weaponry. These would sail under merchant colours and a naval ensign was to be run up only when the U-Boat was sufficiently close to allow fire to be directed on her. The crews wore civilian clothes and in many cases a “panic party” would drop a boat and row frantically away from the ship as the surfaced U-Boat approached so as to allay suspicion. A hidden crew would however remain on board and once the U-Boat was in point-blank range screens and other disguises would be dropped to allow the guns to be brought to bear. These vessels were known to the British as “Q-ships”, taking their initial letter from Queenstown (now Cobh), the port in the South of Ireland were most were based.

U-Boat vs. Q-Ship

The Q-ship would typically cruise in areas where U-Boats were believed to operate. She would often be packed with light wood or cork so that even if torpedoed she would remain afloat, encouraging the U-Boat to surface and sink her with a deck gun. The Q-Ship’s appearance might be changed frequently, by painting or by erection of dummy funnels and deckhouses, to deter suspicion of the same merchant vessel being seen too frequently in the same area. Crews were made up of a combination of serving Royal Navy personnel and reservists. A total of 193 Q-ships were commissioned during the war, of which 38 were sunk. 51 of the total were fishing vessels, of which 11 were lost.

Mines being loaded into a UC

The typical Q-Ship – and “typical” is a loose term in this case – was a small tramp steamer, sometimes very heavily armed and ideal for operation in the Atlantic shipping lanes to the south and west of Britain and Ireland where larger U-Boats would operate. The challenge was different in the North Sea where fishing, from sailing smacks as well as powered vessels, provided important food supplies. From mid-1915 small, 90-ft long, UB and UC-class German coastal U-Boats, were active in this area, typically carrying only two torpedoes and eight mines, plus a deck-gun for surface use. Besides being suited to mining British inshore waters they represented a significant threat to fishing craft – an example being three smacks from Lowestoft being sunk, after boarding by U-Boat personnel who set explosive charges, in two days in early June 1915.

HMS Lightning (1895), Janus-Class destroyer, victim of mines laid off
the Thames Estuary by a UC-class boat in 1915

The response was to arm four fishing craft as Q-ships. The first success was by the unpowered sailing smack Inverlyon which was armed only with a single 3 pounder gun. Approached on the surface by the German UB-4 near Great Yarmouth on August 15^th 1915, the Inverlyon pumped nine rounds into her at close range, sinking her with the loss of all hands. It is impressive to record that, as the UB-4 sunk, the Inverlyon's fishing skipper, a man named Phillips, dived in to attempt to rescue, unsuccessfully, a German crewman in the water. Further such battles were to follow, including a second, though inconclusive, action involving the Inverlyon. Despite this the German threat was to continue.

The Telisa - probably post-war

The relentless pace of duty for these ships can be illustrated by reference to the armed Lowestoft smack Telesia. No less than six fishing craft had been boarded and sunk by explosive charges early in March 1916 and the Telesia’s crew was inevitably alert. On March 23^rd 1916 the Telesia was simulating trawling some 35 miles E.E. of Lowestoft. A U-Boat approached at 1330 hrs, made a cautious inspection, and came within fifty feet of her bows. The Telesia’s crew kept their nerve and maintained the pretence. For some inexplicable reason the U-Boat commander submerged to periscope depth and disappeared, returning an hour later for a further look. The submarine again disappeared but came back at 1630 hrs but remained submerged, though identified by her periscope. From 300 yards a torpedo was launched – a case of a sledgehammer deployed against a gnat – but it missed the Telesia’s bow by some four feet. Her skipper, Wharton, ordered the vessel’s three-pounder to open fire, lashing fifteen rounds at the periscope before the U-Boat disappeared. The target was a small one and it appears that no hits were scored. The German commander was probably shaken however and resolved to proceed cautiously,

An hour later the U-Boat returned and she fired a second torpedo, which also missed, this time by forty feet, but surfacing immediately. As her conning tower was revealed the Telesia again opened fire, apparently scoring two non-fatal hits. The U-Boat now had had enough and she crash-dived do quickly that her propeller was revealed. She appeared to have headed back to her base on the Belgian coast.

