A TYPICAL WAR BASE
THE last few chapters have dealt mainly with the weapons used in
anti-submarine warfare. We now come to the naval bases on which the
fleets armed with these curious devices were stationed for active
operations.
Around the coasts of the British Isles there were about forty of these
war bases, each with its own patrol flotillas, minesweeping units and
hunting squadrons. The harbours, breakwaters and docks had to be
furnished with stores, workshops, wireless stations, quarters for
officers and men, searchlights, oil-storage tanks, coal bunkers,
magazines, fire equipment, guard-rooms, signal stations, hospitals, pay
offices, dry docks, intelligence centres and all the vitally necessary
stores, machinery and equipment of small dockyards.
To do this in the shortest possible time, and to maintain the supplies
of such rapidly consumed materials as oil fuel, coal, food, paint, rope
and shells for perhaps a hundred ships for an indefinite number of
years, it was often necessary to lay down metals and sidings to connect
the base with the nearest railway system. At many bases secure moorings
had also to be laid by divers, and the channels and fair-ways dredged.
The larger bases also required temporary shore defences, and booms
arranged across the harbour entrances to prevent hostile under-water
attacks.
Then came the problem of finding the personnel. The ships had already
been provided for, but to keep them in fighting condition, and for the
work of administration, it was necessary to have a shore navy behind the
sea-going units. An admiral from the active or retired list was
appointed to each base as the "Senior Naval Officer." Then came
additions to his staff in the persons of executive and engineer
commanders, officers of the Reserve, chaplains, surgeons and paymasters.
With these departmental chiefs came their respective staffs of warrant
officers, petty officers, wireless operators, engine-room artificers,
motor mechanics, shipwrights, carpenters, smiths, naval police,
signalmen, storekeepers, sick berth attendants and parties of seamen.
Finally, a generous supply of printed forms and train-loads of stores.
This then, in brief outline, was the material which went to form the war
bases of the auxiliary, or anti-submarine, fleets. In many cases much
more was required, especially at such important depots as Dover, Granton
and Queenstown. About the permanent dockyards, like Portsmouth,
Devonport and Rosyth, or the Grand Fleet bases, nothing need be said
here, because they do not come within the scope of this book. The same
may also be said of that desolate but wonderful natural anchorage,
_Scapa Flow_, the headquarters of the Grand Fleet in the misty north.
Each of these mammoth naval bases had an auxiliary base for
anti-submarine and minesweeping divisions.
With a knowledge of these essentials a more detailed description of a
typical war base and the work of its staff may prove of interest. Taking
as an example a large depot, supplying all the needs of over a hundred
erstwhile warships, and situated in the centre of the danger zone, we
find a central stone pier on which has been erected a perfect maze of
wood and corrugated iron buildings, with the tall antennae of a wireless
station, a little look-out tower and a gigantic signal mast from which a
line of coloured flags is aflutter in the sea breeze. The shore end of
the pier is shut off from prying eyes by a lofty wooden palisade with
big gates, in one of which is a small wicket. Outside a sentry with
fixed bayonet paces to and fro.
[Illustration: AFTER-DECK OF THE "HYDERABAD"
Showing quick-firing gun on disappearing platform.
_Thornycroft & Co., Ltd._]
[Illustration: AFTER-DECK OF THE "HYDERABAD"
Showing gun raised to firing position.
_Thornycroft & Co., Ltd._]
The first person inside the sacred precincts to greet the stranger is a
keen-eyed "Petty Officer of the Guard." When the credentials have been
examined the visitor is sent under the guidance of a bluejacket to the
"Officer of the Day," whose "cabin" is inside the maze of corrugated
iron and weather-board. The doors flanking the passages traversed
display cryptic lettering, such as I.O. (Intelligence Office), S.R.
(Signal Room), S.N.O. (Senior Naval Officer), "Commander" (usually the
second in command of the base), P.M.S.O. (Port Minesweeping Officer),
C.B.O. (Confidential Book Office), M.L.Com. (Motor Launch Commander),
O.O.W. (Officer of the Watch), "Officers only" (the wardroom and
gunroom combined), and, finally, the O.O.D., or the abode of that
much-worried individual, the Officer of the Day, whose duties happily
terminate when his twenty-four hours of administrative responsibility
are over, only, however, to return in strict rotation.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--The central pier of a typical anti-submarine
naval base. 1. Wardroom. 2. Sec. to senior naval officer. 3. Admiral's
cabin (S.N.O.). 4. Flag commander (or lieutenant). 5. Base intelligence
office. 6. Base commander. 7. Chaplain and gift store. 8. Drafting
officer. 9. Store officer. 10. Chart-issuing office. 11. Cabin of the
officer of the day. 12. Telephone exchange. 13. Warrant officers. 14.
