Q-ship - Second World War

Second World War

Nine Q-ships were commissioned by the Royal Navy in September and October 1939 for work in the North Atlantic:

• 610-ton HMS Chatsgrove (X85) ex-Royal Navy PC-74 built 1918
• 5,072-ton HMS Maunder (X28) ex-King Gruffyd built 1919
• 4,443-ton HMS Prunella (X02) ex-Cape Howe built 1930
• 5,119-ton HMS Lambridge (X15) ex-Botlea built 1917
• 4,702-ton HMS Edgehill (X39) ex-Willamette Valley built 1928
• 5,945-ton HMS Brutus (X96) ex-City of Durban built 1921
• 4,398-ton HMS Cyprus (X44) ex-Cape Sable built 1936
• 1,030-ton HMS Looe (X63) ex-Beauty built 1924
• 1,090-ton HMS Antoine (X72) ex-Orchy built 1930

Prunella and Edgehill were torpedoed and sunk 21 and 29 June 1940 without even sighting a U-Boat. The rest of the vessels were paid off in March 1941 without successfully accomplishing any mission.

The last Royal Navy Q-ship, 2,456-ton HMS Fidelity (D57), was converted in September, 1940, to carry a torpedo defense net, four 4-inch (10-cm) guns, four torpedo tubes, two OS2U Kingfisher float planes, and Motor Torpedo Boat 105. Fidelity sailed with a French crew, and was sunk by U-435 on 30 December 1942 during the battle for Convoy ON-154.

By January 12, 1942, the British Admiralty's intelligence community had noted a "heavy concentration" of U-boats off the "North American seaboard from New York to Cape Race" and passed along this fact to the United States Navy. That day, U-123 under Kapitänleutnant Reinhard Hardegen, torpedoed and sank the British steamship Cyclops, inaugurating Paukenschlag (literally, "a strike on the kettledrum" and sometimes referred to in English as "Operation Drumbeat"). U-boat commanders found peacetime conditions prevailing along the coast: towns and cities were not blacked-out and navigational buoys remained lighted; shipping followed normal routines and "carried the normal lights." Paukenschlag had caught the United States unaware.

Losses mounted rapidly. On January 20, 1942, Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet (Cominch), sent a coded dispatch to Commander, Eastern Sea Frontier (CESF), requesting immediate consideration of the manning and fitting-out of "Queen" ships to be operated as an antisubmarine measure. The result was "Project LQ."

Five vessels were acquired and converted secretly in Portsmouth, New Hampshire:

• the Boston beam trawler MS Wave, which briefly became the auxiliary minesweeper USS Eagle (AM-132) before becoming USS Captor (PYC-40),
• SS Evelyn and Carolyn, identical cargo vessels that became USS Asterion (AK-100) and USS Atik (AK-101) respectively,
• the tanker SS Gulf Dawn, which became USS Big Horn, and
• the schooner Irene Myrtle, which became USS Irene Forsyte (IX-93).

The careers of all five ships were almost entirely unsuccessful and very short, with USS Atik sunk on its first patrol; all Q-ships patrols ended in 1943.

American Q-ships also operated in the Pacific Ocean. One was USS Anacapa (AG-49) formerly the lumber transport Coos Bay which was converted to Q-ship duty as project "Love William". Anacapa was not successful in engaging any enemy submarines, although she is believed to have damaged two friendly subs with depth charges when they were improperly operating in her vicinity. Anacapa was also withdrawn from Q-ship duty in 1943 and served out the remainder of WWII as an armed transport in the South Pacific and Aleutian Islands.