THE “ BRUSSELS ” PASSES

Hokitika Guardian, 20 September 1929, Page 2

THE “ BRUSSELS ” PASSES

A FAMOUS SHIP, (By R. H. Gibson in “The Navy.”)

An old ship lying in a 'shipbreaker’s yard is a. melancholy sight, at any time. When the worn-out hulk is that of a famous ship, the flight of years brings its forcible reminder of the inevitable fate awaiting all good ships. To-day, in a corner of Greenock’s docks the famous “Brussels” is undergoing the most undignified process of dismemberment. For the last Lime on April 19th, she brought over her cargo of cattle from Dublin into the port of Preston; and, towards sunset, she started ox her last voyage, to meet her doom. As the shipping at Preston accorded her an impressive farewell on their sirens, mingling their salute with a German steamer in clock, the “Brussels” slipped down the Rhbble, threaded her tortuous way through the dreaded sdud-banks and' shaped her course towards the north. The 'familiar twin funnels disappeared into the haze and gathering darkness, her smoke was swallowed up in the night, the seagulls wheel and scream as they au’ait the ebb of the tide and their evening meal on the uncovered banks. Captain Fryatt’s ship has passed. The “Brussels” was a unit of the Great Eastern Railway’s fleet of packets which plied regularly between Harwich .and 1 the Hook of Holland. On this service she sailed backwards and forwards, year in and year out. Even the outbreak of war did not break the continuity of her sailings. For over six months she carried on, without interference by the enemy.

Then, bn March 28th, 1915, the first shadow of her troublous fate fell across her. Eight miles west from the Maas.Light Vessel, she was sighted by one of Germany’s new submarines, U. 33, which afterwards ravaged shipping in the Mediterranean and even in the Black Sea. Now, masters of merchantmen had received instructions from the Admiralty on the best methods of parrying submarine attack. If the U-boat weie sighted ahead; masters were advised, to steer towards the enemy and force her to submerge, when escape of the ship by flight might succeed. Cap-, tain -Fryatt, responsible for the safety of his non-combatant passengers and crow, unhesitatingly adopted the suggested course; he turxed towards the attacking U-boat and forced her to dive to escape being rammed. When U. 33 broke surface again, the “Brussels” was fast disappearing in a smother of. smoke. v Thenceforward, the “Brussels’’ was a marked ship, and determined efforts to capture the packet were made by the submarines. On June 11 tli Captain Fryatt again eluded a Ü-boa-t and escaped by speed; four days later, the attack was repeated off the 'Sunk Light Vessul; and a fourth attempt to sink her was made on June 29th, when she was 50 miles east of the scene of the last attack. On July 20th, when the “Brussels” was twenty miles to the south of the Inner Gabbard Buoy, Captain Fryatt put his helm hard over to avoid a torpedo coming straight for the ship. A year passed, and then the blow fell. A division of German torpedo boats dashed out of Zeebrugge on June 23rd, 1916, and intercepted her passage. In the face of surface warships, Captain Fryatt was helpless. To cut and run, he dare not; his noncombatant passengers would be mown down with shell fire. So, under an armed guard, she was taken into Zeebrugge and her crew sent to that infamous camp, Ruhleben. For her master, another fate was prepared. Admiral von Sehroeder, of the Marine Corps in Flanders, had already decided . what it should be, even before the mock trial at Bruges. Sentenced to death as a franc-tireur, in spite of urgent protests of the U.S. Ambassador a ; t Berlin, Captain Fryatt was shot on July 27th. This judicial murder was intended to intimidate British masters and prevent them from defending their ships. The plan ignominously failed; and Germany reaped a harvest of world-wide disgust and, horror at their brutality. As for the “Brussels,” she became a depot ship for the Flanders Flotilla. During the famous St. George’s Day attack on Zeebrugge, April 23rd, 1918, she was torpedoed and damaged by the coastal motor boat No. 32A. But, when the Germans began to evacuate the Belgian seaboard, certain German destroyers and submarines were’, lying under repair at Bruges, some miles inland by canal. To ensure that they should not escape, the- übiquitous C.M.B.s, on the night of October 14th, 1918, ran in under heavy fire and sank the “Brussels’ 1 at the entrance to the canal, just .before the last. Germans fled from the town.

By means of compressed air cylinders and barges, she was lifted during the autumn of 1919 and beached at Heyst, where she .was made seaworthy once more. According to law, she was a Belgian prize; she had been abandoned by the enemy in Belgian waters, but as a graceful gesture, the Belgian Government presented the ship to this country as a valued national heirloom. With due formality, she was handed over on April 2ith, 1920. The next stage of her career was an astonishing anti-climax. Put up for public auction, she was only saved from sharing the fate of the River Clyde” (which was sold to foreigners after the war) by the Admiralty Marshal at the last moment. Purchasers