The aftermath of the action provided a salutary lesson. The wind fell. The Telesia was becalmed and she would have been a sitting target had she been taken under gunfire. It was decided thereafter that all Q-smacks would be thereafter be equipped with auxiliary oil engines.

UC Class boat similar to that involved in the Cheero action 23rd April 1916

Telesia was again in action off the East Anglian coast a month later, on April 23^rd, with her name changed to Hobbyhawk. She was now operating in company with a similar smack, the Cheero. In place of normal trawl nets these craft were towing 600 yards of nets with mines attached and this reduced their speed to 3 knots. They were now also equipped with rudimentary hydrophones, listening devices that could pick up the characteristic “whirring” sound of a submerged U-Boat running on electric motors. At 1900 hrs just such a sound was detected and both crews knew that a U-Boat was now stalking them. The tension must have been almost unbearable. 45 minutes passed, and then the Cheero’s towing wire suddenly went taut, then eased, then went taut again as if an enmeshed vessel below was fighting to free herself.  An underwater explosion followed, throwing up a 20 ft plume and moments later there was a second, larger, explosion which left traces of oil on the surface. The hydrophones confirmed that the whirring had ceased but confirmation of the kill could only come when the net was hauled in. One of the net-mines had exploded and pieces of steel were entangled in the mesh. It was concluded that the second explosion resulted from detonation of the cargo of mines carried by the submarine herself. It later emerged that this vessel was UC-3. 

The Telesia/Hobbyhawk was to see yet more action less than a month later, on May 13^th when she had a hot but indecisive battle with another U-Boat. Other such vessels were to have equally dramatic encounters, all the more dangerous as the Germans became familiar with the tactics involved and as larger U-Boats replaced the UB and UC vessels. These were more heavily-armed, typically with a 4.1-in deck gun that outranged anything the smacks could carry.

Thomas Crisp V.C. - indomitable

In retrospect it seems irresponsible to have kept the smacks in service and a particularly high price was to be paid in 1917 by the smacks Nelson and Ethel and Milly (a single vessel). On August 15^th these craft were taken under fire by a U-Boat. Fire was returned – hopelessly in view of the range differences – and the Nelson was overwhelmed. Thomas Crisp, her skipper, was seriously wounded but he ordered resistance to continue as the vessel settled. With only five rounds remaining he ordered “Abandon Ship”, pigeons to be released with information on the position (a pigeon being the only form of communication available, as no radio was carried) and his son Tom to take charge of the ship’s boat. Crisp refused to be moved as he was too badly wounded – indeed in the message he dictated for the pigeons he stated “Skipper Killed”. He went down with his ship. The Ethel and Millie had also went down fighting and her seven-man crew were hauled aboard the German submarine, where the Nelson survivors last saw them standing in line being addressed by a German officer. They were never seen again, and controversy exists regarding their disappearance. Opinion at the time was that they were murdered and dumped overboard by the German crew or abandoned at sea without supplies, but neither theory can be substantiated. Another possibility was that they were taken prisoner aboard the boat and killed when the submarine was herself sunk.

The Nelson’s boat and her survivors were picked up by a British ship. Skipper Thomas Crisp was awarded a well-deserved posthumous Victoria Cross and his son received a Distinguished Service Medal.

What has been described here is only a small part of the work undertaken by these tiny vessels and their indomitable crews. The courage and tenacity demanded of these men was of the highest degree and in pure economic terms the kills they achieved must have been the cheapest ever recorded in anti-submarine warfare. The smacks which survived the war returned to their normal peacetime pursuits. One of the last of these splendid vessels was the Telesia herself, which was still in service in 1935 when she was chosen to represent her home-port of Lowestoft at the Silver Jubilee Naval Review at Spithead.

