Fishermen Vs U-Boats: Harry Tate’s Navy

February 2023

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  Sam Willis 

  From the Society for Nautical Research in partnership with Lloyd’s Register foundation, I’m Sam Willis. And this is the Mariners Mirror podcast, the world’s number one podcast dedicated to all of maritime history. Hello everyone and welcome to the Mariners Mirror Podcast. Today we hear from the historian and journalist Rose George, one of our favourite correspondents, who has appeared on a previous episode on the fascinating history of fish wives. So if you haven’t had a chance to listen to that, please do so. Make the time and take the time. It’s an extraordinary story of politics, shipwreck and female power. Today, we’re talking about another little study aspect of the history of fishing. The fishing trawlers who were turned into the Royal Naval Patrol Reserve in both World Wars, to clear the seas of mines and even to take on the U boats. They became known as Harry Tate’s Navy. Exactly why they were known as Harry Tate’s Navy. I shall leave you to discover in the interview, but all you need to know for now is that this is a tale of ordinary  everyday fishermen taking their ordinary everyday fishing boats out to face the horror of professional killers at sea. It’s a tale of unimaginable bravery. And it even includes the story of a trawler’s cat whose crew was so concerned about his safety that they made him his very own life jacket out of an inflated condom.  Enough from me, time to hand over to someone who can tell this tale with real elan,  As ever I hope you enjoy listening to her as much as I enjoyed talking with her. Here is the excellent Rose George. Rose, thank you very much for joining me today.

   

  Rose George 

  Thank you for having me.

   

  Rose George 

  So you sent me an email and you said you’ve come across this wonderful story of a fisherman fighting the Germans in U-boats, Harry Tate’s  Navy. So how did you come across this?

   

  Rose George 

  I actually can’t remember,  I think just in my general trawls. I they’re all the best ones. I go down all sorts of worm holes and tangents and I just must have come across it. I didn’t even come across it as Harry Tate’s Navy at first, I think I just came across it. I think I was looking at how fishing survived during the wars, and then quite quickly discovered that it was quite difficult because most of the trawlers had been requisitioned and turned into fighting fishing trawlers. And so of course, at that point, I was like, what? And I had no idea about this, even though for my shipping book, I had looked at the Merchant Navy, and I got very, very passionate about how the Merchant Navy was pretty much unappreciated for its role. During the war they weren’t even given a medal till, I think, the late 1980s and you know, just appalling unfairness. And I thought, well, how on earth didn’t I know that. Many, many, many fishermen ended up in both World Wars being requisitioned into the Royal Navy as their own kind of Navy? And yes, so  these few weeks have been quite a revelation.

   

  Sam Willis 

  Yes. So it’s a story that needed to be put right, which I think is the foundation for all good stories.

   

  Rose George 

  Exactly,yes. And there is stuff about this, and there are books about Harry Tate’s Navy, and they were also called Churchill’s pirates, and the Lilliput Navy, but I think Harry Tate’s Navy is the name that really stuck.

   

  Sam Willis 

  Who’s Harry Tate, let’s  fill in people on who HarryTate is, It doesn’t make any sense.

   

  Rose George 

  Harry Tate was a Scottish comedian,  a sort of musical entertainer. And   it started off as a bit of a mockery, depending on who you read.  It came from the Royal Navy towards the Royal Navy Patrol Service, or in the First World War, the Royal Navy Reserve Trawler Section. So Harry Tate was a comedian who was known for being quite crap at modern life. So he was known for really struggling with any kind of modern contraption, and his most famous sketch was that in which  he had a motor car that just fell apart around him.  The name first was applied in the First World War, and  you can understand where it came from because a lot of these fishing trawlers  were wooden, I mean, they were old, they were crank. The accommodation was appalling, and they were really rough and ready fighting vessels. And so obviously this name was applied to them, but the Royal Navy Reserve in the First World War and the Royal Navy Patrol Service in the Second World War took the name and went with it because they were like, OK, no we’re not the Royal Navy, we’re better than the Royal Navy, and so this name Harry Tate’s Navy stuck.

   

  Rose George 

  So they embraced the  bumbling nature of it but that bumbling nature disguises incredible bravery and remarkable service. So this  whole business of requisitioning fishing boats began in the First World War. Yes?

