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Auction: 22002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 74

'Their vainglorious fight and mysterious disappearance had been subsumed by an act of sublime gallantry that turned an otherwise disastrous and inconsequential naval encounter into one of the most celebrated of all the bitter struggles waged between Q-ships and submarines during the First World War.'

Mick Brooks on the events of August 1917.

The Great War 'Q-Ships V.C. action' group of three awarded to Deck Hand H. Thompson, Royal Naval Reserve, who was killed in action during the famous action between the Q-Ships Ethell & Millie, I’ll Try (a.k.a. Nelson) against a German UC-Class submarine on 16 August 1917 - the action won Skipper Crisp a posthumous Victoria Cross but the fate of the crew of Thompson and his comrades of the Ethell & Millie probably ended in a grizzly fashion as the crew were last seen lined up on the submarine forward casing shortly before she dived into the deep

1914-15 Star (SD. 1054, H. Thompson, D.H., R.N.R.); British War and Victory Medals (1054 SD. H. Thompson. D.H. R.N.R.), good very fine (3)

Hugh Thompson was born at Thurso, Caithness in October 1895 and married Amy Maud Major before the outbreak of the Great War. The young couple were living at 4 Devey Cottages, High Street, Gorleston-on-Sea, Great Yarmouth. Thompson enrolled in the Royal Naval Reserve on 25 May 1915, serving aboard the trawlers Kingfisher and Halcyon II before joining the Ethell & Millie (Boy Alfred) - Q-Ship No. 929.

It seems likely, that he would have been present for the action of 1 February 1917, as recalled by Henry Newbolt’s Submarine and Anti-Submarine:

‘The British Boats were commanded by Skipper Walter S. Wharton, R.N.R. (Boy Alfred) and Skipper Thomas Crisp, R.N.R. (I’ll Try), and were out in the North Sea when they sighted a pair of U-Boats coming straight towards them on the surface. The first of these came within 300 yards of Boy Alfred and stopped. Then followed an extraordinary piece of work, only possible to a German pirate. The U-Boat signalled with a flag to Boy Alfred to come nearer, and at the same time opened fire upon her with a machine-gun or rifles, hitting her in many places, though by mere chance not a single casualty resulted.

Skipper Wharton’s time had yet to come; he was not for a duel at long range. He threw out his small boat, and by this submissive behaviour encouraged the U-Boat to come nearer, which she did by submerging and popping up again within a hundred yards. A man then came out of the conning-tower and hailed Boy Alfred, giving the order to abandon ship as he intended to torpedo. But 100 yards was a very different affair from 300. It was, in fact, a range Skipper Wharton thought quite suitable. He gave the order “Open fire” instead of “Abandon ship”, and his gunner did not fail him. The first round from the 12-pounder was just short, and the second just over; but having straddled his target, the good man put his third shot into the submarine’s hull, just before the conning-tower, where it burst on contact. The fourth shot was better still; it pierced the conning-tower and burst inside. The U-Boat sank like a stone, and the usual wide-spreading patch of oil marked her grave.

In the meantime the second enemy submarine had gone to the east of I’ll Try, who was herself east of Boy Alfred. He was a still more cautious pirate than his companion, and remained submerged for some time, cruising around I’ll Try with only a periscope showing. Skipper Crisp, having a motor fitted to his smack, was too handy for the German, and kept altering course so as to bring the periscope ahead of him, whenever it was visible. The enemy disappeared entirely no less than six times, but at last summoned up the courage to break surface. The hesitation was fatal to him - he had given the smack time to make every preparation. He appeared suddenly at last, only 200 yards off, on I’ll Try’s starboard bow; but his upper deck and big conning tower were no sooner clearly exposed than Skipper Crisp put his helm hard over, brought the enemy on to his broadside and let fly with his 13-pounder gun. At this moment a torpedo passed under the smack’s stern, missing only by ten feet, then coming to the surface, and running along on the top past Boy Alfred. It was the U-Boat’s first and last effort. In the same instant, I’ll Try’s shell - the only one fired - struck the base of the conning-tower and exploded, blowing pieces of the submarine into the water on all sides.

The U-Boat immediately took a list to starboard and plunged bows first - she disappeared so rapidly that the gunner had not even the time for a second shot. I’ll Try immediately hurried to the spot, and there saw large bubbles of air coming up and a large and increasing patch of oil. She marked the position with a Dan-buoy, and stood by for three quarters of an hour with Boy Alfred. Finally, as the enemy gave no sign of life, the two smacks returned to harbour.’

In concluding his report on the above action, the Commodore-in-Charge, Naval Intelligence, stated that the available evidence suggested that this second enemy submarine was also sunk - Crisp was duly awarded the D.S.C. By the Summer of 1917, I’ll Try had been renamed Nelson and Boy Alfred had become Ethell & Millie. She was later commanded by 45-year old Skipper Charles ‘Johnsey’ Manning off the Jim Howe Bank in the North Sea. At about 1445hr on 15 August 1917, at which Thompson was certainly present, Skipper Crisp, with his fishing trawl shot, sighted a U-Boat coming out of the mist three or four miles away to the north-west. As Crisp roared 'Sub Oh! Clear for action!, the U-Boat’s first shell fell about 100 yards off the port bow. Crisp put the Nelson on another tack to see if it would disturb the enemy’s aim but the German gunner was on target and the third shell penetrated the bow just below the waterline and Nelson began to sink. Crisp ordered a seaman to break out the White Ensign, and Ross to open fire. The gun was raised to the extreme of its elevation, but still the 13-pounder was hopelessly outranged. The seventh German shell hit Crisp himself, shattering both his legs at the hips and partially disembowelling him, before smashing through the deck and passing out through the ship’s side. Ross, and the Skipper’s son, Tom Crisp, rushed over to him and found that in spite of his frightful wounds he was still conscious. He knew he was dying and told his son to send off a message which Ross took down:

‘Nelson being attacked by submarine. Skipper killed. Send assistance at once.’