The Telesia - again under her own name - still in service in the 1930s

August 1st 1914: Germany’s doomed nomads

Today August 1^st, one hundred years ago in 1914, Germany also ordered mobilisation and declared war on Russia, a step that made war with France inevitable, and so also drawing in Britain.

In my previous blog this week I described the movement of the Royal Navy’s First Fleet – later called the Grand Fleet – to its wartime stations on July 29^th  even before war was declared. Today I want to cover the makings of a disaster for the Imperial German Navy that had all the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. This was made unavoidable by deployment of vessels outside German waters, but with inadequate logistic and maintenance support, just before war broke out. The vast majority of German’s naval strength was concentrated in bases on the North Sea and in the Baltic, with the Kiel Canal offering easy movement between them. In the first months of the sea war that was just about to break out the most dramatic events were however not associated with these areas but with smaller German forces elsewhere.

German Colonial Troops: East Africa (L) South West Africa (R)

Germany had only recently acquired colonies worldwide, the largest being in South West Africa (modern Namibia), Tanganyika (modern Tanzania) and Northern New Guinea (now part of Papua-New Guinea). Smaller colonies were Togo and Cameroons in West Africa, a number of Pacific Island groups (the Bismarck Archipelago, Solomons, Marianas, Carolines, Marshalls and German Samoa) as well as a naval base on land leased from the Chinese government at Tsingtao (now Quingdao) on the  coast of the Yellow Sea. Extensive as some of these territories were in area the degree of German settlement in them was very limited – the total German population in them may have been lower than the number of German citizens then living in France.

Schematic view of Tsingtao base, 1906

Heavy investment has been made by Germany in cruisers suited to overseas deployment, not only for colonial protection but for “guerre de course”, operations against enemy merchant shipping. The weakness of this global strategy was however that German lacked the network of bases and coaling stations required to keep such vessels at sea for long periods. Tsingtao represented the only fortified base and the anchorages at the various German colonies between the homeland and China were essentially undefended and indefensible. The problem was not significant in peacetime, when German vessels could take on coal and supplies at third-party ports, but under wartime conditions the situation was likely to deteriorate. Reliance was placed on supplying coal by merchant colliers impressed into naval service and rendezvousing with German warships either at sea or at remote locations. The process of transferring coal was a laborious one at the best of times and doubly so in open waters, when weather could prelude it completely. Radio was still in its infancy and the ranges for transmission and reception were still low, taking coordination of such logistics all but impossible. The necessity and availability of maintenance facilities, including dry docks or floating docks, was not addressed.

Coaling - a brutally laborious and filthy operation in which the entire crew was involved

In the opening months of the war the German overseas naval forces – which were not insignificant - were to be swept from the map, though not, in some cases, without inflicting substantial losses on their adversaries. In retrospect however the strategy involved can be seen to have been doomed to failure and the surprising fact is that the inherent weaknesses were not recognised beforehand.

What then were the German overseas deployments on the eve of war with Britain?

In the Mediterranean:  

The 25,300 ton battlecruiser Goeben and the 5,590 ton light cruiser Breslau. Unable to leave the Mediterranean once war with Britain meant escape via Gibraltar or the Suez Canal being blocked, the only alternative was to run for Turkey, which was likely to shelter them. The consequences of this decision changed the history and power-balances in the Middle East and the consequences are still with us today.

SMS Goeben, later to be the Turkish Yavuz - a ship that changed history

In the Pacific:

The German East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron the largest and most powerful German naval force overseas and was the only one to have a  fortified base – Tsingtao – to fall back on. This squadron was however outnumbered from the start by British, French, Russian and, most decisively, Japanese fleets in the area. Early moves by Britain and its ally Japan to besiege Tsingtao, which in due course they were to capture, showed that no reliance could be placed on retaining it as a base. The squadron was in due course to cross the Pacific, fighting a successful battle with British forces on the way, at Colonel, off Chile, and to break into the Southern Atlantic. Here it was to be met, and destroyed, at the Falkland Islands by superior British forces.