   

  Rose George 

  it actually began before that; it was a very far sighted Admiral, who commanded the Channel fleet in 1907, Lord Beresford, and he suddenly had this quite genius idea that if trawlers can trawl  for fish, why can’t they trawl for mines, or submarines in later days, but his idea was initially to get a couple of trawlers and try them as experimental minesweepers. So they are used to trawling gear a lot below the water. And all they had to do is switch the fishing gear for mine sweeping gear, which was eventually essentially a cable that would trap the mooring cable that held the mines in place under water. And so  the experiment was a success. And that began became the start of the mine sweeping trawlers, Her Majesty’s Trawler, HMT.

   

  Sam Willis 

  It makes you wonder what the fishermen thought about it because it does sound quite dangerous. So someone suggested that rather than trawling for hake, they had to trawl for explosives. I’m not sure I’d have been very happy about that.

   

  Rose George 

  Well, I mean, it was extremely dangerous and the death toll of fishermen in both World Wars and the losses of trawlers was appalling. And in fact, in the Second World War, more trawlers and fishing vessels were lost than in any other branch of the Royal Navy. So yes,absolutely huge sacrifice, but there was no shortage of volunteers. So a lot of fishermen  were already in the Royal Naval Reserve, so they would get three weeks annual training. And then when it came to war, they were called up, and  there were other volunteers. But of course, it made perfect sense, because these were men who were extremely tough, worked in pretty appalling conditions on these vessels, and were used to navigating difficulties and extreme hardship. So they were perfect for minesweeping because it was extremely dangerous. But they  knew how to navigate the ships, they understood water and they understood  currents, and they were perfect mine sweepers.

   

  Rose George 

  Yes, and obviously invested in making those waters safe for themselves.

   

  Rose George 

  Exactly. So there were still fishing activities during both World Wars. And in fact, at one point during the first World War there was a an order that went out to officially requisition the actual fishing fleet that was still fishing. One of the reasons apparently was that they were making too much money because they had a monopoly even though the fishing grounds had been vastly reduced because of all the  mines.  I mean, thousands  upon thousands of mines were laid on both sides although generally in the stuff that I read you only hear about the German mines. But so yes they were requisitioned and then in the second World War there were still trawlers operating out of the east coast and Fleetwood became a pretty popular fishing centre. But obviously, their fishing grounds were tiny compared to before the war. But what kept them going was a remarkable fact in the Second World War that fish and chips were never rationed.

   

  Sam Willis 

  That’s my new favourite fact about the Second World War. I didn’t know that.

   

  Rose George 

  Yes, so people needed fish. And although there were imports of fish, fish and chips were never rationed. It was seen to be just too much of an insult to the Great British public to ration their fish and  chips. There is a wonderful book about the politics of the fish and chip industry, which I read in the British Library and absolutely loved, so yes they needed fish. So there were fishers but they were older men and in the worst vessels probably, and there were some that were shot at, they were shot at from the air, the submarines went after them. I mean, it was a terrible terrible time

   

  Sam Willis 

  Where it was this geographically, is it all around the UK or or in certain waters more than others.

   

  Rose George 

  The North Sea during the Second World War was mostly closed except for a few miles. But they were fishing in the North Sea, further north off Orkney and Shetland, and there were a lot of casualties up there because in both World Wars the enemy regarded fishing vessels as fair game, and so they were targeted. And of course the armed ones were definitely targeted.

   

  Sam Willis 

  Yes. How were they armed?

   

  Rose George 

  They were given, let me see. I don’t know if I can pronounce this right, an Oerliken gun. So really an Oerliken.  I think I’m saying that right, I don’t know.

   

  Rose George 

  Anyway, a big gun, a very big gun. And then they’re given a six pounder gun, which is a huge cannon kind of thing. They had Lewis guns, they had machine guns, they had obviously rifles, but  they were just fishermen mostly, the crew were fishermen. And they were suddenly expected to be militarily trained, and they had about two or three weeks training. So one of the other nicknames in the Second World War for Harry Tate’s Navy was that if you were in Harry Tate’s Navy you were a sparrow. And that was because it was considered within the Royal Navy that fishermen were just too rough and ready to go through naval discipline and they wouldn’t accept it, which is probably true. So they weren’t put within the Royal Navy’s usual training system and they were given their own training ground in Lowestoft, which was a form of pleasure garden kind of theatre establishment called Sparrow’s Nest. And that was turned into the Royal Navy Patrol Service training ground, and so if you went through there you were a sparrow

   

  Sam Willis 

  I’m not sure.

   

  Rose George 

  How fascinating. I’d love to know what that training actually involved. We’ve talked about  them trawling for mines, how did they deal with the U-boat threat.

