skimming atop the waters of the Belgian
and Adriatic coasts they came hunting
their targets torpedoes at their ready
hoping to move in and out before they
were even noticed the torpedo boats
[Music]
i'm indy neidell welcome to a great war
special episode about motor torpedo
boats during the first world war the
development of the torpedo over the
decades leading up to the war eventually
would put all warships of all navies at
risk the 1870s saw the development of
lightweight high-speed steam-powered
torpedo boats and in response the larger
more seaworthy torpedo boat destroyer
which eventually evolved into the
destroyer with which we were all
familiar when the internal combustion
engine was developed in the late 19th
century it was adopted in all sorts of
means of transportation cars motorcycles
planes soon enough and high-speed boats
in 1906 the French launched the vedett
trickle pay a 16 litre diesel powered
torpedo boat capable of 16 knots and
this sparked a wave of interest in using
internal combustion engines in ships of
war with their lightweight high power
and ability to start immediately
interest in Italy and Britain though was
on hydro planes or skimmers which rode
atop the water instead of through it and
they experimented with military
possibilities one major British
experimenter was John Thorneycroft owner
of Thorneycroft shipyards in 1915 he
developed a proposal from three young
Royal Navy officers including one sub
lieutenant bill Bremner for adapting
racing hydroplanes for an attack on the
German high seas fleet the idea was to
have a boat small and light enough to
fit into a warships davits instead of a
30-foot Cutter but large enough to carry
a torpedo thornycroft enlarged the
Miranda 4 to produce a 40-foot hole
capable of 34 knots with a system where
the torpedo was launched from the stern
but facing forwards bill Bremner was
awarded 2,000 pounds from the Admiralty
for the idea a total of 39 of these
coastal motor boats CMBS were built
first launched in April 1916 meanwhile
the Italians had designed the motor
scuffle arm on tow sailor ante or mas in
short these were similar in design
but had to stir and mounted torpedoes
that were dropped over the side the
first two boats were launched at the end
of 1915 but they had limitations they
could only really operate in calm
conditions and the 250 horsepower engine
made so much noise it was hard to
maintain the element of surprise so they
were converted to gun carrying submarine
chasers the British boats were bit more
successful and were based at Dunkirk
side note here their crew included
Erskine Childers
who wrote the riddle of the sands a
decade before the war which is about
German military buildup and is in many
ways the first modern spy novel I read
it when I was a teenager it's great
anyhow over the winter of 1916 1917
these boats made a number of successful
attacks against the German Navy but both
Italy and Britain decided they needed a
larger boat the Italians ordered 20
larger but slower boats that went into
service in the summer of 1916 in
September they made two surprise attacks
on austro-hungarian steamers anchored
near dubrovnik to maintain the element
of surprise
two of them were experimentally fitted
with an extra 10 horsepower electric
motor and actually on November 1st one
of them even made it through the pool of
Harbor defenses sinking a harbor defense
ship the first major success for the
Italians came December 9th 1917 when MAS
9 and MAS 13 under Luigi Rizzo's command
sank an Austrian battleship they were
towed as close as possible to position
to save fuel but made good their escape
after the sinking with the mother ships
laying down covering fire unlike the
British ships for which torpedoes were
launched at full speed the Italian ships
had to be stationary for the torpedoes
to be launched over the side on the
strength of this exploit the Italians
ordered more built and would have over
400 by the war's end they would also
experiment with 16 metre twin torpedo
boats powered by a 10 horsepower
electric motor only four of these griot
class boats were built which were too
slow to be effective but they did have
the advantage of electrically driven
tank tracks on the sides to climb the
torpedo booms
the British had a new 55
foot twin-screw design powering up to
900 horsepowers that carried two
torpedoes it could even carry depth
charges as an alternative eighty-eight
of these were built and some would even
see service in the Second World War many
were based on England's south coast and
used for anti-submarine work but they
were not a success since they were too
low in the water to see very far and
only operated in calm weather others
based on the Belgian coast against
German patrol boats and destroyers were
viewed by the enemy with great respect
though several were sunk by German
coastal batteries in the first half of
1918 they successfully supported raids
on German held ostendo and sea booga
providing smoke screens and attacking
German coastal defence ships these CMBS
main defense was speed but this was not
much use against things like airplanes
and it was tough to use the deck mounted
Lewis gun with the boat bouncing around
the hulls were only half an inch thick
and the spray so thick that eyes were
reddened by saltwater pretty much
instantly goggles were useless because
of the amount of water spray the first
compasses fitted were upset by the
vibrations and just went round and round
and radios were no good because of
engine interference you couldn't even
communicate by shouting into someone's
ear over the noise of the engine and
there was no reverse gear so moving at
slow speeds was very tricky well those
are the drawbacks the most valuable
success story of the boats during the
war was for the Italians again under a
Rizzo's command on June 9th 1918 lost 15
and Maus 21 attacked two Austrian
dreadnoughts
the scent Istvan was hit capsized and
sank the following day that sinking was
actually captured on film for the
British the most successful CMB raid
occurred after the war in August 1919
and it's a bit of a spy tale Peter Duke
was working for the mi6 in Petrograd as
a source of information a CMB was sent
to - across from Finland - him as a
communications line but the boat's
captain left Tennant agar decided to
take torpedoes and attack the Bolshevik
Cruiser Oleg which was shelling a
fortress held by why
Russians mi6 actually refused him
permission for this attack but he did it
anyway and he sank the Oleg agar was
awarded a Victoria Cross for this but
since it was an unofficial operation he
was not named in the citation because of
this a squadron of eight votes was put
together right away to attack the
remaining Bolshevik warships in the
Kronstadt harbour guarding Petrograd
bill Bremner was the first one through
the harbor entrance they destroyed
several of their targets though many of
the British were wounded or killed in
the process
actually leftenant a gars both cm before
has been restored and is in the Imperial
War Museum at Duxford displayed together
with an audio interview with agar and
pictures from the Kronstadt raid and
there I will leave off for today this
was just a brief history of motor
torpedo boats and the war which is quite
an interesting and often overlooked
story of technical innovation during an
industrial war as always you are
encouraged to look it up for yourself to
get a deeper understanding of the
subject if you're wondering why the name
Bremner sounds familiar it's because
David Bremner bill Bremner has descended
rebuilt the Bristol Scout airplane that
was flown by yet another Bremner in the
Mediterranean during the war we did a
whole special with him at Stowe Murray's
Great War aerodrome David also did a lot
of the research for this episode if you
want to see David and that Scout in that
episode you can click right here for
that and hey do not forget to Like us on
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war stuff up there all the time see you
next time