The Petrol Navy - British, American and Other Naval Motor Boats at War 1914 – 1920

Currently, Steve Dunn must be considered ‘the go-to man’ on the Royal Navy in World War I and its immediate aftermath. He has written six previous books on the subject and wisely skirts round the much-trodden path of the major North Sea battles in favour of less well-known aspects of the conflict. The Petrol Navy, as its full title indicates, is about the auxiliary forces of small boats powered by the recently developed internal combustion engine. These were rapidly built initially to meet an urgent requirement for suitable vessels to carry out minesweeping and anti-submarine patrols which favoured the use of small, inexpensive and shallow draught boats. Britain was not alone in utilising this type of craft: France, Germany, Italy and the USA all employed variations of the type. A chance meeting in New York between an American entrepreneur and the managing director of Vickers in early 1915 led to a lucrative contract for the Elco Company to build initially 50 later 500 75-80 foot motor launches for the Royal Navy. This timely encounter boosted the numbers available during the early stages of the war. It is not often that war and sport are interlinked. However, as Dunn demonstrates, the genesis of the Royal Naval Motor Boat Reserve (RNMBRO) came from a small group of wealthy and often aristocratic amateur boat and yacht owner enthusiasts eager to ‘do their bit’. They volunteered themselves and their boats, both of which sometimes proved inadequate for the rigours of the unpredictable weather conditions around the British Isles - being more accustomed to competing in much gentler, sporting regattas. Clearly Dunn relishes in describing the so-called ‘Corinthian spirit’ of these upper class Edwardians, many boasting compound surnames, who were imbued with an innate sense of fair play, modesty and understated gentlemanliness. He puts this character trait into context when he relates the part played by the frail motor launches and motor boats during Operation ZO, the raids on Zeebrugge and Ostend in 1918. The author calls these desperate and bloody engagements on the Belgian coast the ‘apotheosis’ of the Petrol Navy story during which there were some quite unbelievable acts of heroism resulting in many deaths and a veritable shower of gallantry awards. After the United States entered the war in 1917 it made extensive use of what they classed as ‘sub-chasers’. While the U-Boat offensive on the East Coast of the United States in 1942 is well-known, a much smaller but similar campaign was waged by German submarines during the Summer and early Autumn of 1918 in which the American-dubbed ‘splinter ships’ were heavily involved. There is a fascinating section dealing with the Armistice and Occupation in the immediate aftermath of the conflict in which the same motor boats made their way through the European river system and set up patrols in the heart of Germany. However, the story of the RN’s use of these petrol-engined boats ended quite abruptly after 1919, and practically all the hulls were sold off to private ownership or scrapped. This is a very interesting book in which Steve Dunn mixes naval with social history and, using his deep knowledge of the period, paints a vivid and informative picture of a little-known part of the Great War narrative.