ny of the trawler skippers could not read or write, but
they knew their North Sea. Charts they despised; with compass and lead
alone they found their way unerringly even to the coasts of Iceland;
for they carried a mental chart in their memories, and had an intimate
knowledge of the soundings of all these waters. They could smell their
way across the North Sea in the thickest weather, so to speak.

These men, who have been fishermen from infancy and have faced danger
throughout their lives, brought up in the roughest of schools, now
belong to the R.N.T.R., the Royal Naval Trawler Reserve, and man the
mine-sweeping trawlers. Some of them might appear rude in speech and
manners to residents of garden cities, but to those who know them
these are true men led by "captains courageous," and they call for the
admiration and respect of all Englishmen for the way in which they
have carried out their perilous duties throughout the war. The
mine-sweeping trawler carries a crew of about fifteen men. One
scarcely recognises in them the whilom fishermen. The skipper of a
craft that used to form part of a fishing fleet now has warrant rank
and is smart in naval uniform. The men, too, wear the badges of a
distinguished service. The discipline enforced in a mine-sweeping
trawler now comes nearly up to the standard of the Grand Fleet ships.
Skippers and men mostly come from the fishing ports of the North
Sea--Hull, Yarmouth, and the others; Harwich itself, of course, is not
a fishing centre. The mine-sweeping trawlers are organised in
divisions of from four to seven vessels, each division being under the
command of an R.N.R. lieutenant.

What I have said of the trawler skippers and crews also applies to
those who man the North Sea drifters, which were taken from the
fishing grounds to do their work among the minefields. These drifters
are for the most part manned by hardy Scotch fishermen, who, like the
East Coast trawler men, took to their new work as a duck takes to
water. These drifters are of lighter draught than the trawlers, and so
can be employed in shallower waters. They proved of great service, not
only in mine-sweeping, but also for laying mine nets and for carrying
out exploratory sweeps. They also took part in the hydrophone patrols,
when several of these craft used to drift noiselessly, listening by
means of their hydrophones for the sound of enemy submarines
travelling below the surface. When a submarine was heard to appro