SMS Scharnhorst in action at the Battle of Coronel, November 1st 1914

The squadron consisted of the following: the sister 12,781 ton armoured cruisers Scharnhorst & Gneisenau, the 3,756 ton light cruiser Leipzig, the light cruiser 3,814 ton Nürnberg, the 4,268ton light cruiser Emden, later sent for commerce raiding in the Indian Ocean. This latter proved especially successful in her role, though in due course she too was run down and destroyed. The small old 1,590 ton gunboat, Geier, was at Singapore but she managed to escape to Hawaii, where she was interned, being taken into US service as the USS Schurz in 1917.

SMS Geier - with an unexpected career ahead of her in the United States Navy!

In the Atlantic:

The 14,349 ton passenger liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was operating as an “armed merchant cruiser”, carrying six 4.1-in guns. This gigantic 650-ft long vessel, launched in 1897, was one of the largest liners launched up to that time and had held the “Blue Riband” for a fast Atlantic crossing. Fuel-hungry, unarmoured and massively under-armed it is hard to see how she could ever have been expected to operate independently, or to be able to survive battle with even a small warship . In the event she could not – and was sunk within a month by an obsolete British cruiser.

Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse: beautiful, fast and wholly
unsuited for what she was called upon to do in 1914

In the Caribbean:

The new and fast 6,191 ton light cruiser Karlsrühe, was to operate with some success against British merchant shipping until she was destroyed by an accidental internal explosion.

The 4,268 ton light cruiser Dresden was sent initially to the South Atlantic, then over into the Pacific, to join Admiral von Spee’s East Asia Squadron.

SMS Karlsruhe: modern, fast, deadly - and doomed

Off East Africa:

The 3,814 ton light cruiser Königsberg was to sink an old British cruiser, HMS Pegasus, before taking refuge in the swamps of Tanganyika’s Rufigi Delta. Destroying her there was to require mobilisation of a massive British naval force.

SMS Konigsberg before East African deployment

With the exception of the newly built Karlsrühe, the light cruisers were all generally similar, though belonging to several different classes. Length was typically some 380 ft. The oldest, the Leipzig, had been launched in 1905 and they were “protected cruisers”, with their machinery and magazines located beneath a sloped armoured deck and typically in the 3,000-4,000 ton displacement. Only Dresden and Karlsrühe were powered by turbines, the others having reciprocating engines. Power was in the 12,000 to 15,000 ihp range and the maximum speeds were, nominally, ranged from 22 to 25 knots. Given the long periods these ships were to spend at sea performance was to be considerably lower. This was a major factor when the East Asiatic Squadron was to be chased, and run down, by British forces in the Battle of the Falklands. It is notable that only the Dresden was able to show her enemies a clean set of heels in this action so as to survive a few months longer. Ten 4.1” guns (12 in the Karlsrühe) was the standard armament, plus  two submerged 18” torpedo tubes.

SMS Dresden - seen at New York in 1909

The 12,781 ton armoured cruisers, Scharnhorst & Gneisenau, were much more formidable vessels, both launched in 1906, 470 ft. long and carrying heavy side armour. Considered “Crack gunnery ships”, they were armed with eight 8.2” guns, six 5.9”, eighteen 3.4 “ plus smaller weapons. They carried four submerged torpedo tubes. Their performance against a weak British squadron at Coronel, off the Chilean coast, was to be lethally efficient and when confronted with ships more powerful than themselves at the Falklands, they were to die very hard indeed.

Battle of the Falklands, December 8th 1914
SMS Scharnhorst sinking in the foreground, Gneisenau, behind, will survive a little longer

By the end of 1914 only Dresden still survived, hiding in Pacific island anchorages and doomed, like her sisters, to destruction  few months later.

