The Silent Watchers: England's Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to ItCopplestone, Bennet
History
The Silent Watchers: England's Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to It
Copplestone, Bennet
Great Britain. Royal Navy; World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations
second visit an Admiralty tug came along, hauled up the lightship’s
anchors, and shifted her exactly one hundred yards east-north-east. You
will note that the German submarine’s chosen spot was exactly one
hundred yards west-south-west of the lightship’s old position. The
change was so slight that it might be expected to escape notice. And so
it did. Three days passed, and then at high tide the U boat came
cheerfully along upon its mission and lay off the lightship exactly as
before. The only difference was that now she was upon the top of the
shoal with barely twelve feet under her at low water instead of
twenty-two feet. The observers in the lightship winked at one another,
for they had talked with the officer of the Admiralty tug and were wise
to the game. The tide fell, the submarine lay peacefully on the bottom,
and Fritz, intent to watch the movements of ships in and out of the
harbour, did not notice that the water was steadily falling away from
his sides and leaving his whole conning tower and deck exposed. Far away
a destroyer was watching, and at the correct moment, when the water
around the U boat was too shallow to float her even in the lightest
trim, she slipped up as near as she could approach, trained a 4-inch gun
upon Fritz and sent in an armed boat’s crew to wish him good-day. Poor
old Fritz knew nothing of his visitors until they were hammering
violently upon his fore hatch and calling upon him to come out and
surrender. He was a very sick man and did not understand at all how he
had been caught until the whole manœuvre had been kindly explained to
him by the Lieutenant-Commander of the destroyer, from whom I also
received the story. ‘You see, Fritz, old son,’ observed the
Lieutenant-Commander, ‘Admiralty charts are jolly things and you know
all about them, but you should sometimes check them with the lead.
Things change, Fritz; light-ships can be moved. Come and have a drink,
old friend, you look as if you needed something stiff.’ Fritz gulped
down a tall whisky and soda, gasped, and gurgled out, ‘That was damned
clever and I was a damned fool. For God’s sake don’t tell them in
Germany how I was caught.’ ‘Not for worlds, old man,’ replied the
Lieutenant-Commander. ‘We will say that you were nabbed while trying to
ditch a hospital ship. There is glory for you.’”
“A very nice story,” observed the Royal Naval Reserve man drily.
“I believed your yarn,” said the Commander reproachfully, “and mine is
every bit as true as yours. But no matter. Call up the band and let us
get to real business.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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