Orianda - 19 December 1914
The spate of losses led to the Admiralty instructing Hull trawlers to suspend fishing until the mines could be swept. Trawlers at Scarborough had been confined to port since the bombardment and only the inshore cobles had been allowed to fish. Merchant shipping was also held at the Humber and the Tyne. Commander Richard H. Walters, RN, was placed in charge of the mine sweeping operations. In order to ascertain how the mines lay it was necessary to work at all times of tide, which further increased the danger to the minesweepers. The logistical challenge of dealing with a large minefield should not be underestimated. To further complicate the task, large numbers of mines were known to break free of their moorings in bad weather. The minesweeper gunboats the Gossamer, Jason and Skipjack, en route from Sheerness to Scapa Flow to rejoin Grand Fleet, were ordered to sweep from Flamborough Head to Scarborough to determine the extent of the minefield laid by the Kolberg. However, the trio only discovered two mines.
Closer to shore a fleet of Grimsby-based minesweeping trawlers swept and detonated a number of mines. The detonations could be distinctly heard in the town of Scarborough and ‘large numbers of people’ watched the operation from the shore. The Grimsby minesweepers were under the command of Lieutenant Hubert Boothby, RNR, who had been in charge of the steamship department of the Great Central Railway when war broke out, he was called up and placed in change of the ‘Pekin Group’ of minesweepers. Around 11am the group was working off Cayton Bay and had dealt with eighteen mines when the Orianda, travelling at full speed, hit a mine that blew her blows off. She went down rapidly, the tip of her masthead being the last part the vessel to disappear. Fishing in their coble less than one hundred yards away was F. Dalton and his two sons. They reported a ‘tremendous explosion’ and they watched the minesweeper sink by the bows. It was perhaps fortunate that only one crewman was killed. He was a nineteen year old deckhand, James Wilson, it was reported that he was killed instantly. The four ships working in concert with the Orianda ensured that assistance was immediate and the surviving crewmen were quickly rescued. The motor boat English Rose landed the survivors at Scarborough, these including James Simkins, the minesweeper’s second hand, who was suffering from head injuries. It was reported ‘thousands of people thronged the piers and the foreshore … when the survivors … were landed’. The wounded Simkins was taken by motorcar to the town’s hospital where he made a rapid recovery.
Within ten minutes another converted minesweeper, the Grimsby trawler Passing, now minesweeper No.58, hit another mine. The ship had a huge hole in her bows, was ablaze and had steam pipes shattered. The paddle steamer Brighton Queen towed the Passing stern first across Cayton Bay and the stricken minesweeper was beached in the harbour. News of the drama spread quickly through the town. One eye-witness remembers hearing that a minesweeper had been hit, they arrived at the harbour just as wounded men were being landed by the Scarborough lifeboat. They also saw the Passing with ‘a hole under her bows big enough to drive a horse and cart through! She’d been towed in stern first, but how they managed to save her I don’t know’. The Passing was reputedly the largest trawler in Britain when built, this, and her system of watertight compartments, was thought to be responsible for her survival. For his actions in helping save his vessel, the Passing’s master, Skipper George W. Thornton was mentioned in dispatches. Additionally, Lieutenant Godfrey Craih Parsons, RN, also aboard the Passing was awarded the DSC for that and other actions. In port the heavily damaged Passing became something of a tourist attraction. The Passing survived the war and returned to fishing. In 1925 she was sold to a French company and renamed Pacifique. She was lost at sea with all hands off Newfoundland in 1928.
The toll of the minesweepers continued when the Aberdeen registered Star of Britain was battered by the detonation of three mines close under the stern of the vessel. Whilst water poured into the stricken minesweeper, her commander Lieutenant C. V. Crossley, R.N.R., crawled into a confined space near the screw shaft and temporarily stopped a leak sufficiently to enable the pumps to keep the water down and save the ship. Badly damaged, the boat managed to limp into Scarborough without any loss of life. Lieutenant Crossley had been an apprentice printer in Bridlington before he felt the call of the sea. Also among the carnage, Commander Lionel G. Preston, RN, cooly steered HMS Skipjack into the middle of the minefield to lend assistance to the damaged trawlers. He anchored between the trawlers and a number of mines which had been brought to the surface and proceeded to destroy the mines with gunfire.
Crewman killed on the Orianda
James Wilson, deckhand, Royal Naval Reserve, aged 19, Aberdeen
