Battle in the Baltic by Steve R Dunn

Author:Steve R Dunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History / Military / General
Publisher: Pen and Sword/Seaforth Publishing
Published: 2020-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

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Despite the desire for a speedy execution of the plans for ‘RK’, owing to a shortage of skilled motor mechanics the CMBs could not be sent until the end of July. Part of the 20th Destroyer Flotilla was ordered to return to Britain to collect the motor boats. They were a larger version of Agar’s vessels, 55ft long instead of 40ft, carrying two torpedoes rather than one and up to four Lewis guns.

The towing destroyers were to transport the motor boat spares, engines, torpedoes and the like, and one officer and one rating was to be on board the little craft while they were being towed. This latter instruction seemed to offer an uncomfortable passage to the unfortunates chosen. Eight CMBs were to be brought out to Biorko.

Such an exercise wasn’t as easy as the orders made out, as demonstrated by the travails of HMS Venturous. She was a ‘V’-class destroyer, launched in 1917 and under the command of Lieutenant Commander Guy Percival Bowles. On 25 July Venturous was ordered to sail with CMB 67A in tow; firstly from Harwich to Immingham to collect some mines and then on to Copenhagen. However, it wasn’t until four days later that she finally left the Humber in company with Abdiel, Gabriel and Vanquisher. In line ahead they proceeded towards Denmark at 16 knots, each towing a CMB. On passage, in the early hours of the 30th, the weather deteriorated markedly and the sea became very rough. A signal lantern was washed overboard and speed was reduced to 6 knots. Then at 0615 the tow parted. Bowles stopped his ship and just under an hour later managed to get underway, with the line reattached. This lasted until 1855 when the bull-ring of the CMB was torn out and the tow lost again. Once more Venturous halted; the two men in the CMB were now taken on board the destroyer for safety and after another hour’s delay the destroyer proceeded once more, now at 8 knots.

At noon the following day, the tow parted and took forty-five minutes to repair, only for it to part again at 1940. Now the CMB was also full of water, so Bowles ordered her to be made fast alongside and pumped out, before reattaching the tow and setting off again, at low speed. Everyone on board the destroyer might now be justified in feeling thoroughly sick of acting as a tug boat.

But worse was to come; with the wind now force five, at 2230 the tow parted for the final time; water logged and windswept, the CMB sank, taking with her an electric torch, ropes and harness, pillows, a lantern, a hatchet, two number eleven buoys and other salvage paraphernalia that Venturous had expended in trying to rescue her charge. She eventually arrived in Copenhagen just after midnight; and no doubt received little sympathy.

All in all, the 20th Flotilla suffered a total of sixteen breaks of tow on the voyage ‘so they had a pretty rotten time’.11 But Cowan’s

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