Fishermen, the Fishing Industry and the Great War at Sea

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robb Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Great War ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Recent Discussion ◽  
Military Equipment ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
Academic Publications ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Fish Trade

Recent discussion, academic publications and many of the national exhibitions relating to the Great War at sea have focused on capital ships, Jutland and perhaps U-boats. Very little has been published about the crucial role played by fishermen, fishing vessels and coastal communities all round the British Isles. Yet fishermen and armed fishing craft were continually on the maritime front line throughout the conflict; they formed the backbone of the Auxiliary Patrol and were in constant action against U-boats or engaged on unrelenting minesweeping duties. Approximately 3000 fishing vessels were requisitioned and armed by the Admiralty and more than 39,000 fishermen joined the Trawler Section of the Royal Naval Reserve. The class and cultural gap between working fishermen and many RN officers was enormous. This book examines the multifaceted role that fishermen and the fish trade played throughout the conflict. It examines the reasons why, in an age of dreadnoughts and other high-tech military equipment, so many fishermen and fishing vessels were called upon to play such a crucial role in the littoral war against mines and U-boats, not only around the British Isles but also off the coasts of various other theatres of war. The book analyses the nature of the fishing industry's war-time involvement and also the contribution that non-belligerent fishing vessels continued to play in maintaining the beleaguered nation's food supplies.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Robb Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Vital Role ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Great War ◽  
Fishing Industry ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
War Effort ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Fish Trade

This chapter analyses the role that fishermen and the fishing industry came to play in the Great War and the contribution they made to the British maritime war effort. It discusses mines that sunk many warships as one of the key reasons why fishermen and fishing vessels came to play a vital role on the maritime front line. It also recounts the Russo-Japanese War from 1904 to 1905 that had a dramatic, immediate, and profoundly direct impact on Hull fishermen. The chapter looks at the lessons learned from the Russo-Japanese War by naval strategists, which have long-term implications for the British fish trade and for the fishermen who manned the vessels. It describes the Great War as the first twentieth-century conflict in which both sides deployed a great deal of modern naval weaponry and products of the new military-industrial order.

Epilogue: Contribution and Cost

2019 ◽  
pp. 177-183
Author(s):  
Robb Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Coastal Communities ◽  
Great War ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
The Great War

This chapter describes Sir Edwin Lutyens's memorial to 35,000 fishermen and merchant seamen killed in the Great War, which have no grave but the sea. It recounts the crucial role the fishermen played that was often acknowledged by key figures in the country's political and military establishment immediately after the war and in the first years which followed. It also discusses the publication of a small number of books that highlighted the fishermen's activities in the Great War that told much of the scale and scope of their contribution. The chapter refers to the new navy known as the Auxiliary Patrol that had been dispersed and disbanded very rapidly after the return of peace. It summarizes the scale and scope of the engagement of fishermen and coastal communities from around the British Isles on the maritime front line during the Great War.

1918: Minesweeping and Anti-Submarine Operations during the Final Year

2019 ◽  
pp. 140-162
Author(s):  
Robb Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Great War ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Mine Production ◽  
The Great War

This chapter discusses the German minelaying assault on the waters around the British Isles that had passed its peak due to the growing effectiveness of British countermeasures. It details the difficulty of Germans to maintain high levels of mine production given the pressing demands of other military priorities. It also focuses on specific objectives that are discerned from a study of minelaying activities during the last year of the Great War. The chapter illustrates the great barrage that the Germans tried to lay on one specific stretch of the Scottish coast during the spring and summer of 1918, which was undertaken on a considerable scale. It examines the German operation that was a key part of an even wider strategy aimed at ensnaring the dreadnoughts of the Grand Fleet amongst the mines of the great barrage.