The message was attached to the smack’s carrier pigeon and sent on its way. Tom Crisp later told the Court of Inquiry:

'...after that we were making water fast and had used nearly all our ammunition, only having five rounds left, and we had to leave the ship because she was sinking. I asked the skipper if we should take him in the boat with us, but he said: “No, throw me overboard.” This I would not do, and so we had to leave him on board the smack as he was in too bad condition to be moved. We got into the small boat, the smack sinking by the head about quarter of an hour afterwards. All the shots were directed on the Nelson until she sank. After our ship sank the submarine directed the fire on the Ethel & Millie. When we were in the small boat, the skipper of the Ethel & Millie beckoned us to go on board, but we would not go. We kept rowing in to the south-east and we saw one direct hit on the Ethel & Millie and the crew abandon her. Then the submarine worked round to the south and came to the southward of us. When the submarine was working round to the south we were working round in the opposite direction. The submarine left off firing at the Ethel & Millie and picked up her crew. We saw the submarine’s crew line the Ethel & Millie’s crew up on the submarine’s fore deck. They tied the smack’s boat up astern of the submarine and steamed to the smack. The wind being from the south south east was blowing the Ethel & Millie into the north north-west until she was nearly out of sight. Just before the Ethel & Millie got out of sight a haze fell over her and we rowed into the south-east as hard as we could, the opposite direction in which the smack and the submarine were going. It was drawing in dusk then. After dark came on we kept pulling in to the south-west. Next morning at day break we saw a buoy ahead of us and the wind freshened and blew us out to the eastward again. We still kept pulling to the westward. On Thursday we saw the Dryad. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. He came in sight of us and then directed his course to the north-west and went out of sight. After the Dryad came a group of minesweepers. They got ahead of us and turned and went away in a south-westerly direction. All the time we had a large piece of oilskin and a pair of trousers tied on two oars to attract attention, but they did not see us. As night came the weather became finer, and we kept pulling into westward all night as hard as we could. At daybreak we saw some smacks straight ahead of us, but there was too much wind from westward, and we could not get to them, and they went away from us in a south-westerly direction. One of the chaps sighted a buoy which turned out to be the Jim Howe Bank buoy. We pulled up to it and made fast to it just as the tide turned about 10.30 a.m. on the Friday. The wind was blowing hard. About 1.45 p.m. the Dryad found us.'

Manning was urged to see the action through and whilst her crew put up a fine account of themselves, it was always going to be in a losing cause. When she was forced to surrender, the German Captain sent over a demolition party who stayed long enough to dismantle her ‘5cm’ gun which was snaffled by the enemy, together with a considerable haul of booty that included a number of unused shells, an underwater listening device, some revolvers, a Very pistol and four carrier pigeons. Most damaging of all, however, was the capture of a number of ‘secret’ documents that included a set of classified orders from the Lowestoft Naval Base which ought to have been destroyed before the smack was abandoned. What happened to her crew after that remains a matter for conjecture. The fate of the crew of the Ethel & Millie, last seen standing on the U-Boat’s casing, has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories, a chapter best summarised by Stephen Snelling in his definitive history The Naval V.Cs:

‘Nowhere, however, in any of the accounts was mention made of the involvement of the Ethel & Millie. Her crew’s fate remains uncertain. The seven men were last seen as prisoners on the submarine’s forward casing. Originally reported ‘missing’, they were officially given up for dead on 10 March 1918. In the circumspect words of the Admiralty, they were ‘presumed to have lost their lives on 16 August 1917’ (sic). The suspicion persists that they were murdered, though no evidence exists to support the theory. Perhaps they were cast off in their small boat after being questioned and were subsequently lost. More than sixty years ago the writer David Masters suggested that they were taken on board the submarine which was itself sunk before reaching port. To add weight to his theory, he speculated that the submarine, which was never identified, might have been the UC-41 which was sunk by trawlers off the Scottish coast six days later. But there was another, more bizarre, theory put forward by the son of Arthur Soanes, a deckhand aboard the Ethel & Millie. He claimed to have used his powers as a medium to make contact with his father, who told him ‘that they had been very well looked after by the U-Boat crew who had wrapped them in blankets and given them hot drinks. So, when the U-Boat sank ... they all died together as friends rather than enemies.’

Following the Court of Inquiry at Lowestoft, Skipper Crisp was awarded a posthumous V.C., Tom Crisp the D.S.M., whilst Thompson - together with Skipper Charles Manning, Second Hand Spencer Gibson, Deckhand Arthur Soanes and Able Seamen Alfred Preece and Edwin Barrett - is commemorated upon the Portsmouth Memorial. He was only 22 years of age.

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Sold for
£260

Starting price
£190