Castles of Steel (142 page)

During the war, Q-ships sank twelve U-boats. A quarter of these were destroyed by Gordon Campbell. When the war began, this stocky, phlegmatic Englishman was a thirty-year-old lieutenant commander in charge of an old destroyer; no one would have picked him out as a future hero. But Campbell went to Q-ships, where his icy nerves and determination to sink submarines resulted, in the words of Rear Admiral William Sims, the senior American naval officer in Europe, in “some of the most admirable achievements in the whole history of naval warfare.” Jellicoe, normally laconic, went further: Campbell and his Q-ships, he said, had “a record of gallantry, endurance and discipline which has never been surpassed afloat or ashore.”

Gordon Campbell sailed on his first Q-ship for nine months before sighting a U-boat. He persevered, using the time to add inventive touches to his ship. Because some merchant ship masters took their wives to sea, Campbell dressed one of his men as a woman and positioned this figure in a chair on the bridge cradling a bundle to represent a baby. His first opponent was
U-68,
which he sank on March 22, 1916. The submarine signaled its presence by firing a torpedo, which missed. Campbell’s reaction was to take no apparent notice and continue his course and speed. “A tramp steamer,” he explained, describing his ship as he hoped the submarine captain had seen it, “could not be expected to know what a torpedo track looked like.” On deck, his crew continued to lounge about, smoking their pipes. Suddenly, the submarine surfaced astern and moved up the port side. Whereupon Campbell sank it.

After that, he had to wait almost another year. On February 17, 1917, Campbell’s Q-ship,
Farnborough,
steaming 100 miles southwest of Queens-town, was struck by a torpedo. Campbell was delighted; he had instructed his ship’s officers that “should the Officer of the Watch see a torpedo coming, he is to increase or decrease speed as necessary to ensure it hitting.” The panic party immediately abandoned ship. Campbell’s adversary, Captain Bruno Hoppe, in
U-83,
was an experienced commander; taking no chances, he remained submerged and conducted a lengthy periscope examination of his target. He first inspected the panic party in its lifeboat; his periscope came so close that one of the men in the lifeboat said to another, “Don’t speak so loud. He’ll hear you.” Then Hoppe circled
Farnborough,
coming so near that Campbell could see the submarine’s hull under the water. Apparently satisfied that the ship was harmless, Hoppe surfaced only 100 yards away. The moment he popped up in his conning tower, the first British shell arrived, decapitating him and dropping his headless body back down into the control room.
U-83,
punctured by forty-five shells, sank quickly, leaving two survivors. Fifteen members of
Farnborough
’s crew were decorated, including Campbell, who was awarded the Victoria Cross. The citation explaining the circumstances could not be made public and it became known as the mystery VC.

Campbell’s third and final triumph occurred on the morning of June 7, 1917, when his Q-ship
Pargust
was struck by a torpedo off the south coast of Ireland. By then, because U-boats were wary and less willing to rise to the surface, some decoy vessels had been fitted with torpedo tubes to use against submerged submarines.
Pargust
was one of these. By now, too, the panic party had further enhanced its dramatic performance: one of Campbell’s officers, playing the part of the ship’s captain, went over the side wearing a bowler hat and carrying a “pet parrot” (stuffed) in a green cage. For thirty minutes, the submarine minelayer
UC-29
circled the ship, conducting a periscope reconnaissance. Campbell waited. When the submarine surfaced, it was fifty yards away. Campbell opened fire with his guns and fired his torpedo, which missed. The U-boat’s engine-room hatch opened and several men came on deck as if to surrender.
Pargust
ceased fire but when the U-boat started to move again, apparently attempting to escape, the Q-ship resumed firing. The German sailors on the submarine’s deck were swept off by a wave. More shots were fired and suddenly, the U-boat blew up—her own mines had exploded. After the action, when Campbell was asked to recommend honors for his men, he replied that he could not single out individuals; the crew’s bravery had been collective. Accordingly, the king bestowed two Victoria Crosses on the ship to be awarded to one officer and one seaman, chosen by a secret ballot of their peers.

The summer of 1917 marked the end of this dangerous game. In August 1917, six Q-ships were lost, and thereafter no German submarine was destroyed by a mystery ship. U-boat commanders were too suspicious to come close enough for Q-ship guns to reach them. The U-boats were now equipped with fourteen to sixteen torpedoes, so it was safer for U-boat captains to torpedo merchant ships without coming to the surface.

