C O N T E X T 1 3 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4 23 ANTONY FIRTH The East Coast War Channels The hundreds of shipwrecks of the East Coast War Channels are the standing remains of a critical battle and the monuments to east coast seafarers who have no other grave. Imagine that there were still bombsites from the first world war in Britain: the shattered remains of warehouses, factories and houses that had been hit in raids by Zeppelins and Gotha bombers. Imagine that there had been hundreds of raids and thousands of properties had been destroyed, spread around the country from north to south. Imagine that walls were still standing, with roofs tumbled in and the debris of everyday lives – possessions, goods, machinery – lying among the ruins. Imagine that when these raids took place not all the bodies were recovered; that these bomb sites are the last resting places of those – mainly civilians – who died. Imagine that these sites might have been partially demolished but otherwise had grown into the landscape through a variety of natural and incidental human processes, and that although well-documented they were largely ignored, visited only by a few urban explorers and occasional souvenir hunters. Imagine that these places, despite all that they represent, were barely recognised by the public or heritage managers at the start of this centenary. Imagine that with all this on the doorstep, all commemoration was focused elsewhere. Within a day of Britain’s declaration of war, Germany started to lay mines off England’s east coast. The minelayer Königin Louise was intercepted and sank, but the cruiser HMSAmphion, which had led the interception, struck some of the mines and was itself sunk with the loss of 150 crew, plus survivors from the minelayer. Within the month, further German minefields had been laid off the Humber and theTyne, causing losses to both allied and neutral merchant vessels, to fishing boats, and to the minesweepers that sought to drag the immersed explosives from the seabed. The Admiralty quickly concluded that it was not possible to remove all the mines, so coastal shipping was restricted to a narrow channel from Folkestone to the Tees that could be swept each day.This became known as the War Channel, accompanied by swept channels into each port. As shipping was concentrated into these routes, they became the main target of further minelaying, predominantly by U-boats, which also sank vessels by gunfire or boarding to place explosives or open stopcocks. U-boats also made attacks on the east coast using torpedoes, especially in 1917 and 1918 with the advent of unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Sea as well as the Atlantic. And vessels were attacked by German aircraft, including early instances of vessels being sunk by aerial torpedo. The attrition to merchant ships, fishing vessels and the minor warships that sought to protect them continued throughout the war; in fact stray mines continued to cause ships to be lost well into the 1920s. The fight to prevent trade by sea was by no means one-sided, however, but the battle over German trade was fought predominantly by Royal Navy cruisers intercepting cargo ships in the North Atlantic. The lethal effects were felt by the German population at home rather than at sea. Without doubt the East Coast War Channels were a battlefield throughout the first world war. It is still strewn with the standing remains of the conflict. The number of wrecks on the seabed is not known for certain: over 550 are known and there are a further 800 recorded losses, whose remains are probably among over 1,200 wrecks on the east coast that have yet to be identified by name or date. Equally it is not possible to put a number on all those who died or were injured, let alone all those who experienced the battle but survived. It is clear, however, that the conflict on the doorstep was a global one, with many nationalities among the seafarers who plied the precarious waters of the east coast. An aerial photograph of an east coast convoy in the first world war. (Courtesy of Cross and Cockade International)
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