SMS Emden - Germany's most successful surface raider
Feared and admired

Germany’s overseas naval forces had fought well, and had inflicted some damage, but they were, from the start, doomed by faulty strategy. It is notable that they waged a "clean war", being scrupulous in holding to the accepted laws of war of the time and did their utmost to avoid civilian casualties on the merchant ships they captured. Captain Mueller of the Emden was hailed as a chivalrous foe in Britain and there was similar respect for Admiral von Spee, commander of the East Asiatic Squadron. It was only with the advent of submarine warfare that a new savagery became a feature of the conflict.

It was nearer home, in the North Sea, and in the U-Boat haunted wastes of the North Atlantic, that Germany’s real naval war was to be fought. It was going to be merciless and unrelenting, with no time for chivalry or compassion, a foretaste of even worse to come a quarter century later.

The idealised German image of last defiance at the Falklands
- the reality was little different. These men died hard and heroically.

The Loss of the Kent, 1825, and its immortalisation in verse

The Kent by William J. Huggins 1825   

Ship losses at sea, though still at an unacceptably high level today, were even more frequent in the days before radio, radar, echo-sounders and others aids to navigation. Loss of life in such incidents was very high, since before the advent of air travel all overseas passenger travel was by ship. In the age of sail the most passenger ships were small – well under 200 ft long and 1500 tons – not because large sail-driven ships could not be built, but because of the requirement for very large crews. Despite such vessel sizes, and when sailing technology was mature, as in the 19^th Century, huge numbers of passengers were carried. It is hard to imagine today the degree of overcrowding, discomfort, poor sanitation and lack of privacy which was involved, especially on long voyages. The hazards of the sea included not only adverse weather – with its attendant sea-sickness – but, most dreaded of all, fire.

These separate factors came together very dramatically in 1825 in the case of the Kent, and the incident aroused such interest that even decades later it was to be immortalised in poetry – of which more anon.

The Kent was a typical representative of the fleet of ships – “East Indiamen” – operated by Britain’s East India Company for trade between Europe, India and China. The Suez Canal had not been constructed in this era (it was to open in 1869) and the voyages involved were as a consequences considerably longer than they would be today. Launched in 1820, the Kent was 133 ft. long overall and was of 1330 tons burden. Her crew was some 140 – an indication of just how many men were required to operate a sailing vessel of this size. One can see how attractive steam propulsion was to be in due course because of the reduction in crew requirements. It should be noted that this figure of 140 applied before a single passenger came on board.

The years 1821 to 1824 were occupied by the Kent in two successful trading voyages to China. These were of long duration – on the first the Kent left England in March 14^th 1821 and reached the Whampoa anchorage (between Canton and Macau) on September 24^th, having had intermediate stops at Bombay and Singapore.

Whampoa circa 1810

It was on the Kent’s third voyage that disaster struck. Sailing as before under Captain Henry Cobb, she was now contracted to carry troops, and their families, to India. These belonged to the 31st (Huntingtonshire) Regiment of Foot, originally formed in 1702. In addition to her own 148-man crew the Kent set out from England with 20 officers and 344 soldiers of the regiment,  43 women and  66 children accompanying the, and 20 private passengers. With a voyage of some three months ahead of her the Kent was carrying a total of 641 persons within her 133 ft. length. Cows or goats were also likely to have been carried to provide fresh milk. The conditions must have been insufferable by modern standards, even though they were considered normal at the time.

The Kent sailed from Gravesend in mid-February and on March 1^st was encountering heavy weather in the Bay of Biscay. Choosing what appears to have been an inopportune moment for such an activity, one of the ship’s officers engaged in checking the spirits in the hold. A sudden lurch by the ship knocked his lantern from his hand at the same time as a loose cask burst open. The spirits took light and the fire spread so rapidly that abandoning ship must now be considered. Now another hazard of the era presented itself – no vessel of the period carried sufficient lifeboats, a situation that was only finally to be resolved almost  a century later after the loss of the Titanic.

