HM Armed Smack Inverlyon

His Majesty's or HM Armed Smack ''Inverlyon'' was a fishing smack that was converted to a Q-ship during the First World War. Q-ships served as decoys to lure German submarines near enough so that concealed weapons could be brought to bear and sink the submarines. On 15 August 1915, ''Inverlyon'' succeeded in luring German submarine within range and sinking her with nine shots from her gun. The Royal Navy Gunner in command of the vessel, Ernest Martin Jehan, received the Distinguished Service Cross and members of ''Inverlyon''s crew shared the bounty offered for German submarines. After ''Inverlyon''s Q-ship career ended, she returned to fishing, but was sunk by on 1 February 1917.

Career

''Inverlyon'' was a fishing smack of 59 tons burthen that was a part of the fishing fleet at Lowestoft on the Suffolk coast. The wooden boat had a flush deck, two masts, and no engine. ''Inverlyon''s sails were fore-and-aft rigged and may have been red ochre in colour, the traditional sail colour for British smacks.

In February 1915, Germany began its first submarine offensive of the First World War. During this campaign, enemy vessels in the German-defined war zone (), which encompassed all waters around the United Kingdom, were to be sunk,Tarrant, p. 14. and the British fishing fleet was not exempt. The information on the website is extracted from In mid-June, for example, the German submarine had sunk six smacks off Lowestoft in a two-day period.,
,
,
,
,

One method devised to deal with U-boat attacks was the decoy or Q-ship, designed to lure submarines that were targeting merchant shipping close enough that concealed guns or other weapons could sink them. ''Inverlyon'' was selected to become a Q-ship, was outfitted with either a 3-pounder (47 mm) or a 6-pounder (57 mm) gun, and entered the service of the Royal Navy on 2 August 1915. ''Inverlyon''s fishing crew and skipper were all temporarily inducted into the Trawler section of the Royal Naval Reserve. Regular Royal Navy Gunner Ernest Martin Jehan and three other gunners from —a former torpedo boat operating as a minesweeper from Lowestoft—were assigned to ''Inverlyon'', with Jehan in command.

On 14 August, the 59-ton smack ''Bona Fide'' was stopped by a U-boat, boarded, and sunk with explosives east-northeast from Lowestoft. This attack was probably by ''UB-4'', because she was operating in that area on her fourteenth patrol. Regardless of the identity of ''Bona Fide''s attacker, ''UB-4'' did approach a group of smacks in the vicinity the next day. Unknown to ''UB-4''s commander, ''Oberleutnant zur See'' Karl Gross,Karl Gross' name is also spelled as ''Karl Groß'' in some sources. one of the fishing vessels was the disguised ''Inverlyon''. Both of the Perkins works report the date of the encounter as Sunday, 16 August 1915, but 16 August 1915 was actually a Monday. Messimer (p. 129), Gibson and Prendergast (pp. 50–51), and Uboat.net () all report the date of the encounter as 15 August 1915.

Around 20:20, ''UB-4'' surfaced near ''Inverlyon'', and Gross, on the conning tower of ''UB-4'', began shouting out commands to ''Inverlyon''s crew in German. Jehan, after waiting until ''UB-4'' closed to within of ''Inverlyon'', ordered the White Ensign raised and gave the command to open fire. A burst of three rounds from the ''Inverlyon''s weapon scored hits on the conning tower, the second shot destroying part of the bridge and sending Gross into the water. ''UB-4'', with no one at the helm, drifted behind ''Inverlyon'', and when clear, ''Inverlyon''s gunner unleashed another six shots into the hull of ''UB-4'' at point-blank range. All the while, small arms fire from ''Inverlyon''s crew peppered the submarine. The U-boat began going down by the bow, becoming nearly vertical before disappearing below the surface. ''Inverlyon''s fishing skipper, a man named Phillips, dived in to attempt the rescue of a crewman from ''UB-4''. Phillips was unable to reach him before the crewman went under and met same fate as Gross and ''UB-4''s twelve other crewmen.

As ''UB-4'' went down she fouled ''Inverlyon''s nets—which had been deployed to keep up the appearance of a real fishing boat—essentially anchoring ''Inverlyon'' in place. The Q-ship's crew, not having a wireless set on board, sent word of the encounter with another smack. This was followed up by releasing messenger pigeons the following morning, requesting instructions on what to do with ''UB-4''. The thought of salvaging the snagged U-boat was rejected, so the nets were cut, freeing ''UB-4'' to sink to the bottom. ''UB-4''s wreck lies at position .Messimer, p. 129 On 19 November 1915 Jehan was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for the sinking of ''UB-4'', and the crewmen of ''Inverlyon'' split the submarine bounty paid by the Admiralty.There is no mention of the amount of the bounty for sinking ''UB-4'', but the Admiralty bounties were typically £5 per crewman on the submarine, which would have been £70 in the case of ''UB-4''. See: Messimer, pp. 158, 170, 222, for examples of the £5 per capita bounty.

About three weeks after she sank ''UB-4'', ''Inverlyon'' had the opportunity to sink another U-boat, but was unsuccessful. See additional note no. 2. The U-boat encountered may have been either or , which both sank fishing vessels in the area on 7 and 8 September. By 1916, ''Inverlyon'' had ended her short-lived Q-ship career and returned to being a fishing boat. Jehan, in addition to his DSC, was subsequently specially promoted to lieutenant on 4 January 1916 for his war service; he retired from the Royal Navy on 29 October 1920.

On 1 February 1917, the German submarine shelled and sank ''Inverlyon'' from Trevose Head at position ; there were no reported casualties. The information on the website is extracted from

See also

* , a sail-rigged vessel that served with distinction during World War I.
* , a sail rigged Q-ship used by the US Navy during World War II
* , one of the last sail-rigged vessels to see combat in World War II.
* , a topsail schooner in which Lieutenant William Sanders earned the Victoria Cross for an action with during World War I

Notes

References

Bibliography

*
*
*
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Inverlyon
Fishing vessels of the United Kingdom
Q-ships of the Royal Navy
World War I patrol vessels of the United Kingdom
Maritime incidents in 1917
Ships sunk by German submarines in World War I
World War I shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean