28. The Tricky Q-Ships
As part of its effort to beat back the German U-boat menace during WWI, the British Royal Navy resorted to deception. It used special decoy vessels known as Q-ships, which were heavily armed merchant ships carrying concealed weapons. Intended as bait to lure enemy submarines, the seemingly unarmed Q-ships would unveil their guns and sink the U-boats once they emerged to make a surface attack. The decoys were quite effective for a while before Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 and began sinking merchant shipping at sight and without warning.
Early in the war, the standard operating procedure for U-boats was to surface and hail a civilian vessel, allowing its crew an opportunity to take to their lifeboats. It would then open fire and sink it with a torpedo, or more often, with shells from the U-boat’s deck gun when practicable, in order to save the significantly more expensive torpedoes for tougher targets. However, if the hailed ship was actually armed – as Q-ships were – the U-boat would be in trouble.