APPENDICES

 

Appendix 1 – The Sinking of Laforey

 

The official record “Navy Losses”, published in August, 1919, says of Laforey, lost on 23^rd March 1917, “Sunk by mine in English Channel.” Jane’s “Fighting Ships”, published in the same year uses almost identical terminology. However “Warships 1914 – 1919” by Dittmar and Colledge, published in 1972, says that Laforey was “sunk by R.N. mine in the Channel” but does not say where this information was obtained. I found an interesting set of papers at the Public Record Office which provides greater detail of the sinking of Laforey.

 

Arthur joined the ship on 20^th January, 1917, when she was serving with the Harwich Force under Commander Tyrwhitt, and, as the “Lieutenant in Command”, Arthur E. Durham, and the other officers were appointed at the same month it looks as if the ship was re-commissioned at this time. Now and again destroyers of the Harwich Force were seconded to the Dover Patrol (Vice Admiral Bacon) as temporary re-inforcements and Laforey, Laertes, Lance and Llewellyn were despatched to Dover on 5^th March, joining other Harwich Force ships already there. Tyrwhitt and Bacon did not get on (they were very different in character) and Tyrwhitt complained that Bacon used his ships too hard and “knocked them up”. For his part, Bacon accepted the re-inforcements grudgingly, despite complaining constantly about his lack of ships, and did not have the regard for them that he showed for the destroyers that had been at Dover since the outbreak of war.

 

There was a well-established Dover destroyer routine by which each ship spent 24 hours at sea and 24 hours in harbour but during the spell in port full steam was kept on the engines and the ship had to be ready to respond instantly to frequent emergencies. Every 17 days there was a 3 day boiler cleaning period and once every 4 months the ship spent 20 days in dockyard hands.

 

The 2 cross channel routes were Dover-Calais and Folkestone-Boulogne and an immense volume of traffic used these highways running to an elaborately constructed timetable. Constant vigilance was necessary for the German base at Ostend was very close. In fact it is surprising that German destroyers did not make sustained attempts at cutting the supply lines rather than being satisfied with the occasional foray.

 

A typical destroyer day was to sail from Dover early in the morning, pick up transports at Folkestone and escort them to Boulogne, then sail up the coast to Calais to accompany hospital or leave ships to Dover. Then would follow one more Folkestone-Boulogne crossing before the ship returned to Dover in the late afternoon or early evening to take up night patrol positions. This was the sort of routine Laforey was following, with  Lark and Laertes, when she was mined.

 

Paragon, Llewllyn, Laertes and Laforey were patrolling the net barrage between the Goodwin Sands and the Ruytungen on the 17^th March when, at 10.50 pm Paragon was torpedoed and sank in eight or nine minutes. Llewellyn and Laforey were soon on the scene but when they switched on searchlights to find survivors Llewellyn was torpedoed but managed to struggle back to Dover. Lt. Durham sent a singal to base at 11.13 pm reporting the torpedo attack and stating that he was picking up survivors. Att 11.28 pm he added the information “Sunk by submarine’ and at 01.7 am Laforey signalled that the survivors had reported that they had seen “enemy destroyers”. Bacon had at first ordered his reserve destroyers at Dover to sea but on receiving Laforey’s second singal of 11.28 pm had recalled them and instituted anti-submarine procedures. In fact the attack had been made by a destroyer force and recounting this incident in his book about the Dover Patrol Bacon adds a rather sour footnote saying: “An excellent example of how inaccurate wording of reports by signal may cause totally wrong dispositions to be made.”

 

At this time, at the height of the U-Boat offensive, Bacon was coming under growing criticism at the Admiralty for his generally negative attitude, his over reliance on net and mine barrages and his absolute refusal to admit that submarines were traversing the Channel on the surface at night. It was also said that, on occasion, anti-submarine mines were laid at such a shallow depth that they became a danger to surface shipping.

 

A few details about minesweeping methods at Dover might be useful. Normally mines were swept by pairs of trawlers with a serrated sweep wire slung between them (see diagram). The wire cut the mine mooring rope and the weapon floated to the surface  and was destroyed. On occasion the serrated sweep wire would fail to do its job and the mine, mooring rope and sinker would become entangled in the sweep. To cope with this crisis, it seems, 3 methods were used. 1. the sweep wire was “slipped” immediately, i.e. both ends of the sweep were cast off from the trawlers so that the mine returned to the deep and the position was marked by laying dan bouys. 2. The mine was towed into shallow water away from the shipping lanes before “slipping” took place. 3. the mine was towed to a designated ‘dumping ground” before being “slipped”. (This method of disposal was considered to be dangerous.) Before any of these methods were used it was necessary to be sure that it was a mine in the sweep rather than any other form of obstruction, so the trawlers steamed towards each other heaving in the sweep until the mine or obstruction was sighted above water.

 

Pair of Trawlers with Serrated Sweep Wire

 

The interesting points from the Public Record Office papers are:

1. A shallow mine might not be a danger to shipping in a calm sea but would be considerably nearer the surface ina trough if the sea was rough. Cdr. Clutterbuck says that there was a considerable sea running and that the “destroyers were lifting well out of the water forward at times.” It is also relevant that the explosion occurred almost half way along the ship which seems to indicate that Laforey came down on top of the mine in a trough rather than ploughing into it.

 

2. Bacon’s memo of the 27^th March suggests that Laforey was lost because the minesweepers either failed to find a sixth mine (u-Boats always laid mines in batches of six), or, alternatively, found the mine and slipped it improperly. At least this seems to be the sense of the letter.

 

3. Their Lordship’s pick up this point and in the Secretary’s letter of 26^th April ask whether the position where Laforey was lost was that where the sweep was logged as having been slipped.

 

Bacon now has to ask for a report from his minesweeping officer, which he had not done before, and this is submitted through the Captain, Trawler Patrol. Commander (Acting) H.E.M.Archer, D.S.O., R.N. (Retd.) may have had several attributes but writing reports was not one of them. In his letter of 30^th April he faces up to contradicting the opinion of his senior officer, a noted authoritarian, and then includes a lot of technical jargon.

 

Bacon forwards this report to the Admiralty on 4^th May with a technical comment, but does not refer to his previously expressed opinion that Laforey was lost due to a minesweeping failure.

 

Captain Lionel G. Preston, C.B., R.N., Superintendent of Minesweeping, who had commanded the Grand Fleet of minesweeping flotillas from 1914 to 1917, writes a minute of the 15^th May stating that the position where Laforey was lost was not the position where the sweeps were slipped thus confounding Bacon’s original theory. No further action is recommended on this point.

 

I don’t think any firm conclusions about the loss of Laforey can be drawn from these papers but it does look as if Vice Admiral Bacon was acting in a rather defensive manner in this matter. Bacon was relieved by Roger Keyes at the end of 1917 and he, of course, adopted a far more aggressive attitude in the anti-U-Boat campaign.

 

 

Appendix 2 – The Discovery of the Wreck of Laforey

 

In 2003 the East Sussex Diving Club found the wreck of Laforey  lying in Latitude 50 degrees 38 minutes N and Longitude 00 degrees W.  The ship was broken amidships and the bridge had collapsed .