The Trawler Reserve and Minesweeping: January 1915–December 1917

2019 ◽  
pp. 44-64
Author(s):  
Robb Robinson
Keyword(s):  
East Coast ◽  
Early Spring ◽  
First Year ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Dogger Bank ◽  
Eastern Side ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
The Great War

This chapter focuses on minesweeping vessels in service in the seas around the British Isles in the early spring of 1915. It describes the domestic sphere of operations of trawlers and their crews that primarily focused on the east coast of England. It also mentions the minesweepers that sailed out of Scottish ports and provided protection for the Grand Fleet and other Royal Navy surface ships. The chapter looks at the disposition of the flotillas of fishermen and hired fishing vessels that reflected the main areas of German minelaying off the coasts of Britain in the first year of the Great War. It details the significant operations that had taken place off the eastern side of the Dogger Bank.

Fighting Overseas

2019 ◽  
pp. 97-115
Author(s):  
Robb Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Great War ◽  
British Isles ◽  
The Great War

This chapter delves into the international conflagration of the Great War that carried fishermen to conflicts on coasts far removed from the shores of the British Isles. It details the British and French plans for a naval assault on the Dardanelles, which were formulated following Turkey's entry into the conflict on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary in late October 1914. It also follows the trawlers and their fishermen crews that had embarked on the next stage of the voyage to the Dardanelles after reaching Malta. The chapter looks at the initial allied strategy that involved forcing a passage through the Dardanelles, the narrow straits that divide Europe from Asia. It describes trawler minesweepers that cleared a way for large warships to move in and bombard the enemy's forts on the Dardanelles Peninsula and the Asiatic side.

Fishing During the Great War

2019 ◽  
pp. 116-139
Author(s):  
Robb Robinson
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Great War ◽  
Fishing Industry ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Previous Night ◽  
The North ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Great War

This chapter reflects on the British fishing industry that boomed in 1913 and in the years preceding the outbreak of the Great War. It refers to the Grimsby steam trawler Zenobia that was detained for several hours in Heligoland after being stopped by a German gunboat on 4 August 1914, but then was eventually allowed to proceed. It also recalls the German trawler Else Kunkel and fishing smack Hammil Warden that were detained after sailing into Aberdeen, unaware that war had been declared the previous night. The chapter mentions the Admiralty that had been keen to get fishing vessels off the North Sea as the waters were likely to be on the front line of the maritime war, providing no place for civilian fishing vessels. It elaborates how substantial numbers of fishermen and fishing vessels became required for wartime naval security duties.

Fish and Naval Forces: The Edwardian Background

2019 ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Robb Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fishing Industry ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Railway Network ◽  
Mass Consumption ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Varied Range ◽  
Fish Trade

This chapter describes Britain as the world's leading military and mercantile maritime nation that possessed the largest and most sophisticated fishing industry during the Edwardian era. It talks about the waters surrounding the British Isles that were home to countless species of fish, many of which were taken by different groups of fishermen in a diversity of locations using a varied range of catching equipment and craft. It also refers to the trawl and herring fisheries of the British fish trade that employed very large numbers of Edwardian fishermen and fishing vessels. The chapter analyzes the British trawling trade that had expanded markedly since the mid-nineteenth century when the construction of the national railway network provided reliable access to inland markets. It details how the railways helped make fresh white fish an article of cheap mass consumption in many burgeoning inland industrial towns and cities.

Offensive Actions

2019 ◽  
pp. 65-96
Author(s):  
Robb Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Great War ◽  
Perceived Need ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
The Great War ◽  
British Coast

This chapter refers to the kernel of the Trawler Reserve that had been created prior to the war and was born of the perceived need to develop a defensive force capable of dealing with the threat of offensive enemy minelaying. It details how fishing vessels and fishermen were recruited by the Admiralty for defensive minesweeping duties and other directly belligerent activities. It also recounts the opening months of the Great War that had seen extensive activities by enemy surface minelaying vessels and submarines off the British coast. The chapter talks about the general instructions issued to Auxiliary Patrol units stationed around the British coasts in early 1915 that were specifically focused on dealing with the threats on spies. It looks into vessels operating in the Orkney and Shetland Archipelago that were required to sink or harass U-boats voyaging westwards by way of the top of Scotland.

The Great War in History

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Winter ◽  
Antoine Prost
Keyword(s):  
Great War ◽  
The Great War
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