The Trawlermen World War I at Home

This is the North Sea.

100 years ago, at the start of the First World War,

this was the front line.

Hundreds of people died here and the sea floor beneath me

is littered with wrecks.

But many of the stories of what actually happened here, have been

largely forgotten.

When you think of the First World War,

you think of people in khaki suits fighting in mud,

whereas, actually, you need to think of people in blue suits

floating around in the North Sea.

The war in the North Sea was a life and death struggle

and one incident in particular sums up the harshness of the battle.

At the centre of it all was the captain of a trawler from Grimsby.

William Martin's story raises serious issues about war crimes,

humanity and the appalling moral dilemmas

faced by many during the conflict.

Now, his family wants to know how an ordinary trawlerman

became a controversial and divisive figure.

Why did he get ostracized by people for doing something

that he thought was right?

In the First World War, Grimsby was one of Britain's busiest

fishing ports.

Pat Thompson's great grandfather, William Martin,

a trawler captain, worked here all his life.

It was a fantastic place. 20,000 men worked on the docks, at least.

And the sort of fishing your great-grandfather did,

do you know what would be involved day-to-day in his work?

Don't forget, when he was doing it, there were no electronic gadgets.

No fish finder or anything.

No fish finder, it was all done by knowledge of the local fishing area,

the waters around in the North Sea.

A very hard life.

In 1914, Skipper Martin was 42.

He'd always worked at sea.

At home, he had a wife and six young children to support.

When war broke out, trawlermen like William Martin were bringing

vital food supplies across the North Sea,

but they were also suspected of spying on German vessels.

From the start, they found themselves vulnerable

to enemy attacks.

There were great fears on the side of the German Navy,

that the trawlers were acting as scouts, that they would use wireless

to warn the British and the last thing the Germans wanted,

was the British intercepting them.

In the very first month of the war, August 1914,

26 East Coast vessels were lost.

Ten of these were from the port of Boston, south of Grimsby.

Nearly 80 men were taken prisoner.

A German naval squadron came in to the North Sea.

There was destroyers, cruisers and light-fast ships,

which basically came up onto them, took the men off the boats.

Some had bombs planted on them and others were shelled and torpedoed.

The men were then loaded onto the boats

and taken back to Germany, basically, as prisoners of war.

It was the first sign of the new dangers facing

trawlermen in the North Sea.

These Lincolnshire crewmen would be held captive in Germany

for more than four years, only returning home after the war.

In terms of trawlers, we reckon that about one out of every three

vessels that had been around in 1913 didn't survive the war.

It was an enormous loss, when you think about it.

In December 1914, the German Navy shelled Scarborough, Whitby

and Hartlepool, killing more than 100 people.

For fishermen and their families,

the war had come dangerously close to home.

This was unprecedented. This was an attack by state-of-the-art war

vessels on what was ostensibly an unarmed town.

Soon, things went from bad to worse.

In June 1915, a German zeppelin dropped 60 bombs on Hull,

killing 25 and injuring 100.

Parts of the city were totally destroyed.

There could be no doubt that the East Coast was in the front line.

The effect was enormous.

You know, this was an attack that people didn't expect,

because, of course, this was a total war.

It was a new type of war.

A total war, is a war where every damage to economy

and society is mobilised, and that includes civilians.

Here in Hull, angry mobs attacked shops and businesses thought

to be owned by Germans, and for the fishermen out at sea

the dangers were increasing,

as German U-boats began to target trawlers.

Skipper Martin would have known these risks, when in February

1916, he set off from Grimsby on the south bank of the Humber.

100 miles offshore, his trawler, the King Stephen,

discovered a crashed German airship.

Clinging to the wreckage were 16 enemy airmen and all of them

were still alive.

The trawler skipper, William Martin, had a choice to make,

to save the airmen or to leave them to die.

He refused to rescue them and all of them drowned.

The decision made headlines around the world.

Now, Pat Thomson wants to find out why his great-grandfather

wouldn't rescue the enemy aircrew.

I would like to know what sort of feelings he had and coming

up on a zeppelin with people, what actually went through his mind.

The family has always known about this

and it just has been something that has been said.

Nobody actually followed it up and I'm probably the first one to

delve that deep.

To some, Skipper Martin had committed a war crime.

To others, he had done the right thing at a time of conflict.