Before the end came, however, the most extraordinary of all Q-ship battles was fought. Not surprisingly, the captain of the British ship in this action was Gordon Campbell. On the morning of August 8, 1917, his 3,000-ton Q-ship
Dunraven,
disguised as an armed merchant vessel, was quietly plowing the Bay of Biscay, offering herself to submarine attack. Besides the small gun visible on her stern—appropriate to an armed merchantman—
Dunraven
also concealed four heavier guns, two underwater torpedo tubes, and four depth charges. About eleven o’clock, a surfaced U-boat appeared on the distant horizon, saw
Dunraven,
turned in her direction, and submerged. Campbell, playing the victim, began doing an occasional indifferent zigzag and ordered heavy funnel smoke as if he were attempting to escape; at the same time, he actually reduced speed to allow his enemy to close. Forty-five minutes later,
U-61
rose from the sea less than two miles away and opened fire with her deck gun. When one of the shells landed in the water near the engine room, Campbell released a huge cloud of steam to suggest a boiler hit; this was a trick achieved with specially installed perforated pipes designed to release bursts of steam on the captain’s command.
Dunraven,
playing a distressed armed merchantman, returned the U-boat’s fire with her unconcealed stern gun, making certain that all shots missed. Meanwhile, on an open frequency the submarine could hear, the “merchant ship” radioed loudly for help.

At 12:25 p.m.
,
when the U-boat was scarcely half a mile away, Campbell ordered, “Abandon ship.”
Dunraven
slowly turned broadside to the submarine so that the German captain could witness the theatrical pandemonium. The panic crew tumbled into the lifeboats, one of which was purposely mishandled in lowering and left behind hanging vertically from one of its davits. Encouraged, the captain of
U-61
closed warily and continued firing. Suddenly, a shell hit
Dunraven
’s stern, landing amid a concentration of hidden guns, ammunition, depth charges, and men. A depth charge exploded, tossing the small after gun into the air. Two more German shells crashed into the stern, producing flames and clouds of black smoke. The magazine and the remaining depth charges all being in the stern, it was obvious to Campbell that a larger explosion was coming. The crew of the secret 4-inch gun placed immediately above the magazine also knew the danger but remained motionless.
U-61
passed around the stern from port to starboard less than 500 yards away, but the black smoke pouring from the Q-ship’s burning stern made it impossible for the British gunners to aim. In two minutes, the U-boat would be absolutely clear, presenting a perfect target. Campbell had to choose between opening fire under difficult conditions or leaving his men immobile in grave danger until the submarine was in the clear. As Campbell saw it, it was his duty and that of his crew to wait. He waited. They waited.

As
U-61
was passing close astern of
Dunraven,
two depth charges blew up in what even the stolid Campbell described as “a terrific explosion.” The concealed 4-inch gun and its gun crew were hurled along the deck, along with many unexploded shells. Remarkably, the men all lived. The U-boat, warned by the size of the explosion that it was confronting a Q-ship, performed a crash-dive and disappeared. Campbell now knew that soon he would be torpedoed. Still, with his ship crippled and stationary, the after deck a mass of flames, the magazine not yet exploded, and a torpedo certain, Campbell, intent on sinking his enemy, radioed all potential assistance to keep away.

At 1:20 p.m.
,
a torpedo struck
Dunraven
’s starboard side. The ruse of merchant seamen abandoning ship had already been exhausted. But a roaring fire now engulfed the greater part of the vessel and there is a moment when even a Q-ship must be abandoned. Hoping that the German captain would believe that this moment had arrived, Campbell gave the order “Abandon ship” for the second time. A second panic party, organized impromptu, went over the side into rafts. Still, twenty-three men remained on board: the gun crews of the two working guns still concealed, the men at the two torpedo tubes, the ship’s doctor, nine wounded men, and four men lying prone on the bridge. One of them was Campbell.

U-61
rose to the surface. Was the burning ship finally abandoned or not? Uncertain, the submarine fired a few more shells into the wreck and then submerged. For forty-five minutes, showing only its periscope, the U-boat circled its listing, burning victim. During this time, the fire on
Dunraven
grew larger and boxes of gunpowder and 4-inch shells began exploding in the flames. At 2:30 p.m.
,
the U-boat surfaced a few hundred yards directly astern of the Q-ship, where no gun could bear on her. For twenty minutes, more shells were fired into the stricken ship. The men on board remained motionless.

