 |
||
|
| ||
Wooden hulls & cast-iron stomachs
|
 |
|
Dick Moorcroft's boat, ML381, pictured during the war |
“The hulls were of wood, but their crews needed cast-iron stomachs. The patrol was no place for a sea-sick man,” was his view, one that sounds as if it may well have been based on personal experience.
Capt Alfred Carpenter, VC, RN, who led the St George’s Day raid to block Zeebrugge and prevent its use by German U-boats, had an equally vivid description of the MLs which formed part of his command. He wrote: “The motor launches, pretending the sea was rough and often rolling heavily in their pretence, produced a similar impression to that of a famous automobile which, though cheap, always ‘gets there’, even if some parts of it are missing at the end of the journey.”
These were the boats of which Dick was soon to gain first-hand experience. The story he told in the homely and affectionate notes that he wrote to his mother and father began with an undated letter n probably written in January 1917 n from Mess 466 at the naval base at Portsmouth. In a neat sloping hand, he told his mother, back at the family home in Mill Road, Epsom: “Things are going on much the same as usual, except that they are drafting men to the Motor Boats very fast so I expect to go very soon.”
He was in fact posted straight to ML381, which was sent up to the naval depot at Immingham. From here, in February 1917, he wrote again, thanking his mother for the sandwiches she had sent n and the wine!
A little over a week later he was telling his father of the rough passage they had had to Scarborough, where they anchored in the bay in the late afternoon. Dick, it would seem, was not a youngster experienced in the ways of the world. He wrote: “It being my night ashore, I went and enjoyed myself very much. Sailors seem to be a sort of curiosity there for I no sooner set my foot on shore when I felt at tap on the back and looking round saw two girls. This went on all evening and I found out that they touch your collar for luck. It’s all right if you have a clean collar and they have dirty hands.”
One wonders, too, about the depth experience the crews and their skippers had of coastal work. That night Dick was back on board by 9pm but was awake again by 1am when most of the crew were hurled out of their bunks. The tide had gone out and ML381 had almost turned on her side.
The motor launches were plagued by troublesome petrol engines and several in fact caught fire. In the same letter Dick describes how ML381’s engines stopped after she got under way the following day. This time it was water in the tanks and ML381’s two companion boats had to heave to while her crew tried unsuccessfully to solve the problem. In the end she had to be taken in tow to her moorings off Spurn Head.
Before returning to Immingham, ML381 was sent to the Humber to take stores off a P-boat, which Dick described graphically if somewhat inaccurately: “This was a sort of half torpedo boat and half submarine, and submerses pretty well up to her bridge. They have some wonderful craft in the Navy...”
The 613-ton P-class patrol boats had a very low silhouette with a distinct lack of freeboard which was why Dick saw them as part-submarine. Their 3500shp turbines and twin-screws could drive them along at 20kts and they were equipped with ram bows of hardened steel. They did not, however, have a weatherproof charthouse so they were very wet boats in poor weather.
By February 1918, Dick was with ML381 off the southern coast of Ireland. His letters now often contained descriptions of the political situation, of life and conditions in Ireland n and of the apparent abundance of food that was available.
ML381 probably arrived at the behest of the Queenstown commander, Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, who had been so pleased with the early work of the launches that he asked the Admiralty for a dozen more. He anticipated that, with their speed and shallow draft, they would be ideal for stopping gun-running on the remote south-west coast of Ireland. And indeed ML381 soon found herself on just those sorts of duties, often in heavy weather.
Dick wrote: “It’s still blowing hard and we had a couple of tries at getting out yesterday, but it was no good n the seas here are very high. When you go up on one and then down, it is just like a switchback. I quite enjoyed it...”
The skipper tried to get his boat to Berehaven where senior officer of the MLs was Cdr E Keble Chatterton, later to become a popular and prolific writer on naval matters and the Great War.
In Danger Zone, published after the war, he described hows the MLs could maintain 15 knots in fairly heavy seas. “But their worst defect became noticeable when running before those big waves arriving from the Atlantic. Poised on a crest, these MLs would do a treacherous side-slip of their own that made one’s heart miss a beat...” Not, it would seem, Dick Moorcroft!
In February 1918, ML381 had to make several attempts to get into Berehaven. “But it was too bad,” wrote Dick, “The old boat started taking them right over her. I was right aft and a sea came right over the mast, giving me a very nice sea water bath. So we put back and here we are, tied up in the stream again and rolling like fun.”
Where they were berthed is not clear, but later in the month they were at Oyster Haven, about three miles from Kinsale, where they stayed only a few days. Their next call was at Bantry for petrol before going on to join the Berehaven command after which they anchored in Dunmanus Bay.
In April the weather was still changeable and cold. “The other night we were out somewhere in the Atlantic looking for old Fritz. About 3am it came on to blow from the north east, so we came in, about a two-hour run, and part of the time I was on look-out forrard. I have never felt so cold before and never enjoyed turning in for a couple of hours so much.”
Later, after some target towing work, ML381 was fitted out for minesweeping, although Dick’s final surviving letter n dated Sunday, 5 May 1918 n shows they had not begun sweeping by that date. However, in that particular letter he had other news...
“When we coming out of one of the bays the other day, we espied a sub on the horizon. There was a pretty bumpy sea running so we were all battened down. We were just preparing to give her a shot when she hoisted the Stars and Stripes n so we went up and spoke to her. As we were coming away we ran into a lot of trawlers with their guns manned, so she would have had a rough time of it if she had been a Hun.”
The American submarine would have been one of the seven based at Berehaven from May 1917 until the Armistice. They were part of an extensive US force which collaborated effectively with the British at bases along the Irish coast.
The Royal Navy’s first batch of fifty motor launches was built by Elco of Bayonne, New Jersey. Another 500 of marginally increased size at 37 tons came from Canadian Vickers. Engines and parts were still ordered in the USA but the boats were assembled at Montreal for shipment to Britain as deck cargo.
Operating with the Auxiliary Patrol, they were manned mostly by personnel from the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, although there were some, like Dick Moorcroft, from the RNR.
After the end of the war, surviving MLs were sold off, mostly in large lots and at bargain prices. By 1924 only eight remained in service and the last of these had gone by 1927. ML381 saw out the war and was almost certainly one of those that was sold. Her eventual fate is not known but many launches continued to do duty as houseboats. Is it possible that she or any of her ageing wooden-built sisters might still be found moored somewhere in an estuary or by a river bank?
Sadly, Dick did not survive long after returning to Civvy Street. He was sent home on a month’s demobilisation leave in January 1919 and, according to his RNR service papers which are now available at the Public Record Office, he died on February 24, a sad and early death for an intelligent young man who was obviously a loving son and brother.
His death was not the only tragedy faced by the family. On 3 August 1917 his brother, Air Mechanic 1st Class J John Moorcroft, was killed in action in France. A number of his letters home have survived, too, and photocopies are held at the Information Centre at Ewell Library.
This is an updated version of an article which appeared in the NHCRA Review, Summer 1996.
(c) 2003