Time running out to save Britain’s U-boat hunter from scrapyard

HMS President has survived U-boat attacks, bombing raids, London smog and even parties of marauding Made In Chelsea stars.

Yet now the submarine hunter, one of three that remain from the Royal Navy’s first world war fleet and the only one that fought in the first battle of the Atlantic, is destined to be scrapped unless its custodians can find £3m before January.

The money is needed to pay for major hull repairs and mooring fees on the Thames where the ship has been a London landmark since 1922, after retiring from its role of hunting U-boats while disguised as a merchant vessel. During the second world war it served as a London base for General de Gaulle’s French resistance.

Its uncertain future was throwing doubt on plans to commemorate the Royal Navy’s efforts in the first world war, according to Paul Williams, the director of the HMS President Preservation Trust.

Trustees will meet next week to find out how much it will cost to dismantle. “The No 1 agenda item is scrappage. We are at that point,” Williams said. “The ship’s supposed to be a centrepiece of the first world war commemorations in 2018. There’s very few sites in London where you can do that, particularly the role of the navy.”

The trust has been turned down twice by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and a crowdfunding campaign has raised £20,000 – only enough to keep the campaign itself going.

HMS President’s supporters had pinned hopes on the Treasury’s Libor fines fund, which channels penalties imposed on banks to military charities and related causes, but its application was rejected. “We were told the reason was that we hadn’t provided enough professional reports or competitive quotes,” Williams said. “But we had all that, and we offered them to the Treasury but they said they didn’t want them.”

Last week, MPs including defence select committee chairman Julian Lewis, Tory Bob Stewart, and Labour’s Mike Gapes and Geoffrey Robinson wrote to David Gauke, chief secretary to the Treasury, asking him to reconsider the “perplexing” decision.

For now the ship remains decaying in a dry dock in Chatham, Kent, but the trust’s funds are running out. In March, the ship will need to be reinsured at a cost of about £20,000, but without major repairs to the hull the policy cannot be renewed.

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HMS President was one of several hundred Q-ships commissioned as part of the response to the German imperial navy’s attempts to starve Britain of resources in what naval historian Dr Phil Weir describes as “the first battle of the Atlantic”. “The U-boat campaign in the first world war was monstrously effective,” Weir said. “It came closer to bringing Britain to defeat than the second world war version. Britain took its time in developing the right tactics to counter it, largely the convoy, which it didn’t do until mid-1917.”

U-boats sank more than 12m tons of merchant shipping during the first world war, amounting to more than 5,000 vessels. Depth charges and rudimentary sonar were brought into service, alongside Q-ships including HMS President, which was launched as HMS Saxifrage in January 1918.

The Flower-class sloop, built by Lobnitz & Company in Renfrew on the River Clyde, was heavily disguised in an attempt to fool U-boat crews into thinking it was an unarmed freighter.

U-boats often surfaced to attack, offering enemy crews the chance to abandon their ship before boarding and to scuttle their vessel with explosives, allowing the submarine to avoid the use of expensive torpedoes. Q-ships relied on this tactic to lure U-boats within range of their guns.

The disguise included a fake rudder, casings to cover the guns and costumes for the sailors. Ratings and officers dressed as merchant seamen or civilians in an effort to trick the U-boat spotters.