An extremely rare Great War Q-Ship operations D.S.M. and Bar group of four awarded to 2nd Hand A. McKechnie, Royal Naval Reserve

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R., with Second Award Bar, the reverse of this officially impressed ‘20 June 1917’ (D.A. 8199 A. McKechnie, 2nd Hd., R.N.R., English Channel, 2 Dec. 1916); 1914-15 Star (DA 8199 D.H., R.N.R.); British War and Victory Medals (8199 D.A. 2 Hd., R.N.R.), the third with officially corrected surname, edge bruising, generally very fine (4) £4000-5000

D.S.M. London Gazette 16 February 1917.

Bar to D.S.M. London Gazette11 August 1917: ‘For services in action with enemy submarines.’

Archie McKechnie, who was born in Glasgow in December 1893, enrolled in the Royal Naval Reserve in August 1915, when he was posted to the Falmouth auxiliary patrol base Dreel Castle. He subsequently joined the ship’s company of the Mary B. Mitchell (a.k.a. Q-9).

As late as April 1916 the Mary B. Mitchell had been placidly engaged in the china clay trade from Cornwall to Runcourn, but this somewhat drab employment belied a grander past. A three-masted topsail steel schooner of 210 tons, she had been built at Carrickfergus in 1892, registered at Beaumaris and used as a private vessel by Lord Penryn. In fact in terms of comfort there were few to touch her on the Q-ship circuit, her poop companionway leading to an immaculate saloon, the floor of which was laid terrazo style, with a decorative star in the centre. The panelling was of rich mahogany and maple and on the starboard side, from forward, were the Master’s quarters, a stateroom, bathroom and pantry. If anyone ever sailed off to war in style, it was the crew of the Mary B. Mitchell.

She did, however, undergo a good deal of external alteration to meet the stringent requirements for decoy ships, not least the fitting of an appropriate armament and the application of colours to disguise her as a neutral trawler. Such was the quality of her new disguise that on returning from her first patrol out of Falmouth in June 1916, she was able to report that a Naval Boarding Party had fallen for her newly acquired Spanish identity. For the remainder of the year she patrolled in the neighbourhood of the Channel Islands, sometimes as the Jeanette and sometimes as the Brine, both vessels being registered at St. Malo, and on 2 December 1916, she had her first scrap with an enemy submarine. Her skipper, Lieutenant M. Armstrong, R.N.R., subsequently submitted the following report to Their Lordships:

‘I observed a submarine about 1500 yards, 2 points on our starboard bow quarter, flying the A.B. International and the German Ensign. Rang alarm bell for hands to stations; panic party clearing away boats. Submarine opened fire at about 1000 yards, shot going between foremast and mainmast. After an interval of one minute, a second shot was fired but believed to fall short; about two minutes later a third shot was fired which passed overhead. The submarine was on the surface and stopped, whilst I was closing gradually. Immediately the third shot had been fired, I observed the gunlayer of the submarine run towards the conning-tower. I then concluded that something suspicious had been observed (and later found out that it must have been H.M.T. Rosetta approaching that alarmed them), so I gave orders to open fire with all guns on our starboard beam. The range was given at 1000 yards, but as the first shot from the after 6-pounder went over, I ordered sights to be lowered to 800 yards. The second shot from the after 6-pounder hit the submarine between conning-tower and gun, but either pierced the shell plating or failed to explode. The four shots from the forward 6-pounder were all over, but the fourth shot from the after 6-pounder hit the submarine at the base of the conning-tower, whereupon the submarine listed over to port heavily, righted again, and sank vertically, and just as she was disappearing a column of water shot up about 12 feet, and about 3 to 5 feet in diameter, after the fashion of a whale blowing, and appeared to come from the side where the second shot had hit.

Owing to the heavy swell from the south-eastward, my observations were a little obscured, but I firmly believe the submarine did not submerge naturally. The gunlayer was still struggling to get into the conning-tower when the first hit was registered, and the second hit took effect in well under a minute later, and the submarine went down with ensign and A.B. still flying.





As he just disappeared the periscope of a second submarine was reported nearly astern about half a mile or more distant, approaching us rapidly. He drew out to about one point on our starboard quarter, and when at a distance of about 300 yards he fired a torpedo. I saw the torpedo leave the submarine, and it came to the surface about 30 yards from him and approached us rapidly, the head appearing through every wave and nearly horizontal. By ordering the helm to be put hard starboard quickly, it missed our rudder by about 15 feet and passed on our port side for a considerable distance and sank ... I squared away and ran for the Scillies to repair house, repaint ship, and procure a doctor, the wind being unfavourable for me to reach any other port.’

McKechnie was awarded the D.S.M.

In January 1917, under a new skipper, Lieutenant J. Lowrie, R.N.R., ‘a man of strong personality, a real sailor’, the Mary B. Mitchell was nearly lost in gale-force winds off Ushant, but by means of erecting a jury-mast he managed to keep her off the rocks until rescue arrived in the form of a Norwegian merchantman and a French torpedo-boat - with the loss of her foremast, spars and mainmast, it was necessary for her to be towed back to Falmouth.

In the late morning of 20 June 1917, Mary B. Mitchell was working her beat in the Channel Approach when Lowrie sighted a conning tower of an enemy submarine, three miles off, steering west. The submarine, the UC-65, opened fire and at once the Q-ship’s men sprang into action, her “Panic Party” abandoning ship. Gradually the UC-65 moved in closer and when she was about 800 yards off, Lawrie gave the order to drop the covers and return fire, 17 rounds being got off before the UC-65 slipped beneath the waves. Mary B. Mitchell’s guns appear to have achieved three 12-pounder and four 6-pounder hits but no evidence could be found to confirm a victory, and she proceeded on her way. Then in the early evening Lowrie sighted another enemy submarine, the UC-17, a smaller vessel of the older type. Once again his “Panic Party” took to their boat, while the UC-17 closed in and stopped at a range of a few hundred yards. She then suddenly moved forward and dived, her conning tower coming to the surface just 50 yards from the Q-ship, and in that brief moment one 12-pounder and a few 6-pounder rounds appeared to find their mark, and the submarine disappeared. A subsequent enquiry concluded that both submarines had lived to fight another day, but it was a gallant effort. McKechnie was awarded a Bar to his D.S.M.

In early August the Mary B. Mitchell fought another inconclusive duel, on this occasion sustaining damage from a direct hit that wounded two ratings, both of them, in fact, deck hands.

McKechnie was demobilised in January 1919.