SMOKE AND MIRRORS: Q-Ships Against the U-Boats in the First World War - Tapa dura

The Q-ship, an ordinary merchant vessel with concealed guns, came into its own during the First World War, when the Royal Navy to trap and destroy German U-boats. Deborah Lake uses a wide range of primary and secondary source material drawn from archives in the UK, Germany and the USA to tell the compelling story of the Q-ships and their U-boat adversaries. The Q-ship operations themselves will be covered by following the careers of the eight men who won the Victoria Cross on Special Service Operations; and by accounts of German U-boat crews being on the receiving end. No book on Q-ships can avoid the Baralong incident in which a Q-ship's crew allegedly executed the survivors of the German submarine U-27, on 19 August 1915. In a subsequent encounter with U-41, more British atrocities were alleged by the only two German survivors. Revealing extracts from the diary of a Royal Marine who served on board the Baralong are reproduced in the book together with other first-hand accounts. With charge and counter-charge, this incident provides a fascinating story.

Deborah Lake served in the Royal Air Force before leaving to concentrate on her writing and acting careers (Manx National Theatre Company). She is the author of The Zeebrugge & Ostend Raids, 1918 (as David Lomas, Leo Cooper/Pen & Sword 2002), Mons 1914 (as David Lomas, Osprey Publishing 1997, with seven reprints; and Praeger USA, 2004), First Ypres, 1914 (Osprey Publishing, 1998, seven reprints; and Praeger USA, 2004), The British Tommy In The Great War (as David Boughton, Almark Publications, 1971). Deborah has written extensively for military magazines and journals. She has also written romantic fiction for Robert Hale and Mayflower under a pseudonym.