Each convoy, whether coastal or long range, was under the order of a commodore on board one of the merchant ships, usually a cargo-liner with passenger accommodation. His was the responsibility to ensure that the merchantmen maintained their speed and position in the convoy, changed course in an orderly manner and otherwise obeyed instructions from the escort. The commodores of the Atlantic convoys were often older retired flag officers. On the coastal or North Sea convoys, they were mostly RNR commanders or senior merchant skippers. Their task was far from easy. A convoy assembled up to fifty ships of all categories and vintages with masters of many nationalities and traditions – every one of them used to going where he wanted in the manner he decided himself. Language problems with masters of neutral ships added to the challenge, as did the weather, which tended to spread the ships and create stragglers. Most of the masters were sensible people, though, and expert mariners, quickly understanding such needs as manoeuvring in concert, signalling and black-out.5
Rear Admiral Kenelm Creighton was called back from retirement, given a new uniform and placed on board the freighter Merchant Prince to take convoy OA-13 from Southend to Halifax, taking to sea on 1 October:
[Eventually] our merchant seamen became acclimatized to the deadly monotony of sailing in a convoy always laced with the expectancy that at any instant the savage onslaught of the enemy might break the tension. [. . .] They learned to sleep deeply, if not peacefully, in their off duty hours. But in these early days, it was different. It was doubtful if any officers or men in the ships of OA13 slept anything but fitfully that first night at sea. Their senses were keyed-up to detect the first whisper of danger, for they were not yet indifferent to the challenges of the unknown. With the first glimmerings of dawn, the fears of the night began to subside [. . .] I took advantage of day break to get a little rest. For once out of [the swept channels], my job as commodore would begin in earnest with all the headaches of forming up a clutch of merchant ships – totally unversed in the art of sailing in company – into a compact convoy.6
Following the Munich crisis, as a cooperation between the Ministry of Shipping and the shipowners, British ships taken into yards for routine maintenance or repair had their after decks strengthened and gun mountings welded in place. Meanwhile, over three thousand guns were made ready for mounting, largely 4- or 6-inch from warships broken up during the 1920s.7 In June 1939, the arming of the British merchant navy commenced, organised by the Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships or DEMS section of the Admiralty Trade Division. The arming of merchant ships was not in accordance with the Hague Convention and would make them liable to be sunk by U-boats without warning. That the guns were mounted aft and defined as ‘defensive’ made no difference. Running away from a surfaced U-boat, radioing for help while opening fire would inevitably be considered ‘offensive’ by the Germans.
The arming of the British merchant navy commenced in June 1939, organised by the Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships or DEMS section of the Admiralty Trade Division. This was a breach of the Hague Convention and would make them liable to be sunk by U-boats without warning. This photo of the British freighter Riverton was taken at Narvik. The gun to the right is a 12-pound 12-cwt in a high-angle (anti-aircraft) mounting. The one to the left in the low-angle mounting is a 4-inch BL Mk IX. The latter has been raised to its maximum elevation to hang the lantern used as an improvised stern light. Note also the boxes at deck level around the guns which were for ready-use ammunition. These were presumably empty in deference to Norwegian neutrality, but to follow the rules completely the guns should have been stowed away. Norwegian authorities looked the other way, though. (Author’s collection)
The gunners, usually naval reservists, were known as DEMS ratings. At first, neither they nor their guns were much welcomed on board the merchant ships. Many sailors, with some justification, considered their best defence was to retain an obvious non-combatant status. Other masters made sure the gunners integrated with the crew and allowed no maltreatment. One of the officers, usually the third officer, would be responsible for the guns and their crew, whether they were DEMS or members of the original crew, and he was usually assisted by an NCO or a retired Royal Navy gunner recalled for duty. By mid-1940, some six to eight thousand DEMS men were at sea and about twice that number of merchant sailors trained to assist them. Theirs was a life of two extremes: endless periods of boring duty, keeping watch on deck in all kinds of weather, broken by sudden incidents of terror, often ending in death or mutilation.
The DEMS ratings were often required to operate, or attempt to operate, a number of ‘miscellaneous’ weapons systems in addition to their guns. One such device was a cable with a grenade at one end and a parachute at the other, meant to be fired ahead of an attacking aircraft. There is no record of any aircraft being brought down by this parachute aerial cable or PAC, and the fact that the crate holding it was marked with ‘lethal to ships personnel in strong wind’ probably says it all.
On 6 December 1939, Churchill informed Parliament that over a thousand ships had been armed, and the effort continued relentlessly. How necessary this was, taking up yard capacity, compared to intensifying convoy efforts and equipping ships that would have capacity as convoy escort, is arguable. With hindsight, it is possible to see that, had British merchant ships remained unarmed, the escalation of the U-boat war might have been delayed and thus saved ships and men during the first critical phase while defences were developed.8
Coastal Convoys
In the 1930s, many of Britain’s imports were distributed from the ports to the customers overland, including via railways, waterways and, to a lesser degree, roads. By 1939, this network was overloaded and could not take the increase necessitated by the outbreak of war. Hence much of the transport system had to be re-routed to ships taking cargo of all kinds to and from ports of opportunity. This fleet was as heterogeneous as could be: older coal-fired and steam-powered ships mixed with newer, largely diesel-engined. In size, they ranged from a few hundred tons to a few thousand, the typical collier or freighter being some 600–800 tons. Although moving in sight of land for most of the time, travelling up and down the British coast was not necessarily less perilous than taking to the wide oceans. Shallows, sandbanks, changing tides and unpredictable currents made inshore navigation challenging, as did fog and foul weather – to say nothing of mines, aircraft and U-boats introduced by the war.
The first coastal convoy was organised on 6 September, one day after the sailing of the first deep-water convoy. Along the east coast of Britain, convoys would run almost daily for the next five and a half years and become a war of its own, impervious to what happened on the other fronts. In the south, the Thames Estuary became the principal assembly area for the coastal traffic, controlled from Southend. Here, goods were redistributed between the coastal and seagoing ships, or the incoming deep-water freighters were added to the coastal convoys to save their cargo from being reloaded. In the north, Methil in the Firth of Forth became a key pivot point for the coastal traffic as well as that across the North Sea. Northbound convoys between Southend and Methil were designated FN, southbound FS, plus an individual number.
Ships of less than a thousand tons and those not capable of sustaining the minimum speed were in principle left to themselves, at grave risk. Those that could travel at over 15 knots were considered immune and advised to travel independently. Speed did not help much against mines, though, and most captains of fast vessels routinely preferred to slow down and stay in a convoy. Other small ships also tagged on for safety and the limit of thirty-five ships per convoy was regularly exceeded, sometimes doubled.
Lieutenant Commander Walter Phipps of destroyer Woolston experienced the hard work of escorting a coastal convoy on 11 November, approaching a turning point off the Norfolk coast:
A vessel with very strong light in the mist made it extremely difficult to see what was going on. Difficulty was increased by a Dutchman who shot across the line from starboard