Pay office. 15. Fleet paymaster. 16. Paymasters and asst.-paymasters.
17. Writers and W.R.N.S. 18. Engineer-commander's office. 19. Men's
quarters (for base duties and reserve). 20. Men's recreation room. 21.
Petty officers. 22. Men's mess-room and adjoining galley. 23. Sick-bay.
24. Fleet surgeon. 25. Baths. 26. Baths. 27. Stores. 28. Boom defence
office. 29. King's harbour master. 30. Hull defects office. 31. Police
and cells. 32. Coaling office. 33. Wireless cabin. 34. Guard room. 35.
Railway platform. 36. Sentry box. 37. Cranes. 38. Berths for armed
yachts in harbour. 39. Motor launches in harbour. 40. Drifters. 41.
Patrol trawlers. 42. Minesweepers. 43. Whalers. 44. Coastal motor boats.
Larger ships, such as sloops, destroyers, "P" boats, coaling and
ammunition hulks, lying out in basin.]
Again comes an apologetic examination of credentials, possibly followed
by a few minutes with the admiral commanding, and then the grand tour
commences. First come the ships lying alongside the stone pier, with
their short funnels belching black and very sooty smoke. These are the
"stand-off" units, whose crews are enjoying a brief few hours ashore
after days or weeks out on the dangerous seas beyond. Big drums of oil
are being lowered by ropes on to their decks. The sound of hammering
comes from more than one engine-room, where machinery is being
overhauled. On the decks of several, men with little or no resemblance
to the clean "Jacks" of the naval review are fondly polishing, painting
or greasing the long grey barrels, steel breech mechanism, or the yellow
metal training wheels of guns. Others are cleaning rifles, which have
recently been used with special bullets for sinking floating mines. One
ship is washing down decks after coming in late from night patrol;
another is receiving its three-monthly coat of grey paint; while on to
the deck of a whaler--black and ominous-looking--hundredweights of
provisions in boxes and bags are being lowered from the quay.
Astern of these lie two tiers of light grey spick and span motor
launches, their decks spotlessly white, and their small canvas and glass
screened wheel-houses ill concealing polished brass indicators, Morse
signalling key, electric switches, binnacles and other paraphernalia.
Behind these lie the 40-knot coastal motor boats, like miniature
submarines, with torpedoes in cavities in their aft decks, and little
glass-sheltered steering-wells. Further towards the head of the pier is
a line of big flat Scotch motor drifters, built for rough weather with
9-inch timbers, their decks a maze of wire nets, glass floats and
brick-red chemical canisters.
On the opposite side of the pier, in front of the S.N.O.'s cabin, lies a
big grey yacht with four 12-pounder guns and an anti-aircraft weapon
pointing over the sky-reflecting water. Lying out in the basin are big
minesweepers, looking more like pre-war third-class cruisers, two
slim-looking dark grey destroyers, a dredger and a few nondescript
craft.
Inside the first row of iron sheds are stores, with barrels of tar,
drums of paint, immense coils of rope and a naval "William
Whiteley's"--in which anything from a looking-glass to a ball of string,
or a razor to a dish-cloth, can be obtained in exchange for a signed
form from the Naval Store Officer, whose cabin near by is a maze of
similar forms of all colours.
Then a worried-looking man hurries by and the O.O.D. smiles. "He's the
coaling officer, and there's some twenty ships waiting to get alongside
to take the beastly stuff aboard," is the laconic explanation.
A cabin marked I.O. is entered--every room is a cabin in a naval base.
Here the walls are decorated with innumerable charts with mysterious red
lines. A curious device, with the names of all the ships belonging to
the base painted on wooden slides, reaches across one side. It is the
indicator which shows at a glance the ships at sea and those in harbour,
the names of those under repair, the unit to which each vessel belongs
and when she goes out or comes in for "stand-off."
This is the Intelligence Office, and signals and wireless messages from
the patrols and battle fleets are being almost continuously brought in
and carried out by messengers. The Commanding Officer (C.O.) of a
minesweeper is making inquiries about tides and the exact position on
the chart of a newly located mine-field. Another officer is locking a
black patent-leather dispatch-case--he is the King's Messenger or, more
correctly, the "Admiralty Dispatch Bearer," who carries to and from
London and the fleets all the secret correspondence and memoranda of the
Naval War Staff and other important departments. A big safe in the
corner of the cabin contains the secret codes and ciphers used when
transmitting messages, and two overworked officers are busy at near-by
desks translating signals to and from "plain English."
