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In the First Battle of the Atlantic, by 1915, Britain was in desperate need for a countermeasure against the U-boats that were strangling her sea-lanes. Convoys, which had proven effective in earlier times (and would again prove effective during World War II), were rejected by the resource-strapped Admiralty and the independent captains. Depth charges were very primitive, and the only method of sinking a submarine was by gunfire or by ramming. The problem was to lure the U-boat to the surface.
The solution to this problem was the creation of the Q-ship, one of the most closely-guarded secrets of the war. Known to the Germans as a U-Boot-Falle ("U-boat trap"), it was an old-looking tramp steamer loaded with wooden caskets, wood, or cork, and armed with hidden guns and torpedoes. Its buoyant cargo made it almost unsinkable, so after firing a few torpedoes, a U-boat would surface to use its deck gun at close range. The Q-ship would then hoist the White Ensign and overwhelm the U-boat with its heavy guns.
The first victory of a Q-ship occurred on July 24, 1915, when U-36 was sunk by HMS Prince Charles , commanded by Lieutenant Mark Wardlaw RN. In August of that year, an even smaller converted fishing trawler named His Majesty's Armed Smack Inverlyon successfully destroyed UB-4 near Great Yarmouth. The Inverlyon was an unpowered sailing craft fitted with a 47mm cannon.
On August 19August 19 is the 231st day of the year (232nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 134 days remaining. Events 1561 Mary Stuart returns to Scotland. 1692 Salem Witch Trials: In Salem, Massachusetts five women and a clergyman are executed aft, 1915, Lieutenant Godfrey Herbert RN of the HMS Baralong sank UB-27Unterseeboot 27 (U-27 has been the designation of two submarines of the German Navy. During World War One, U-27 was launched on July 14, 1913, and commissioned into the Kaiserliche Marine on May 8, 1914 with Kapitanleutnant Wegener in command. In ten war and killed all of the German survivors in the infamous " Baralong IncidentThe Baralong Incident was an unprosecuted war crime of the First World War. On August 19, 1915, U-27, commanded by Kapitanleutnant Wegener, was sunk by the Q-Ship HMS Baralong commanded by Lieutenant Godfrey Herbert. Herbert ordered that all German surviv".
Despite some spectacular actions and a great deal of romanticization, Q-ships were not particularly successful (see HMS DunravenHMS Dunraven was a Q-Ship of the Royal Navy during World War I. On August 8, 1917, 130 miles southwest of Ushant in the Bay of Biscay, disguised as the collier Boverton and commanded by Captain Gordon Campbell V. Dunraven spotted UC-71, commanded by Oberl). In the course of 150 engagements they were only able to kill 14 U-boats and damage another 60, at a cost of 27 Q-ships lost out of 200. Q-ships were responsible for about 10% of all U-boats sunk, ranking them far below naval mineNaval mines are anti-ship or anti-submarine weapons which, like landmines, are static weapons deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of an enemy ship (cf depth charge). They can be quite cost-effective. Since World War II, mins in overall effectiveness.
By January 12, 1942, the British Admiralty's intelligence community had noted a "heavy concentration" of U-boats off the "North American seaboard from New York to Cape Race" and passed along this fact to the United States Navy. That day, U-113 under Kapitänleutnant Reinhard Hardegen, torpedoed and sank the British steamship Cyclops, inaugurating Paukenschlag (literally, "a roll on the kettledrum"), known to the Allies as Operation Drumbeat. U-boat commanders found peacetime conditions prevailing along the coast: towns and cities were not blacked-out and navigational buoys remained lighted; shipping followed normal routines and "carried the normal lights." Paukenschlag had caught the United States unawares.
Losses mounted rapidly. On January 20, 1942, Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet (Cominch), sent a coded dispatch to Commander, Eastern Sea Frontier (CESF), requesting immediate consideration of the manning and fitting-out of "Queen" ships to be operated as an antisubmarine measure. The result was "Project LQ."
Five vessels were acquired and converted:
The careers of all five ships were almost entirely unsuccessful and very short; all Q-ships patrols ended in 1943.
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