But to understand his decision, we've got

to look at how our fishing industry and ports became

locked in a bitter war, fought along the Yorkshire, Lincolnshire coast.

By this time, trawlermen were at risk from all directions,

above and below the sea.

German U-boats were a lethal new weapon.

Fast, almost invisible and capable of travelling

long distances from their home ports.

At times, the U-boats were really a formidable threat for trawlers

and fishing vessels.

A single submarine might be able to take out between 40 and 50,

and those casualties were not unusual.

Something had to be done to protect the fishing fleet

and their communities.

Coastal defences were strengthened, and aeroplanes,

a new way of waging warfare, were introduced.

We hadn't had aeroplanes for very long, had we?

So these people were not only grappling with new technology

hundreds of feet up in the air

but they were taking on or looking for the enemy.

Anti-zeppelin aircraft were developed

and planes capable of dropping bombs on ships.

It was a very crowded and congested part of the war

and a crucial part that we tend to have forgotten about.

Seaplanes made missions to protect the fishing fleet in the North Sea.

In the Humber, sea forts were built to guard against raids

from the German Navy.

Spurn Point, on the mouth of the Humber,

became a military camp.

This was part of the defences.

It's a sound mirror, a primitive pre-cursor of radar,

which enabled sound operators to listen out for approaching aircraft.

So you'd often find men up here late at night with a microphone

trying to detect if a zeppelin was looming in the distance.

During the First World War, it feels very much

like Spurn was at the front line.

What exactly was happening here?

Troops were based down here, there were garrisons on the point,

garrisons at the head of Spurn in Kilnsea,

and this was just one of the vital strategic locations

for the military operation.

In a severe storm last December, part of the point was swept away,

revealing these remains of a railway jetty where supplies

landed for the men guarding the fishing ports.

This is impressive. This is First World War, as well, is it?

Yes, this has opened up in the tidal surge, so it was covered by the sand

over the years and this is where the railway line landed, shall we say?

-There are the tracks under my feet.

-Look, great!

There was a jetty that ran out over the sand.

Going from here, where those timbers are, straight out to sea?

Yes, straight out to there with the arrival of the boats on the jetty,

then loaded the train up and it went into this garrison,

which was the green battery, then north towards Kilnsea.

But, despite the defences, the bombing went on.

In March 1916, 16 people died near Hull railway station,

and 60 were injured.

The fishing community still didn't feel safe.

There was more rioting about the lack of defences.

When bombs dropped on Beverley,

a Royal Flying Corps officer was attacked by a mob.

In the newspaper coverage, it was clear civilians were at risk.

zeppelin attacks on Goole and Scunthorpe killed 20 people,

then 31 died in a raid on Cleethorpes.

But there was a way to fight back at sea.

Robb Robinson studies maritime history.

He's got a personal interest.

His grandfather took part in the North Sea campaign.

You've got a photo of your grandfather?

Yes, if we look here, we can see that.

It wasn't just patrolling for U-boats.

They laid anti-submarine nets and hundreds of vessels were

requisitioned by the Government

for use in the Royal Naval Reserve as minesweepers.

They had to clear 10,000 mines laid in British waters

during World War I.

Mines might be laid in several ways, by special mine laying U-boats,

surface craft or even by zeppelins.

Had we not been able to keep what they called a swept channel clear,

that would have degraded our ability to continue to wage war because

we wouldn't have been able to bring in food and the materials of war.

So these fishermen were risking their lives on a daily basis?

Day after day, week after week, month after month,

throughout the war, these people were on the front line.

They were facing the enemy, facing death.

On average, a minesweeper was lost every other week of the war.

Robb, you've brought along a real gem, a real in-depth

record of what was happening here in the First World War.

This is your grandfather's diary.

Can you talk me through the significance of a record like that?

-Not all fishermen wrote a lot.

-Right.

I don't know much else that my grandfather wrote,

but he did keep this diary.

It was an official log of what was going on,

but also his personal reflections on everything that was happening.

He had several encounters with U-boats at one stage

and one of them, we have in the diary here.

"Flipped to attack an enemy submarine.

"Fired three shots, but no luck before he dived.

"We went over to where he dived to try our luck to ram him,

"but no luck. Failed to drop depth charges.

"Stood by to drop depth charges but no order from the bridge,

"never get a chance like that again.

