Current Information:

Age-28

Born-Battersea

Q ships were designed to look like defenceless merchant ships which would lure enemy submarines to attack them on the surface. They would then reveal their hidden guns and engage the submarine. They were called Q ships after their home port of Queenstown in Ireland. There has been a long running debate as to their effectiveness in sinking German submarines with some maintaining that they were a waste of resources, pointing to the fact that minefields destroyed more U-boats. Nevertheless they accounted for 10% of U-boat sinkings.

One of these Q ships was HMS Cullist which began life in 1912 as the Steamship Westphalia for the Leith, Hull & Hamburg Steam Packet Co. Ltd. In October, 1914 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty for service as a Stores Carrier, with her name unchanged and in March 1917, after conversion and armed with 1 x 4” gun and 2 x 14” torpedo tubes she entered service as a Decoy or Q ship and served as HMS Cullist. On 11th February 1918, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-97 in the Irish Sea with the loss of 43 out of the 70 crew aboard. One of those who lost their lives was Ernest Robilliard.