In a tragically short naval career, ‘meteor-like’ in its brilliancy, Willie Sanders waged war against enemy U-boats in a manner more akin to the Napoleonic era. But, as Steve Snelling reveals, the nerve-jangling nature of close-quarter Q-ship combat took a fearful toll of this most gallant of sea heroes.
Willie Sanders was feeling the strain. Mentally drained and physically exhausted following 10 months ‘special service’ in the most desperate of all naval campaigns, the 34-year-old New Zealander feared his brilliant, meteor-like, career was headed for premature burn-out. As one of the youngest and most fêted commanders engaged in a clandestine struggle that was the maritime equivalent of guerrilla warfare his reputation for nearsuicidal gallantry was already the stuff of legend. But the relentless effort of operating aboard so-called Q-ships, disguised merchant vessels bristling with hidden guns which were designed to act as ‘live bait’ to lure submarines to their destruction, had taken its toll.
A few weeks after the second of two close-quarter duels that would earn him the nation’s highest awards for bravery, he worried that his well of courage was running dry. Writing to his father on 6 July 1917,…