The next cabin contains the admiral's secretary and his staff of
writers. Here a flotilla commander is receiving his "sailing orders,"
without which no ship proceeds on a voyage. Adjoining this is the Pay
Office, in which, with the exception of a newly joined recruit
mortgaging his pay for two weeks ahead--he knows that he will be at sea
for that time--there is a decided air of quietude. The rush in this
abode of paymasters comes at the end of each month, when all the
officers arrive in a body to demand the meagre fruits of their labours.
Sandwiched between the clean and varnished cabin of the Base Commander,
who is "taking" defaulters, and the camp-bedded apartment of the O.O.W.
is a most interesting little combined cabin and store, presided over by
the Chaplain. Here are piles of woollen socks, cardigans, balaclavas,
mitts and other clothes knitted by the thoughtful women of the Empire
for their sailor sons. Here seamen are estimating the cold-resisting
qualities of different garments--for winter in the North Sea is the next
thing to Arctic exploration. Officers are popping in and out to borrow a
pile of books--thrice blessed were the senders of these donations. The
corner of the cabin is piled with fresh vegetables, but alas! the cry is
apples! No exhortations to righteousness adorn the walls, and the
chaplain is joking with a big stoker who is distractedly turning over
the cardigans in search for one large enough to encompass his massive
frame. A signal boy slips in, gets chocolate, gives a breathless thanks
and slips out just in time to avoid the playfully raised hand of the
P.O. of his ship. Two deck hands, covered in coal dust, put their heads
round the door to ask if they can have a bath, and the indefatigable
chaplain hands them the keys of the room provided for the purpose by the
generous.
Religion here is more practical than theoretical. If a man swears when
the "Padre" is present he pays a small fine, which goes to the
recreation or other needy fund. The Commander is not immune from this
law at the base under review, and has more than once been "heavily
fined" for giving his true opinion of German sailors and winter weather.
The next cabin is that of the O.O.W., a seething mass of officers
demanding "duty boats" and pinnaces to convey them to and from their
ships lying out in the fair-way. Others are expostulating about being
ordered to sea during their "stand-off," informing everyone what a
rotten service the navy is, crossing-sweeping is a sinecure compared
with it. Then a few pass on to the cabin near the men's quarters. Here
the "Drafting Officer" is trying to palm off a deck hand on the C.O. of
a trawler, who is vainly explaining that he must have a signalman. A
telephone rings and news comes from the "Sick Bay" that an engineer has
been badly burned and will be unable to go to sea with his ship. The
distracted drafting officer searches through his lists of reserves for
some competent man to take the place of the casualty.
Peace reigns in the adjoining department, where a grey-haired veteran is
issuing charts, "Sailing Directions," "Tide Tables" and "Warnings to
Mariners." In the near-by engineer-commander's office worried experts
are wrestling with innumerable problems relating to M.L. motors, steam
capstans, steam steering gear, electric dynamos, damaged propellers,
broken shafts, boiler cleaning and the numerous imperfections of
overworked ships' engines.
The Boom Defence staff is placidly serene. The turn of this department
comes after a heavy gale has damaged the submarine nets, chains and
buoys. The torpedo officers and their "parties" are discussing the best
way of moving four of these steel monsters from a neighbouring depot
ship to a new "Q" boat with only a rowing-boat at their disposal--soon
the O.O.W. will be called upon to supply a drifter for the purpose.
In the ordnance store a veteran P.O. is trying to make his list of
returned brass shell-cases correspond with the number of shells supplied
to various ships six months before. He knows the sailors' fondness for
shell-cases as ornaments in their little far-away homes, and, failing to
make all the figures agree, decides that some _must_ have been "washed
overboard."
The Port Minesweeping Officer is discussing with his sea commanders the
clearing of a new mine-field laid by U-C-boats within the past few days,
when a sudden stir is caused by the arrival of a signal from the
wireless room to the effect that one of his vessels has struck a mine in
lat. ---- long. ---- and is sinking. He appeals by telephone to the M.L.
commander and in less than ten minutes a flotilla of fast launches is
racing at 19 knots to the rescue.
[Illustration: MOCK-WHEEL AND COMPASS-PEDESTAL OF THE "HYDERABAD"
_Thornycroft & Co., Ltd._]
[Illustration: WHICH COLLAPSE AND LEAVE A CLEAR RANGE FOR THE GUNS
_Thornycroft & Co., Ltd._]
In the Admiral's cabin there is to be a conference of senior officers
later in the day to decide on the best means of ridding the seas within
that area--and each base has its own area of sea--of a hostile submarine
which has been inflicting undue loss upon shipping, its latest victim
being a Danish barque.
