THE MEN OF THE TRAWLER FLEET

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 79, 28 December 1918, Page 6

THE MEN OF THE TRAWLER FLEET

AN APPRECIATION. An interesting account of the very important part played by British deep-sea fishermen in the fight against the piratical submarine is given by a contributor to "The Times Literary Supplement" in a review of Mr. Walter Wood's recent work on "Fishermen in Wav-Time." In her fishing fleets Great Britain had just the right raw material for tho making of a machine, to defeat the German underwater Attack, and the brains to make the machine efl'ectivo were duly found. Ships and men adapted themselves readily to new tasks. The deep-sea fishermen in particular were n. reserve as highly trained in their own way as the reserve land forces of the military powers; they understood, the management of ships and their gear. Netting of submarines nud trawlers for mines meant for them no great change of method. "When a large drifter's 'fleet' of herring-nets was successfully shot it formed a wall of netting in tho'sea which was moro than two miles long, and extended about 30ft.,below tho water. The successful handling of these nets required great, experience and skill on the part of "the skipper and his crew." According to Mr. Wood it waa the fishermen themselves who first suggested tho possibility of netting submarines. Many of them had had their propellers fouled bv fishing nets, and they knew what fouling entailed. They had constantly handled a mile-long steel wire, with all its appurtenancos, and so they hnd long been mine-sweepers in embryo without knowing it. Above all, they were disciplined men. accustomed to work under an admiral of their own. One of theiw admirals might, command ns iuanr as fifty vessels. At his signal tho crewn woul<J loffo one ground for another, shoot <ff «;?} their trawls, and board their 'i : ,ras because tho men of the fishing Hefts had learned lo command and obey that; they came to contribute 2.500 skippers fo Iho R.N.R. and 100,000 fishermen to the Navy. Their special work wns to keep the sea free of mines and to trap submarines, and splendidly they performed fhpir task. No fewor than five of these fishermen won the V.C.