Poem ~ Fishing Boat Versus U-boat - Thursday, 5 April 1917 - Friday, 6 April 1917

Impression sketch of French fishing boat Hyacinth Yvonne, sinking a German submarine by Jamie. See an original image at: <http://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/1307670/wwi-u-boat-sunk-by-a-french-fishing-boat/> [Accessed 5 April 2017]

By contradictory respect

For those who sailed the seas,

Wartime orders of U-boat

Commanders were to sink

Allied vessels.

Self-protection was advised

In wariness for all those at sea.

Campaigns of submarines

Of Germany centred about

British isles.

U-boat missions were to cut

Trade routes - German intentions

Were once again renewed;

Breaking Sussex pledge

To distress the US.

Any boat large or small

Might become a U-boat victim,

As was the intention

In an encounter with

One fishing crew.

A six-man crew of a French

Fishing boat found themselves

Confronted, in the shape

Of a surfaced German

U-boat.

The two crews regarded

Each other, separated by yards

Of waves that carried

Them in a union of

Sea currents.

The German commander

Called out to the French captain

Orders to abandon their

Fishing vessel, but the

Men refused.

From under a cover,

The French revealed their single

Small gun, which they

Then aimed and fired

On the U-boat.

A Furious commander

Ordered his crew to sink them

And their boat - for

Over twenty minutes

Two sides fought.

Despite the fishing vessel

Hit various times, was refusal

To give in - the French

Crew kept up fire

On U-boat's skin.

A journal report via

Paris, told the story how that

Six French fishermen

Made a decisive hit

To sink enemy.

Yet a mystery would

Centre around the claim - were

Such fishermen actually

A decoy vessel, called

A Q-ship?

Such boats sailed

With intent to lure submarines

To the sea's surface -

Hyacinthe Yvonne

Being one.

Part of the French

Navy the story of Hyacinthe

Yvonne was in fact

An armed patrol

Vessel; a Q-Ship.

by Jamie Mann.

Anon.,1917. U-boat Sunk By Fishermen. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 4 April March 1917. P.4. Col.6. Available at: <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/12214428/Daily-Telegraph-April-4-1917.html> [Accessed: 05 April 2017].

Source: File: List of Shipwrecks in March 1917. Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_March_1917> [Accessed 05 April 2017]

Mann, J., 2016. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 05 April 2017). 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/12214428/Daily-Telegraph-April-4-1917.html

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