   

  Rose George 

  So some of them were equipped with an Asdic which was a an early sonar, a pretty good sonar and so you would have an Asdic operator. So some of the training, you would have been trained in Asdic operations. Some of them would have been trained in firing at the mines that were were found.  I know you want to talk about submarines, but how they dealt with the mines was really interesting;  I didn’t realise this and found it extraordinary. If they managed to get a mine float to the surface, which they often did

   

  Sam Willis 

  by catching the cable that’s anchoring it by catching

   

  Rose George 

  by cutting the cable actually, so they had cutters on there.

   

  Sam Willis 

  So the the mines themselves, they have cables attached to anchors?

   

  Rose George 

  Yes,, mooring cables, so they are moored. But the mine sweeping system would cut through these; ideally what would happen is the trawler would go forward, or the drifters, because they also had drifter boats as well requisitioned,. so it will go forward, you would cut the cable, the mine would float to the surface at a safe distance from the ship.

   

  Sam Willis 

  You hope

   

  Rose George 

  You hope and sometimes it didn’t. And lots of trawlers just went up or down. Apparently you either went straight up or straight down. And then the mine would float to the surface. And if you can picture it, it’s like one of those cartoon mines that you see, you know, with horns on.  And then the way that they got rid of these dangerous mines was they shot at them. So you just had a bunch of fishermen mostly, not always, but a bunch of fishermen with rifles or machine guns just shooting at this floating mine. And that was how they were made safe by exploding them. Which makes sense, I mean, you can’t carry it away, can you and it’s not like today where you can send a remote device and make it safe. But so this was the best method and I I’ve read various reports of how successful this was because I’ve read some that say, oh yes,, we were really good at it and we shot but you had to hit a horn. You couldn’t hit just hit the base of it. So imagine you’re on a moving trawler, perhaps in pretty crappy weather. So you’re you’re pitching and heaving and rolling and the sea is moving, the mine is moving, because it’s bobbing. And you’ve got men just trying to shoot at a tiny target on this mine just as a barrage, and in one account I read this veteran said I’m sure we didn’t actually hit any of them but some of them we probably machine gunned and filled them with so much lead that they probably sank. But yes, so that’s how they dealt with mines.  And submarines,  obviously they would try and get them with the sonar. And in the first world war it’s extraordinary, they did actually catch them in their net. They actually catch; so there were drifters, which had drift nets, which could have been two miles long, which obviously usually used to catch fish, but you could catch a submarine in it.

   

  Rose George 

  Two miles long,

   

  Sam Willis 

   

   

  Rose George 

  Two miles long.

   

  Sam Willis 

  And how deep were they? Do they know.

   

  Rose George 

  No, I don’t know that, deep enough to catch a submarine.

   

  Sam Willis 

  So you catch a sub in your net when that must surely endanger the vessel itself and possibly

   

  Rose George 

  two miles long, Hopefully it’s a mile behind you, but

   

  Sam Willis 

  I’m worried about getting dragged down.

   

  Rose George 

  I don’t think that could have happened,  I only tend to read about the success stories.

   

  Rose George 

  There’s a recent story in the press about something that  happened to a trawler. And there was some suspicion that it had actually done that and it caught her. This is a recent story that it had caught her

   

  Rose George 

  The MFV Bugaled Breizh. It was a French trawler.   And there was a court case recently,  it’s been a longo ngoing court case and the family and the campaigning organisation are convinced that it was caught in a submarine

   

  Rose George 

  The sub caught in its gear and it dragged it down.

   

  Rose George 

  Yes, which is not implausible. But the Royal Navy denies any involvement. And there was a court case that found that the Royal Navy was not involved. But the family are still convinced that that’s what happened because the trawler just went down rapidly for no apparent reason.

   

  Sam Willis 

  This is something we should explore more Rose, we’re going to come back into more of U boats v trawlers. So these drifters with these two mile nets, you could catch a sub but what do you do next? What happens when you’ve caught a sub?

   

  Rose George 

  Well you try and sink it so then they would probably chuck over a load of depth charges,  they also carried depth charges.

   

  Rose George 

  I forgot to mention that amongst their own armament. So they would just throw over a load of depth charges, try and get the sub to come to the surface, that would be the ideal, and surrender.  But of course, the U boats in both world wars were not interested in being captured because they didn’t want their equipment to be captured. And so they would try   and sink them. I think there were U boats captured in the Second World War, but there was a very famous case in the Second World War, the fishing trawler called the Lady Shirley which didn’t  capture it but then the crew managed to sink it,  U 111 .Quite an extraordinary achievement for  a small trawler, I mean,  it was so disproportionate. There were instances of  fishing trawlers with a crew of eight and a dog who went into battle against a Light Armed Cruiser with eight hundred men on board, I mean,  or three hundred  men or something. And they didn’t win, but they also  weren’t destroyed, they managed to escape. The dog died a few days later though of shock.

