A conservation society in the United Kingdom is hoping to save one of the last surviving Royal Navy warships that played a role in hunting German submarines during World War I.
The warship’s future, however, seems uncertain after she was ordered to leave her current dock.
The Q-ship Society, a non-profit organisation, is spearheading a campaign to save the HMS Saxifrage, a British naval ship that was built for convoy escort and anti-submarine duties during World War I.
Since 2016, Saxifrage has been moored at the commercial docks at Chatham, hidden away from public view. The Saxifrage was among the Royal Navy ships that played an instrumental role at the tail end of WWI.
Historical accounts show the ship was among the last examples of a Royal Navy sloop, a fleet of slow escort vessels that were small, lightly armed, and whose core mission was to hunt German U-boats.
The Saxifrage was built in 1917 by Lobnitz & Co. of Renfrew in Scotland. Commissioned in March 1918, she was an Anchusa-Flower class sloop, a fleet of ships that were named after different flower varieties.
In her case, Saxifrage was named after the flower known as London Pride.Records indicate that Saxifrage was one of a group of vessels that were commonly known as ‘Q-ships’ that were designed to appear as ordinary merchant ships.
They were, however, armed with 4-inch and 12-pounder guns, giving them the firepower to launch surprise attacks on German submarines.
The thinking was that a U-boat would be unwilling to use a torpedo on a small merchant ship. In essence, the logic would be for the U-boat to surface and sink the small merchant ship by gunfire or explosives.
