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Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Respenus
What is a Q ship?
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Early in WWI (and again in WWII) it was a fairly common practice to surface, "put a shot across the bow" and then examine a ship's papers. If it was British, the U-boat skipper would let them abandon ship and then sink it with scuttling charges. The Brits started putting disguised guns on merchants, making life difficult for the U-boat. Of course they cried foul when the subs started torpedoing them without warning, but what do you do? |
Indeed. I remember reading many books which accuse the u-boats of being savages and of course the official history of the West has it that they began the true u-boat war unprovoked but it was really the Brits that made it impossible for the u-boats to follow the terms of the treaty which limited their behavior to being the same as surface ships.
They were all bastards in that war, allies or axis.