The combined wardroom and gunroom has some twenty occupants, reading the
newspapers and magazines, warming themselves before the two big fires,
or talking in little groups. This base has suffered some heavy losses
lately, but reference to those "gone aloft" is seldom made, except
quietly and a little awkwardly. The talk is of theatres in neighbouring
towns, the respective merits of certain types of ships and weapons, the
prospects of early leave, the dirty warfare of "Fritz" or the "beauties"
of the North Sea in winter.
In this room all questions of rank and precedence are more or less
waived. There are, of course, differences, especially when the wardroom,
or abode of senior officers, does duty also as a gunroom for the
juniors. But here there is camaraderie and an absence of iron
discipline, although a sub-lieutenant would be extremely ill advised
either to drop the prefix "Sir" or to slap the Commander on the back in
an excess of joviality, relying on "neutral territory" to save him from
rebuke. It is, however, no uncommon event to see all ranks of officers
engaged in a heated debate, or groups of juniors laughing round the fire
while their elders are vainly trying to concentrate their minds on
the latest Press dispatches. Games are played and glasses clink merrily,
but in a gunroom there is a very strict limit as to both time and
quantity, though none regarding volume or discordance of sound.
* * * * *
Passing on to the organisation of the flotillas for sea, we find in this
large base six minesweeping units, two being composed of fast paddle
sweepers and four of trawlers. The former are used for distant
operations and comprise nine vessels. They work in pairs, but the extra
ship is available to sink mines cut up by the sweeps of the others, and
to be immediately ready to beat off submarine attacks.
The trawlers are engaged in sweeping _daily_ the approaches to the
harbour and a recognised channel up and down the coast. Their work
overlaps with that done by the ships belonging to the neighbouring
bases. In this way the "war channel," about which more will be said
later, was kept free of mines, and afforded a safe route for ships from
the Thames to the Tyne, and in reality to the northernmost limit of
Scotland.
This important duty was seldom left unperformed even for a day, except
during fierce gales. Often the discovery of a distant mine-field caused
many ships to be concentrated on clearing it, and the number available
for the "routine sweeps" was consequently reduced, but longer hours of
this arduous and dangerous work made up the difference, and the work
went on in summer fog and winter snow for over four years.
The anti-submarine patrols were composed of five ships each, under the
command of the senior officer of the unit--frequently a lieutenant with
the responsibility of a captain. Their work lay out on the wastes of sea
lying between England and Germany. It was seldom that the whole five
vessels of each unit cruised together, the usual method being to scatter
over the different "beats" and rendezvous in a given latitude and
longitude at a specified time and date. They were usually able to
communicate with each other and with the base on important matters by
wireless. Their periods at sea varied from ten days to three weeks, with
a four days' "stand off" when they came into harbour. But of this time
one day at least was spent in coaling and provisioning the ship ready
for the next patrol. This ceaseless vigilance on the grey-green seas of
England's frontier was seldom interrupted for more than a few days in
the year by impossible gales. Anything short of literally mountainous
seas did not prevent the trawler patrols from riding out the storm
carefully battened down and with just sufficient speed to keep head to
sea.
The drifters were divided into patrol units, boom defence flotillas and
under-water or mine-net units. Their work was thus more varied but
equally as arduous and risky, as the loss of 30 per cent. of the entire
fleet of over 1000 ships affords undeniable proof. The periods of sea
duty were similar to those of the trawlers.
The motor launches at each base had some hundred square miles of sea to
guard, and hunted in fives. The rough weather these plucky little ships
endured in the open sea in mid-winter, the intense cold--for there was
no proper heating appliance--and the state of perpetual wetness made
their duties among the most arduous in the sea war. Later pages of true
narrative will show to the full the work of these gnats of the sea.
In addition to all these flotillas there were convoy ships, whaler
patrols, "Q" boats and a number of special duty ships. The work of the
former was of the most exacting character, and left the crews of these
vessels but little time ashore. In the base under review so arduous were
the duties of the convoy ships that it became a matter of
self-congratulation for patrol and sweeper officers and men that their
ships were not so employed, and this by men who sailed submarine and
mine infested seas for an average of 270 days in each year!
It must not be assumed that when in harbour there were no duties to be
performed by either officers or men of sea-going ships. They had, on the
contrary, to furnish anchor watches, shore sentries, duty crews for
emergency pickets, prisoner guards, working and church parties, to
attend drills, rifle practice, gun practice and instructional parades.
The officers had similar shore duties to perform, which left them little
time to rest from the strain of keeping watch and ward on the
death-strewn seas.