THE MYSTERY SHIRS.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 November 1918, Page 4

THE MYSTERY SHIRS.

COMMANDER SANDERS, V.C. London, Aug 6. ! Sir Eric Geddes has now signified i that the special services in which j Captain Gordon Campbell and Lieu- j teuant-Commander E. W. Sanders (Auckland) won their V.C.’s is at an end. The Germans have found out all about it, and there is no longer any need for secrecy. It is now possible to say some of the things we have known for a long time about the special department of submarine hunting, which is known as “ Q-ing.” Speaking at the Palace Theatre on Sunday night to one of those gatherings of service men of all the Allies, which are held every Sunday under Government auspices, Sir Eric said the Q-boat was a decoy, one of the oldest rusesof war adapted to modern warfare. Such a vessel was known in both the British and American services as a Q.ship. She might be an ordinary old windjammer, or a collier, or a tramp ; but she was something more. His history was that of Q 50. AQ. ship looked like a merchantman,- but on a button being touched she became, with the speed of a quick-change artist, a veritable man-of-war. Q. 50 was an old collier and sailed with sealed orders, which read : “ Submarines are sinking British and American ships in such and such a position. Proceed there forthwith.” Her crew looked like a merchant crew, and a fairly undisciplined lot they appeared, but when they got out to sea a change took place in their aspect. It was in the Atlantic at about 11 o’clock on a summer morning when a submarine was seen from t.lie Q. 50, who started to run away. Her maximum speed was eight knots. Her fires were stoked and volumes of smoke came from her funnel. The order was given by her captain to slow down to seven and then to six knots. A gun was fired—a two and a-half pounder. The submarine overhauled the Q. boat, and shells burst on her tlecks, killing and wounding men. The O. boat held 011, and signalled that a submarine was following and shelling iter, that the crew were about to abandon rhe ship, and asking for help. The signaller in the submarine took in the message. An hour and a halt passed, and the submarine was getting well within range, when a "panic” boat’s crew —a very un-disciplined-looking lot.—left the ship, one sailor taking with him a cage with a parrot in it. A shell from the submarine struck the poop of the Q. 50 and blew one of the guns and the gun’s crew into the air at a time when tbe submarine had only to proceed another 100 yards, and three of the guns ot the Q. 50 would have been trained on her at 400 yards’ range. When it was disclosed that the O. 50 was not what she had pretended to be, but a fighting ship, the captain signalled to the man of war waiting below the horizon, who had answered his first call for assistance, to keep away, for the action was not ended. The submarine fired torpedo after torpedo. To allay the suspicions of the Germans the captain of the decoy again gave the signal to abandon ship, and some of the men jumped overboard ; but the captain, with an officer or two and the picked gun’s crew, still remained hidden, and blew off steam to make lie submarine’s crew think that the toiler, was holed. Completely deceived, the submarine came up. Then shell after shell was fired at her, and she went down, her end being hastened by the fire from the warship which had come up. The fight lasted from 11 in the morning till about 4 in the afternoon. THE BARAI.ONG. The celebrated Baralong, about which the Germans raised such a yell two or three years ago, was really the first of a long line of Q boats. 111 August, 1915, the Baralong caught and sank a U-boat a few hours after the Arabic had been sunk, and while the Germans were shelling a British steamer. The German Government complained that the submarine’s crew had been murdered, that the Baralong flew the American flag, and that there, was nothing in her outward appearance to indicate her warlike character until fire was opened from guns which to that moment had been hidden by screens. The British Government oftered to submit this case to an impartial tribunal at Berlin, but the offer was not accepted. The press lias not been permitted, for obvious reasons, to say anything about Q-boats, but Q-ing has tor the past year or two been the desperate service for which youngofficers have volunteered with avidity. It is perhaps the most desperate work the navy engages in, for ever} 7 bodv on a Q-boat understands thoroughly that if she is defeated in the fight which ensues the whole crew will probably be put to death. The devices and decoys which have been used by German raiders —e.g., the Greif and the Moewe are exactly the sort of thing lhat was developed by the British Navy into very successful Q-ing service.