There appears to have been no panic – as was also to happen in 1845 when troops stood quietly in ranks on the sinking Birkenhead so as to allow women and children get away in the boats. Military discipline prevailed. The official report was later to state that “In the midst of dangers against which it seemed hopeless to struggle-at a time when no aid appeared, and passively to die was all that remained, each man displayed the manly resignation, the ready obedience, and the unfailing discipline characteristics of a good soldier."

The situation was at its most hopeless when fate intervened.

The Kent on fire - by William Daniell

A small 200-ton brigantine, the Cambria, commanded by a Captain Cook, happened to be in the vicinity and sighted the Kent's distress signal. She carried a crew of 11 men and some 20 Cornish miners, all of whom threw themselves wholeheartedly into rescue efforts, disregarding the fact that the Kent’s powder magazine might explode at any moment. The soldiers behaved equally admirably, some tying children to their backs and swimming with them to safety. The Kent’s crew appears to have behaved less well. Some, having got away by boat, refused to return for their shipmates. Only the threat by the Cambria’s captain not to take them on board induced them to change their minds.

By the evening, the Cambria had taken some 550 survivors aboard – it must have been a case of “standing room only”. Another vessel, the Caroline, now also arrived and managed to take off 14 survivors. In the early hours of the following morning the Kent exploded her, the shock apparently encouraging a soldier’s wife, now safe on the Cambria, to give birth.

Rescue attempts. Note the Cambria in the background - by Thomas M.M. Hemy

Both the Cambria and the Caroline now turned for England, where the survivors were landed safely. Despite the heroic rescue efforts the loss of life was still high –  81 in total, of whom 54 were soldiers and 20 children. It is pleasing to note that the miners and others associated with the rescue received silver medals in recognition of their courage.

The Kent disaster was probably made more newsworthy at the time by the providential rescue. Several artists painted their own versions of the event. Those by William Daniell and Thomas Marie Madawaska Hemy are quite horrific as they depict transfer of personnel between the burning Kent and already-laden boats.

The loss of the Kent was to be immortalised several decades later by the famous and prolific Scots poet, William McGonnagal (1825-1902). It was indeed through perusal of the McGonnagal anthology “Poetic Gems” that I first learned of the incident. The poem, a delight for all lovers of the English language, is too long to reproduce in full but the following verses hint at its flavour and its quality.

 McGonnagal sets the scene:

She carried a crew, including officers, of 148 men,

And twenty lady passengers along with them;

Besides 344 men of the 31st Regiment,

And twenty officers with them, all seemingly content.

Also the soldiers' wives, which numbered forty-three,

And sixty-six children, a most beautiful sight to see;

And in the year of 1825, and on the 19th of February,

The ship 'Kent' sailed from the Downs right speedily,

While the passengers' hearts felt light with glee.

The cause of the accident is graphically described:

And they discovered a spirit cask and the contents oozing rapidly,

And the man with the light stooped to examine it immediately;

And in doing so he dropped the lamp while in a state of amaze,

And, oh horror! in a minute the forehold was in a blaze.

It was two o'clock in the morning when the accident took place,

And, alas! horror and fear was depicted in each face;

And the sailors tried hard to extinguish the flame,

But, oh Heaven! all their exertions proved in vain.

The situation deteriorated still further:

And women and children rushed to the deck in wild despair,

And, paralysed with terror, many women tore their hair;

And some prayed to God for help, and wildly did screech,

But, alas! poor souls, help was not within their reach.

Help was on the way however:

Then the vessel came to their rescue, commanded by Captain Cook,

And he gazed upon the burning ship with a pitiful look;

She proved to be the brig 'Cambria,' bound for Vera Cruz,

Then the captain cried, 'Men, save all ye can, there's no time to lose.'

Then the sailors of the 'Cambria' wrought with might and main,

While the sea spray fell on them like heavy rain;

First the women and children were transferred from the 'Kent'

By boats, ropes, and tackle without a single accident.

Should the reader want more – or indeed be interested in learning about numerous other 19^th Century disasters, battles or public events described by McGonnagal in heroic verse, I can heartily recommend his “Poetic Gems”.