   

  Sam Willis 

  Right

   

  Sam Willis 

  It’s interesting. You do talk about the dogs. We have an episode  where I spoke to the lady who runs the Museum of Maritime Pets. So for all of our listeners out there, if you haven’t listened to this episode, do listen to it. Have you ever come across any other tales of animals on these trawlers?

   

  Rose George 

  Well, I do have. Yes, I do have a file in my data base called Durex cat.

   

  Sam Willis 

  OK!

   

  Rose George 

  So the Durex cat.  Fishermen are known for being superstitious, but they do like to have animals on board, not pigs, but they will have dogs and cats, and pigeons are also good luck. So I read this account of the Durex cat; it was a trawler that had a black cat on board which are considered very lucky. But once when they were due to sail, they all stepped off the jetty at Harwich and refused to go to sea because they couldn’t find the cat. And the cat was eventually found lying under a sack of potatoes nearly flattened but otherwise unharmed, and off they went to sea, but at sea they realised that all the crew wore lifebelts, but the cat didn’t have one. And so these hardened tough fishermen felt very sorry for the cat because obviously they were all operating in conditions of extreme danger. So one of the seamen got a Durex, blew it up and tied it around the cat’s neck. It looked so funny, but we got used to it and the cat went around like that for months.

   

  Sam Willis 

  Months, cat, poor cat.

   

  Rose George 

  Months. And I do have another I have a bird story which is quite extraordinary. So during the First World War there were two Victoria Crosses awarded to skippers.  So within the Navy because they weren’t given naval ranks these fishermen but a rank was created for them which was Skipper, which was thought to be a more fishing appropriate rank and it was equivalent to warrant officer.  So Skipper Thomas Crisp, who had been a herring Skipper from Lowestoft, on the 15th of August 1917 was in charge of the armed fishing smack Nelson. And they were engaged in fishing when they were attacked by an enemy submarine, an obviously a disproportionate encounter so  they were shelled horribly Thomas Crisp who was at the helm was cut in half essentially, nearly disembowelled, by a  shell that hit him directly, but he carried on at the helm. And also he managed to send off an urgent message which read ‘Nelson being attacked by submarine. Skipper killed’. Remember this is the Skipper sending that message. ‘Skipper killed Jim Howe Bank ‘ which is where they were, ‘send assistance at  once’ and I read this and thought oh, he must have sent a radio message or the telegraphist must have sent it.   Then I found another account and it turned out that the Nelson like many trawlers at the time in the First World War had no radio. So he actually sent this urgent message by carrier pigeon. They had four carrier pigeons, only one got there, and the one that got there was called Red Cock, and he arrived and the message was transmitted. Meanwhile, Skipper Thomas Chrisp sadly died on his vessel, even though he had insisted that the crew throw him overboard. That was his last wish, and they’d refused, quite rightly. So he died. His son was actually also on the Nelson and so he died in his son’s arms, that extraordinary man, but also an extraordinary pigeon. And in fact, after the war Red Cock was so celebrated that when he died  he was stuffed and put in Lowestoft Museum.

   

  Rose George 

  Ah, it’s still there today?

   

  Rose George 

  Not sure, I think he’s been moved. I haven’t quite located Red Cock and I don’t quite know what happened to Durex cat either, but I do  have those two in my sights.

   

  Sam Willis 

  It should be in the RNLI museum stuffed, still with the condom around its neck, I think.

   

  Rose George 

  Yes, it should

   

  Sam Willis 

  I’d like to see that. So go back to these fishermen;  were they recognised for their courage and their bravery at the time?

   

  Rose George 

  They were actually, they were treated pretty well. So not only did they have their own Sparrow’s Nest training ground, but they were also very early on in 1939. The reason they were called Churchill’s Pirates is because Churchill was quite fond of these minesweepers. Obviously, he understood why you needed minesweepers, because not just to protect shipping but also food supply and everything. So very early on in 1939 Churchill realised that they didn’t have a badge, so he created one for them.  So it’s called the silver badge. It’s only for men who’ve done six months at sea. And it’s quite an interesting looking badge.  It’s got a shark on it being pierced by a spike because it’s  supposed to symbolise the submarine, and the men of the RN  Patrol Service, were extremely proud of this, and they wore it.  As for the rest of their uniform that was a bit more haphazard. So you had all these gnarly fishermen coming with their Ganseys and their Leicester sweaters and their Fearnot trousers and their oilskins and their caps and it was just a bit of a mishmash, but they were given a bit of leeway I think unless they had a senior officer on their vessel where they had to wear white, which they thought very little of. They tended to be left as they were, a  kind of a navy within a navy. That’s how they were known. So they were left to their own devices. because they were so fundamental and so brave. Yes, they were valued.

