Here's an interesting site ... I didn't realise how many fishing boats were lost !! BRITISH FISHING VESSELS LOST AT SEA DUE TO ENEMY ACTION, 1914-18 All British fishing vessel losses are due to German surface ships or submarines http://www.naval-history.net/WW1oFVLosses1914-16.htm Annie
I knew it was a lot - have you counted how many are in the list? ! Some were fitted with light armament, in order to protect the rest of the fleet, not that a 3-pounder gun was going to be much use against a submarine. So strictly speaking they were Q-ships; the skipper was usually made a Lt RNR to make it legal. The most famous of these men was Skipper Tom Crisp VC DSC. His DSC was for seeing off a couple of submarines on 1st Feb 1917. On 15th August 1917, the Lowestoft fishing fleet was attacked by UB63, and Crisp's armed smack Nelson drew the enemy fire. A shell hit Crisp in the side, took off both his legs at the hip, and disembowelled him. Basically, he was cut in half. Nevertheless he was able to order his crew to "dump the confidential books [the log and signal codes] overboard"; he dictated a message to be attached to the carrier pigeons giving the exact location of the sinking vessel, and ordered his crew to save themselves and not to take him with them. (The mate was his 17 year-old son, Tom Crisp Jr). The crew made it back to England in the lifeboat; Crisp was posthumously awarded a Victoria Cross. There's a comprehensive Wikipedia article on him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crisp
A hero for sure !! ... ( as I shake my head ! ) http://www.senseofplacesuffolk.co.uk/learning_resources/det_thomas_crisp.pdf Annie
It was quite understandable bearing in mind the number of fishing boats that operated in the North Sea and especially around the east coast of Britain. As well as the u-boat menace which accounted for the great majority of them, there were also torpedo-boats and mines to contend with...
This article was interesting. A few comments: The submarines that attacked Crisps boat, at that time called I'll Try, were UB6 and UB16. These were an early model with no deck guns - which is why I'll Try survived. Although Crisp reported at least one sunk, both in fact returned to base. This was a common mistake arising from over-enthusiasm and does not reflect seriously on Crisp. The submarine in the August 15th action was UC63 (not UB63 as I said above), Oberleutnant sur Zee Karsten von Heydebreck. After sinking Nelson, he sank Ethel and Millie, the crew of whom were last seen standing on the hull of the submarine being questioned. They were never seen again. There were allegations that the submarine dived beneath them, but U-boat captains did not usually behave like that. It is very likely that they were put back into their lifeboat, but with the weather was worsening, they didn't make it home.
