Introduction

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.

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

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 Aftermath

This chapter recounts the demobilisation of Auxiliary Patrol vessels and fishermen that began in early 1919, in which the bases from which the force had operated were already being run down. It describes the dismantling of the Auxiliary Patrol as a major task that involved thousands of people and vessels and took some considerable time to organise and carry through to fruition. It also talks about fishing vessels and crews that returned to their home ports from bases around the British Isles and beyond. The chapter mentions Skipper William Oliver, who had been stationed in Malta and commanded the minesweeping trawlers that were amongst the first to return from the Mediterranean. It highlights the disappearance of drifter John Robert and its 11 crew members while voyaging from Messina to Alexandria on 1 February 1919.

1914: The Early Months of the War

This chapter recounts how Winston Churchill ordered the Grand Fleet to take up their war station at the remote anchorage of Scapa Flow on 29 July 1914. It discusses Germany's invasion of Belgium that drew Britain into the conflict just within two days of the Grand Fleet's arrival in Orkney. It also theorizes how the anchorage at Scapa enabled the Royal Navy's fleet of dreadnoughts to command the North Sea and anticipate threats from its smaller German counterpart, the High Seas Fleet. The chapter cites the Koenigen Luise vessel that laid the first minefield of the Great War, implying that the British could expect the Germans to pursue an aggressive and defensive mining policy. It details how the minefield disrupted coastal shipping up and down the coast.

Epilogue: Contribution and Cost

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.

The Trawler Reserve and Minesweeping: January 1915–December 1917

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

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

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

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

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.