"Started sweeping 11am, swept till 2:15, return to port. One mine.

-A day in the life of a minesweeper.

-Unbelievable, isn't it?

The diary isn't just a record of military action.

Robb's grandfather lived through the war,

but he left messages for his loved ones in case he didn't survive.

"So, my love, if this book ever reaches your hands,

"I hope you'll not think I am going as a coward.

"There's only one thing I have died hearty on, that is

"I am leaving my two loved ones alone, but cheer up, my love,

"and think of me as your loving husband and sweetheart.

"And my bonny son, tell him, my lass, when he gets to understand more,

"that I loved him with all my heart."

40,000 men, half the British fishing industry,

found themselves in the Royal Naval Reserve.

They were a vital part of the war effort.

Some found it hard to get used to Navy rules and regulations,

but most adapted to the new routine.

Fishermen were incredibly skilled seafarers,

trawlermen in particular, but they didn't take well to

Naval discipline.

You can see it in all sorts of subtle ways.

If you're in the Navy, normally you'd expect to see somebody

clean-shaven or with a full beard.

They were allowed, because that is what they had, to keep

their moustaches.

If you look at uniforms, little subtle things like never

quite having the badge in the middle of the hat.

The sort of thing that would drive someone who wants conformity mad.

Some trawlers were converted into heavily armoured Q-ships

which concealed weapons to find and destroy German U-boats.

The German Navy was ordered to destroy British vessels on sight.

As the U-boat threat grew, so the idea had dawned on people

in the Navy that it would be a good idea if vessels could be disguised

as harmless, unarmed fishing boats, and they would have guns undercover.

As the U-boat made itself vulnerable coming close to the ship,

down would go the covers, up would come the guns,

and the U-boat would suffer a very serious attack.

This was the background when, on February 2nd, 1916, the Grimsby

trawler, the King Stephen, came across

a crashed zeppelin in the North Sea.

What happened next made headlines around the world.

It's early morning in Grimsby.

I'm setting out with Pat Thompson to retrace his great-grandfather's

voyage into the North Sea nearly 100 years ago.

We're with Robb Robinson,

another man with family history rooted in the events of World War I.

The zeppelin was on a raid over England.

It was one of nine that raided over England that night, and on its

way back from raiding across the Midlands, it suffered engine trouble.

It came down in the sea and, of course, from that moment on,

unless they were rescued, their time was up, really.

After coming across this crashed zeppelin, Skipper Martin took

several hours deciding what to do about the aircrew.

Fellow fishermen, people he knew, had lost their lives at sea

by this stage, as well as plenty of people in the merchant service

as well as all of the armed forces people,

so this was a stage when the war had become very bitter.

He is an unfortunate casualty of it.

Because he did not want to be in that situation.

He wasn't expecting to be in that situation

and he had to deal with what to do very quickly.

It's likely he was fishing in a prohibited area,

which could have influenced his decision.

But Pat Thompson believes his great-grandfather

couldn't have acted any other way.

There were those who labelled him as a war criminal.

Do you think that's justified?

It makes me feel sad in some respects

because they didn't know him.

I certainly didn't know him, it was that many years ago,

but the stories that have been handed down from the family

say that there was a lot of people in Grimsby who thought

he had done the greatest thing.

There were people who said he did a bad thing.

Do you think he must have felt scared at that moment?

Anybody would.

All of a sudden, you are confronted by men with machineguns.

And three iron crosses on the zeppelin meant

they had been involved in a lot of major battles.

You know, you're in the trawler

and there's this big thing looming in front of you in the sea.

And what do you know about this thing?

Well, you know it's brought destruction on towns across Britain.

And suddenly, you're confronted by this.

And the people who have operated this sort of killing machine

want to come on board your vessel.

Skipper Martin wrote,

"I knew what the Germans had done in the North Sea.

"And besides, zeppelin crews dropping bombs on houses

"and killing women and children didn't appeal to me."

Back in Grimsby, we're seeing how the story was reported.

Almost immediately, Skipper Martin found himself

in a firestorm of media attention at home and abroad.

It says the Germans are,

"unspeakably angry with the skipper of the King Stephen for refusing

"to take the crew of the zeppelin he found sinking in the North Sea

"on board his fishing boat."

The Germans were bitter. They really were.

They hoped to kill him for what he'd done.

