Q Ships
The WW1 Q-Ships Were Heavily-Armed Decoy Vessels, Designed To Lure Unsuspecting U-Boats Into A Trap…
At the end of July 1918 the British Royal Navy vessel HMS Stock Force was under the command of Lieutenant Harold Auten of the Royal Navy Reserve. HMS Stock Force was a ‘Q-Ship’, a heavily armed ship designed to look like a weak merchant vessel. The Royal Navy use of Q-Ships was begun in response to pressure put on Allied shipping by the German U-boats. The submarine U-boats were very effective, and were near impossible to engage unless they surfaced, so the job of Q-boats was to draw the enemy into an engagement by a false display of weakness, whereupon their hidden armaments could be unleashed.
HMS Stock Force succeeded in her purpose on July 30th, 1918, some four months before armistice was declared and the war ended. At 5pm, she was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the English Channel, 25 nautical miles from the coast of Devon.
The torpedo hit the forward section of the innocuous looking steamer, and the explosion sent a great quantity of debris high into the air. A number of officers and men were injured, and the forward gun battery was put out of action. The damaged bow began to settle into the water.
Below decks, the ship’s doctor, Surgeon Probationer G.E. Strahan, worked waist deep in salt water as the wounded were hurried to him.
Part of the Q-ship’s decoy tactic was to deploy what was known as a “panic party”. This was a group of men whose job it was to make a show of abandoning ship, thereby drawing the enemy U-boat into surfacing to finish the job. Arrrr!
The more context ye know?
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/come-sink-us-then-copy.html#:~:text=Privacy Policy-,The WW1 Q-Ships Were Heavily-Armed Decoy Vessels%2C,U-Boats Into A Trap&text=At the end of July,of the Royal Navy Reserve.'''
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