"Muckle Fluggar Hussars"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 159, 6 July 1940, Page 7 (Supplement)

"Muckle Fluggar Hussars"

By V.P.C.

ARMED merchantmen are no new thing in war. Originally all ships were equally proficient at battle or barter and half the vessels that defeated the Spanish Armada were merchant ships mat carried' only their normal armament. British plans for using armed merchantmen in war were ready long before 1914. Indeed many ships, the Lusitania among them, were designed expressly with this end in view." A few months' experience, however, showed that big liners were not well adapted for naval work and they -were either returned to their owners, utilised for troopships or converted into hospital ships.

In the early days of the Great War the northern blockade was carried out by old armoured cruisers of the Royal Navy, slow ships totally unfit for the work they had to do. After H.M.S.

Hawk was torpedoed, tthis squadron— the "wobbly eight"—was replaced by the splendid armed merchant cruisers, which carried on the work until the passage -between the Shetlands and Norway was closed by mines in May, 1918. _ Heroic Service At its maximum strength this squadron, known -to the Navy as the "Muckle Fluggar Hussars" —the name was taken from the most northerly point in the British Isles—consisted of twenty ships. Nearly every shipping line was repre- , sented, and, except in the most senior posts, many merchant marine officers stayed on their old ships. These ships plied between the Orkneys and the southerly limits of drifting Arctic ice. They were tt sea for weeks on end, and during the time that the squadron was in commission only 4 per cent of all shipping which took that ■ route to or from Europe escaped i examination. " The most famous of the Muckle Flug- ' gar Hussars was the Allan liner Alsa--1 tian, which later became Empress of ' France of the Canadian Pacific Line. ' While she was with the squadron she ' carried the flags of three admirals, intercepted 15,000 ships, steamed nearly 300,000 sea miles and burned 170,000 tons of coal. Her good fortune became proverbial among British seamen. Others members of the 10th Cruiser f Squadron were not so fortunate; among I the many fine ships that were lost in l this service were the liners Alcantara [ Avenger, Oceanic, Bayano, Clan Mc- ( Naughton,, Hilary, India, Otway and Viknor. i Fought to a Finish Few tasks in war—and it is true to-day as it was then—are more dangerous than those undertaken by these , ships. But few tasks can have been * more successfully carried out. The loss of the Alcantara provides the epic story of this contraband patrol. She was one of a "screen" engaged in making a swee% in far northern waters. A mest sage had been received giving warning t of a suspicious vessel in the locality and 7 it was late afternoon when the Alcan- _ tare sighted a ship which she took to j be the subject of the warning, t reply to British signals, the i stranger gave a neutral name and port of registry. The Alcantara, however, was not satisfied. She came around into the stranger's lee and lowered a boat for a boarding party. Before the boat

reached the water the strange vessel, in reelity the German raider Grief, opened Are -from concealed guns. The two ships were well matched; the advantage gained by the Grief in her surprise attack being neutralised by the slightly heavier gun* of the British vessel. Inside a few. minutes the German was blazing amidships and the battle seemed over when a torpedo from a submerged tube struck the Alcantara in the boiler-room. When other warships rcached the scene they found both ships sinking; all they could do was to save as many lives as possible, German as w all as British, from the icy waters. Best Known Action Probably the best known action ever fought between armed merchant cruisers • —as distinct from disguised vessels—was that between the British Carmania and the German liner Cap Trafalgar, off the Brazilian coast in September, 1914. It ended in a British victory. / Cap Trafalgar was the faster of the two ships and her guns, although smaller, outranged those in the Carlnanku that the German vessel should not escape, the British captain closed the range and concentrated his fire along the enemy's waterline. German shellfire turned the Carmania's bridge into a blazing inferno, but superhuman efforts, and skilled navigation, prevented the flames from spreading. In the meantime Cap Trafalgar was h< ling over as water poured into her shattered hull. Three-quarters of an 1 ur after the first shot was fired she went flown. There was a British armed merchant , cruiser, Otranto, with Admiral Cradle dock, but she was ordered "out of the ( line" before the little British squadron . offered battle to the superior German , force off Coronel. A sister ship, Orama, . was instrumental in (hunting down the [ cruiser Dresden—the one German ship , that escaped from the Falklands fight when Admiral von Spee'a squadron of ! five ships was destroyed. When the Rawalpindi was sunk in the early days of this war by the German "pocket battleship" Deutschland, she was engaged in the same work carried out by the Alsatian and her sisters twenty-five years, before. She had no chance of vici tory—five 6-inch guns are no match for s six 11-inch weapons—yet her captain

made no effort to escape. He watched the German vessel looming up through the mists. Then he put down his glasses: "Yea, that's the Deutschland, all right," he said, and ordered his crow to action stations. The fight that followed was short. No men could have served their guns more devotedly than did the naval reservists who made up the Rawalpindi's crew. Every man on board was willing to sacrifice his life in the hope that a lucky shot might cripple their powerful enemy. That they failed is no discredit—no amount of human courage can prevail against heavier metal when ships meet on the high mm. Under present British regulations all ships, unless they have haul their cargoes certified by Allied Consular officials before sailing, are liable to be stopped and examined by British eruisers. In somo cases the men-of-war can give an immediate "clearance," in others the ship is directed to call at a "control port" for more detailed examination. During the first 12 weeks of war the British contraband eontrol seized ever 463,000 tons of German imports, including over 100,000 tons of petroleum. In

a single week the control committee eon- j sidered the cases of 134 new cargoes— 1 plus 51 ships held over from the previous 'week—yet the average time a neutral vessel spends in a control port is less than 48 hours. Incidentally, among the 134 ships mentioned, 20 "were of British registry. The disposal of this contraband material lies in the hands of the British Prize Courts, and during the first war with Germany £20,000,000 worth of merchandise was condemned under contraband regulations. Of this sum nearly £7,000,000 has been distributed as "prize money" to officers and men who served with the Roval Xavv during the struggle. This then is the work of the British armed merchant cruisers, to police the waters and to guard against, supplies reaching Germany or Italy, or their cargoes reaching the outer world. They face fog and tempest for week* on end, endure loneliness buoyed up by the knowledge that their work, unspectacular thought it may be, is the main link in the chain that will defeat their enemies. I