But in the very next column, there are words of support for Martin.

The Bishop of London said that,

"one of the saddest people in England just now

"must be the commander of the little ship

"that came across the ruined zeppelin in the North Sea."

So he realises how your great-grandfather must have felt.

He was tormented. He never went back to sea after that.

As the row over the King Stephen rumbled on,

the war on the North Sea was far from over.

20 miles off the coast of Scarborough,

trawler men were about to suffer their worst ever U-boat attack.

It happened on September 24th, 1916,

when a U-boat surfaced next to a fleet of trawlers

from Scarborough, Grimsby, Whitby and Hull.

They were told to abandon ship.

And the U-boat sank all the trawlers one by one.

It was a devastating blow.

But unlike the King Stephen incident, no lives were lost.

The German captain made sure all 120 British fishermen

were transferred to boats to take them home.

Since then, the wrecked trawlers

have remained largely intact on the seabed.

Beneath me, there's still plenty of evidence

of what was happening here 100 years ago.

I've got a guide, Andy Jackson, who's tracked down and dived

many of the wrecks in this part of the North Sea.

It looks so calm and peaceful when you're on the surface here,

but it's hard to imagine the seabed beneath us is littered with wrecks.

And many from WWI. How many have we got here roughly?

There are hundreds.

I have dived 200 or 300 off here

between Bridlington and Whitby.

Hundreds of them.

This was like the M1 at the time.

All the trade was going up and down in steamers.

Andy discovered the remains of the Otter,

one of the trawlers sunk by a U-boat in September, 1916.

-How deep are you here?

-This is 72 metres.

-Wow!

-It's a long way down, isn't it?

-Yes.

Only 15 minutes, we have on the bottom usually,

so we keep it quite tight, time-wise.

But with these trawlers, that is quite a long time.

It is beautiful and very ghostly.

-Yes.

-Sort of eerie-looking.

But it's incredibly clear. The visibility is beautiful.

And there's a lot of structure there.

And the fact that she is lying bolt upright, as well.

-Yes.

-It's great. Really beautiful.

Really interesting here, the camera spots this bell before I see it.

-Can you see over here?

-Ooo...

-I've not seen this yet.

-Oh, yeah. Oh, my word!

Right there! Oh, that's incredible!

-That's what everybody wants.

-Absolutely.

-The ship's bell.

It names the vessel in one.

It was considered the soul of the ship, as well.

For all sorts of reasons, the bell's an important thing.

That's your Holy Grail as a diver, isn't it?

And we're on top of the boiler here. And I see the compass.

-The compass was on top of the wheelhouse...

-Which bit's that?

-So, this is the compass?

-In the gimbals there, yeah.

The bell and the compass were side-by-side.

-So the next thing you see...

-Is that.

-Is the bell.

-And at this point, do you have any idea what the vessel is?

-No.

-Now, here's me...

-Oh, you're lifting the bell!

-Yes.

-So you've got your lifting bag here.

-Absolutely.

That's got to go a long way up to the surface, hasn't it?

In the U-boat log, U57, it says

22 fishing steamers were sunk in that trip out.

In this very tight area, in that fleet where they were fishing,

-there were 14.

-Right.

And of those 14, I think we've had nine.

It was one of Andy's most exciting dives.

And he's got an unique souvenir.

The trawler's bell.

-Apart from being heavy, she's just spectacular!

-Yeah.

When you saw this on deck, could you see the writing?

-Did you have any idea what it was?

-No.

There was too much marine growth on top of them.

No, very, very rarely do you see the writing.

-So you bring it back up and restore it.

-Yes.

-It's a bit of the deep come back up.

-Yeah, absolutely.

All the Otter's crew escaped.

But others, like the crew of this German U-boat,

sunk by armed trawlers in 1918, weren't so lucky.

-So this is a U-boat, what U-boat is this?

-It's UB30.

Right. And what is the history behind that?

The UB30 was sunk on the surface

by some patrol boats just off Whitby.

So they caught her on the surface.

They went over the top of her and bent her periscope.

We've just gone over the hatch. That was open.

Yes. People tried to get out, I think, yes.

-That's the starboard propeller.

-Yeah!

-That's so clear, isn't it?

-It is.

-I love how nature takes over.

-Yes.

It's become this wonderful reef and all the fish swimming around,

oblivious of the fact it's a U-boat.