At 2:50 p.m.
,
U-61
ceased fire, submerged, and moved past
Dunraven
’s port side at a distance of only 150 yards. Campbell, his ship burning and sinking, decided to wait no longer. Only a small part of the submarine’s periscope was visible but it was enough to reveal depth and position. At 2:55 p.m.
,
he fired a torpedo. Unfortunately, his ship was listing and his aim was spoiled. The bubbles passed just ahead of the periscope and the U-boat, unaware, came slowly around to the starboard side. Given a second chance, Campbell fired his second torpedo. This time, he and others heard a metallic clang: the torpedo had made contact, but had failed to explode. The submarine captain heard the same thing and promptly dived deep, gave up the battle, and returned to Germany. Campbell now genuinely signaled for help and an American armed yacht and two British destroyers arrived to rescue his crew.
Dunraven
was taken in tow, but that night, her White Ensign flying, she foundered. Two members of her crew, a lieutenant and a petty officer, were awarded the Victoria Cross. Gordon Campbell, in lieu of a second Victoria Cross, was given a bar to his first. This, along with his Distinguished Service Order with two bars, made him the most highly decorated man in the Royal Navy during the Great War.

By the time of
Dunraven
’s epic battle, help was coming from America. At the end of March 1917, Rear Admiral William S. Sims, the president of the U.S. Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, was ordered to report immediately and secretly to Washington. He was not to appear at the Navy Department, but to contact his superiors by telephone. In this manner, Sims learned that United States probably would soon be at war with Germany and that he was to leave at once for England, where he was to coordinate American cooperation with the Royal Navy. Sims sailed for England as “Mr. S. W. Davidson,” wearing civilian clothes and carrying no uniform in his luggage. His American steamship struck a mine as it approached Liverpool; the passengers were transferred to another vessel and reached England safely on April 9. There, “Mr. Davidson” was met by a special train and hurried to London. By then, his alias was unnecessary; three days earlier, Congress had declared war on Germany.

William Sims, a tall, erect, white-haired man born in Canada, became an American, entered the navy, and made his name as a gunnery specialist. He had been Inspector of Target Practice and had commanded the battleship
Minnesota
and then a flotilla of destroyers before going to the War College. The obvious reason for sending Sims to Britain was that five years earlier he had made a speech in London that at the time seemed likely to blight his career. At the Guildhall in 1910, then Captain Sims had promised the Lord Mayor and a large audience that in the event of a war with Germany, Britain could “rely upon the last ship, the last dollar, the last man, and the last drop of blood of her kindred beyond the sea.” For this bit of unauthorized, public Anglophilia, Sims had received a direct reprimand from President Taft. Now, however, when a senior officer was needed to coordinate planning with the British navy, Sims’s enthusiasm was remembered favorably. Not all American officers shared his views. Before Sims left Washington, the navy’s senior admiral, William S. Benson, Chief of Naval Operations, admonished him, “Don’t let the British pull the wool over your eyes. It’s none of our business pulling their chestnuts out of the fire. We would as soon fight the British as the Germans.”

In London, Sims found the British public largely oblivious to the danger facing their country. The government had ceased to publish figures for tonnages sunk and the crowds packing the theaters every night were cheerfully ignorant of the fact that only six weeks’ supply of wheat remained in the country. The truth was that the Germans had discovered a way to win the war and were on their way to accomplishing it. Unless the appalling destruction of merchant tonnage could be substantially checked, Britain’s withdrawal from the war was not far off.

On the morning of April 10, Sims called on Jellicoe at the Admiralty. The two men were friends; they had met in China in 1901 and had kept in touch because of their mutual interest in naval gunnery. Sims greatly admired the British admiral. The First Sea Lord, he said, was “a small man, powerful in frame . . . indefatigable . . . profound . . . simple and direct . . . the idol of the officers and men of the Grand Fleet. . . . Success made him more quiet, soft spoken and dignified. . . . He was all courtesy, all brain . . . approachable, frank, open-minded.” And Jellicoe’s “smooth-shaven face when I met him that morning was, as usual, calm, smiling imperturbable.”