ABSTRACT

The German U-boats (submarines) were a nightmare for the Allies. Big, silent, and fast running, they sank Allied ships faster than the Allied countries could build them. The rules of warfare in 1914 were the same they had been for almost 50 years. The Allies decided to use this to their advantage. They took old fishing boats and flat freighter ships and made a fake deck on the ships. When the German U-boat would hail the Q-ship and give warning of an attack, the Q-ship crew would drop a boat in the water and a few men would row away. It was an incredibly dangerous job. The crews on the Q-ships were basically decoys waiting to be fired on by submarines. In the beginning, the Q-ships were very successful and quickly sank 11 German U-boats. But later in the war, Germany declared “unrestricted warfare,” which meant that they no longer gave a warning before attacking.