All 26 crewmen were trapped inside.

This is their final resting place.

Now, I've dived on a U-boat where lives were lost

and there is a ghostly feel about it

when you know that basically, inside that submarine,

men perished, they lost their lives.

I think there's an extra level of respect

when you're diving in something that is literally a tomb.

The North Sea witnessed a war that was harsh and relentless.

But there was humanity, as well.

There's one account of a German U-boat officer

who claims to have rowed ashore at Scarborough to go to the cinema.

And another who surfaced at South Bay to hear bands at the Spa.

So 100 years on, there may still be room for reconciliation

This is Denmark.

100 years ago, this area was part of Germany.

-Hello. Pat Thompson.

-Manfred Petersen.

Pat Thompson has come to the base of the ill-fated L19 zeppelin

found floating on the North Sea

by the Grimsby trawler, the King Stephen.

He's here to trace his great-grandfather's story.

And to find out more about the zeppelin's final flight.

-So that's the bath house.

-Yes. And that survived.

Nearly all the base has disappeared,

but there's still some evidence that airships set off from here

on bombing missions across the North Sea.

-Shall we see here?

-Yes.

In what's now the middle of a forest,

this is where the L19 zeppelin was moored.

How important would this,

as a zeppelin base, be in the First World War?

TRANSLATION: This was the Germans' most northern airbase.

And from here, they flew to England every day on bombing raids

and reconnaissance.

The airbase was very important to them.

I know what happened from the trawler coming to L19

and I know what happened after that.

What happened on the German side of it?

TRANSLATION: The reaction was very strong.

The shockwaves were very great.

Because it was terrible that these were seamen in need

who'd hoped they might be saved.

But don't you think with the Germans being armed

and outnumbering the fishermen,

it was the most sensible thing to do?

TRANSLATION: Yes, I can understand that,

but these were seamen in distress.

There were significantly more people

on board the L19 than the King Stephen.

But the captain of the zeppelin had promised

they wouldn't take over the trawler.

Don't you think they would have killed my grandfather and his crew?

TRANSLATION: That might be true,

but the captain of the zeppelin gave his word of honour as an officer

that he wouldn't. More than that, I can't say.

I assume when he said it, his word of honour should have been true.

But of course, that can't be proven today.

Manfred's got copies of letters

written by the L19 crew to their families

thrown in bottles into the sea when they were about to die.

Thank you. I know they're very sad,

so if you wouldn't mind, I'll read them in private.

Thank you.

For Pat, it's been an emotional meeting.

He needs some time on his own.

Being here, where the airship came from,

and talking to Manfred, the historian,

it made me realise one or two things.

And it's quite upsetting.

It's nearly the end of Pat's journey.

The body of one of the zeppelin crew was washed up

on the Danish island of Fanoe.

He was buried in the local churchyard.

'We have been floating around for two days and two nights. No help.

'An English fishing boat refused to help us.'

"Up unto our final hour, we will be hoping for rescue.

'But if it is destined to be otherwise, it is God's will.'

'Our courage is failing and the storm is getting worse.

'I will still be thinking of you, even in heaven.'

'My beloved wife, unfortunately, God has decided

'that we will not see each other again.

'We will see each other in eternal bliss.'

These letters, when you read them, they are heart-rending.

It's a terrible thing to be left.

What would you write in a letter to your family

if you knew you were going to die in the next few hours?

It's got to be horrible.

It was a horrible death.

If I could make amends, I would.

All I can do is offer my sincere apologies to his family.

Back in England, there were no burials for most of the trawler men

who died in the First World War.

They'd taken great risks to keep vital supply routes open.

And along the East Coast, there are some war graves

where they take their place with others

who lost their lives during the conflict.

A century on, the scale of the loss of life still moves you.

And although we're often reminded of the lives

lost by servicemen during the Great War,

we must never forget that the same sacrifice

was made by ordinary people, like these trawler men

when they found themselves in the front line.

Another victim was Pat's great-grandfather, William Martin.

He died within a year of the zeppelin incident.

He was only 45 and was said to be a broken man.

At a time of all-out war, he made an agonising choice.

Even now, for those of us who weren't there,

it's very difficult to judge whether he made the right decision.

Hear more incredible stories about what happened in your area

during the war with World War One At Home

at www.bbc.co.uk/ww1.