   

  Sam Willis 

  I wonder if they have a memorial.

   

  Rose George 

  You do have a memorial at Lowestoft, but it’s a memorial only to the two thousand five hundred or so men who were lost at sea. So but actually overall in the Second World War about fifteen thousand were lost at sea, and the numbers vary, but between three hundred and four hundred trawlers and drifters, fishing vessels, were lost which gives it the highest casualty rate proportionaly of anything in the Nav.y

   

  Sam Willis 

  It makes you also realise the huge expanse of people out there who who survived and also experienced it?

   

  Rose George 

  Yes, exactly. Unfortunately, of course, you know, as time goes on, a lot of them have died. So there is a Royal Naval Patrol Service Association, which is still going; it  tends to be now for the children of relatives, of veterans, there aren’t that many veterans left sadly, but there are oral histories, but it tends to be it’s a strange thing that much of what I’ve found so far  tends to be the non fishing crews, because they were mixed,  they weren’t all entirely fishing crews. So you would get Reserve people who came and volunteered from civil service, you know, from civilian life, you get bank clerks, and whatever. And it tends to be those who  contribute their memories in what I’ve found so far.

   

  Sam Willis 

  I wonder if that’s an education thing, or if that is more to do with people having a kind of jaw dropping, life altering experience. I’m not saying it wasn’t for the fishermen, but they were used to going on their boats, they were used to going fishing. But if you’ve got people who are going to sea  for the first time, then they might record it.

   

  Rose George 

  Yes, you’re right. That’s a good theory. My theory was that they just went back to sea after the war, and they just went fishing, and they were probably quite hard to get hold of. But who knows? I will look into that a bit more. But yes it is funny,  the accounts that I read. There is an absolute gulf between the fishermen. Mostly this is not entirely accurate, but the fishermen who don’t get seasick and the people who have come from land jobs who absolutely suffer terribly, to the point when  they’re on watch, they have to have a bucket next to them, and

   

  Rose George 

  They have to moan about it to themselves in the  form of writing.

   

  Rose George 

  Yes. It’s a horrible affliction, seasickness, I have awful seasickness and really should not be doing anything to do with fishing boats or going to sea, but yes, I mean, it’s a small bit of bravery, but to carry on when you’re feeling that woeful, I think we should salute that as well.

   

  Sam Willis 

  I think we’ve touched on something interesting here. And it’s just a question of who records their experiences on board any ship and why.

   

  Rose George 

  Yes, and still this is ongoing research. So I probably haven’t yet found the fishermen but I’m sure their accounts are out there somewhere.

   

  Sam Willis 

  Well, Rose, thank you very much indeed for sharing this brilliant story with us.

   

  Rose George 

  You’re very welcome.

   

  Sam Willis 

  Thank you all so much for listening. Now please don’t leave your interaction with our brilliant podcast here. There is so much more you can do. Firstly, please check out the Mariners Mirror podcasts YouTube channel, where you will find a library of the most extraordinarily innovative videos showcasing the maritime past in entirely new ways. Who could ever forget our use of artificial intelligence and digital artistry to bring ships figureheads back to life or the clever animation of an eyewitness account of the Battle of Tsushima. Also, please check out our ever growing back catalogue of audio episodes. If you enjoy listening to Rose, please listen to her episode on fish wives. And if you’re interested in the Second World War, we’ve got plenty for you to listen to and a forthcoming episode on Hitler’s curious relationship with the Kriegsmarine which is well worth listening to. This pod comes from both the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and the Society for Nautical Research. So please check out what both of those institutions are up to. The SNR you can find at sn r.org.uk where you can join up and please do so. And the history and education centre of the Lloyd’s Register Foundation is at H e c.lr foundation.org.uk. And be sure to check out their amazing new project, maritime innovation in miniature, filming the world’s best ship models with the very latest camera equipment. It is jaw dropping.

Category: World War 2 | World War 1 | Submarines | Fishing