A Sultan, a Queen and a Salvage

It’s hard to imagine a sequence of events that links an Ottoman Sultan, Queen Victoria, the Royal Navy of 1889, an innovative epic of marine salvage and an 1870s warship which served in various capacities until the end of the Second World War. The link is however the ironclad HMS Sultan, built between 1870 and 1876.

HMS Sultan in her early career

I was spurred to research and write this article by my recent reading the memoirs of the great Royal Navy gunnery expert of the pre-World War period, Admiral Sir Percy Scott (1853-1924) - seen here in mid-career - who played a peripheral role in the story. I will quote directly from him later in this article.

HMS Sultan was of 9290 tons and 325 feet long. A single-shaft 7720 HP engine drove her at a maximum 14 knots under steam but could only make 6 knots under sail. She was designed to carry her guns in a centrally-placed armoured-box battery, as will be seen in the contemporary diagram below which shows the battery’s two levels. The armament consisted of eight 10-inch and four 9-inch rifled muzzle-loaders. The weapons on the main deck guns provided broadside fire, with limited ahead fire from the foremost gun on each side, while those on the upper deck provided additional broadside fire and also could fire astern, by traversing the after gun on a turntable. Side armour – as seen in blue on the diagram – was up to 9 inches thick. The ship, and her armour, were all of iron as steel was not yet the preferred construction material.

HMS Sultan's layout (from Brassey's "The British Navy", 1882)

The Sultan was named in honour of the Ottoman Sultan, Abdülaziz, who admired Western progress and who hoped to reform and develop his empire as a modern state. A cultured man, he was the first Ottoman sultan to visit Western Europe; his trip included a visit to England, where he was honoured by Queen Victoria by a Royal Navy Fleet Review, during which he was invested with the Order of the Garter. A further gesture of respect was the subsequent naming of HMS Sultan in his honour. It should be remembered that in this period the Ottoman Empire was regarded by Britain as a bulwark against a Russian threat to communication with India and its friendship was accordingly highly valued. (Readers of my novel Britannia’s Wolf will appreciate this!)

Queen Victoria investing the Sultan with the Order of the Garter, 1867
The location is the deck of the Royal yacht

HMS Sultan was indeed to be of service of the Ottoman Empire, but after the death of Abdülaziz. This service occurred in early 1878 when the Sultan was part of  British Squadron which moored off Istanbul at the moment, at the end of the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War, when the victorious Russian armies had reached the city’s suburbs and were about to enter. This was unacceptable for Britain and the presence of the Royal Navy squadron showed determination to go to war with Russia to prevent it. Thus confronted, the Russians backed down and peace was made with the Ottomans.

British squadron, including HMS Sultan, steaming up
the Dardanelles to Istanbul, early 1878

Much of the Sultan’s active service was to be in the Mediterranean and in 1882 she was to participate in the bombardment of Alexandria, sustaining casualties of two killed and eight wounded from a single hit on her battery.

The most dramatic events in her life were to commence in March 1889. At this point I hand over to Sir Percy Scott, who was then serving on HMS Edinburgh at the time and who tells the story much better than I can:

Quote

It was on the 6th March, 1889, that H.M.S. Sultan, while practising firing torpedoes, struck on a rock in the Comino Channel. Every endeavour to tow her off failed, and seven days afterwards, during a northerly gale, she was washed off the rock and sank in 42 feet of water. An examination of the hull of the vessel by divers revealed that the damages sustained were so excessive that all hope of getting her up was abandoned. The Admiralty offered £50,000 to anyone who would raise her and bring her into a harbour, but the representatives of two or three firms who had a look at her agreed in regarding the task as impossible.

HMS Sultan initially aground, attempts to pump her out in progress,
prior to being washed off the rock

Two months later, a French engineer, named Chambon, who was employed in the Corinth Canal, paid her a visit and, to the surprise of everyone, expressed an opinion that she could be raised quite quickly. A contract was at once made with the Admiralty by which they were to pay £50,000 if the Sultan was in Malta Harbour before the end of the year

Speculation was rife as to how many men-of-war M. Chambon would require to assist him, and how much plant he would bring. He required no help, and arrived in a tiny steamer called the Utile, with a total crew of twelve, six of whom were divers. The only plant he brought was brains.

He started work on the 24th June by cautiously blasting away such rocks as were too close to- the ship's side to enable the work to be undertaken on the holes that had been discovered. The task of closing up the larger fractures in the ship’s bottom was then begun and one by one the holes were sealed up in the- following ingenious manner.

From templates taken by the divers of the curvature of the ship’s bottom in the vicinity of the hole, a wooden frame was prepared.  This was sent down, and the divers secured it round the hole. Across this frame planks were nailed, and as each plank was put in its, place, the space between it and the plating was -filled in with a mixture of bricks, mortar, and cement, and thus a solid sheathing was formed over the hole.

The excellence of this work can be seen from the pictures on the opposite page (reproduced here); it was a master-piece of diving skill. Meanwhile the work of making watertight the upper deck, including hatchways, ports, and ventilators, was proceeded with, and the various pumps put on board by the dockyard were got ready for pumping her out. At the end of a month, on the 27th July, all the holes were sealed up, the pumps were started, and the ship was lifted. Unfortunately a gale of wind sprang up. The Sultan sank again and in striking the bottom, did more damage to the hull.

This disheartening occurrence only strengthened M. Chambon's indomitable energy. Directly the weather moderated, the divers went down, repaired the hull and on the17th August the pumps were started and the Sultan floated.

Then followed catastrophe number two. While she was being moved, the ship was caught by the current and knocked up against a rock, displacing a patch. She filled, and sank for the third time.

The reports of the divers as to the extent of the damage done by this third sinking were very discouraging; but nothing would deter M. Chambon from completing his work. Renewed energy was put into it, and, nine days afterwards, on the 26th August, the Sultan was up again and towed into Malta harbour. I was in charge of a large party of men from the Edinburgh to assist in docking and clearing her.

The ship must have been splendidly built. After sinking three times and being on the bottom for six months, she showed no signs of structural weakness. As the water was pumped out, we turned the engines and trained the guns, which showed she was not out of line. In a month or two she steamed home.

Unquote

This superb achievement was only made possible by the availability of Standard Diving Dress, which was cutting edge technology of the time. The techniques employed were innovative at the time and were to become standard in the salvage industry thereafter.

After arriving back in Portsmouth the Sultan underwent modernisation and repair, at a rather leisurely rate, until 1896, losing her masts and yards in the process. Of little fighting capability she stayed in reserve to 1906.

HMS Sultan post-modernisation

Scott’s remark that the Sultan “must have been splendidly built” appeared in his memoirs in 1919. By then her large and robust hull had been used, under different names, as an artificers' training ship and as a mechanical repair ship.  When Scott wrote she still had over a quarter-century’s service ahead of her as she was to be employed as a depot ship for minesweepers at Portsmouth during World War 2, being finally scrapped until in 1947.

And what of Sultan Abdülaziz? His passion for modernisation led to mounting public debt and he was deposed by his ministers on May 30^th 1876. He was dead five days later, allegedly by suicide. The method reported – getting hold of scissors in his tower prison cell and managing to cut his two wrists at once – sounded unlikely in the extreme and it is widely believed to have been murdered.

The ship named in his honour was to outlive this tragic figure by seventy-one years.

Britannia’s Reach by Antoine Vanner

"Britannia’s reach is not just political or military alone. What higher interest can there be than consolidation of Britain’s commercial interests?” So says one of the key figures in this novel, which centres on the efforts of a British-owned company  to reassert control of its cattle-raising investment in Paraguay, following a revolt by its workers.

This story of desperate riverine combat brings historic naval fiction into the age of Fighting Steam.

Click here to read the opening