FISHERMEN IN WAR TIME 



force which came into being. Admiral Jellicoe, at 

 the beginning of 1917, publicly made known that 

 nearly 2,500 skippers were then employed as Skip- 

 pers, R.N.R., and it had been previously stated 

 that 100,000 fishermen were serving with the Navy ; 

 in fact, two and a half years after the war began 

 three-quarters of the first-class fishing vessels were 

 on Admiralty service, and the great majority of the 

 fishermen had joined the Navy. 



This magnificent result was the fishers' answer to 

 the call to arms. It is true that compulsion had 

 come into operation ; but no force had been neces- 

 sary to get the sweepers and patrollers into the 

 Navy. The country had called, and as the fisher- 

 men and coasting men had hurried in their little 

 craft to meet and fight the Invincible Armada, so 

 the inshore fisher and the deep sea men in their 

 little drifters and steam trawlers rose in their thou- 

 sands to crush the barbarous enemy. 



The galleons of Spain were bearing proudly down 

 upon England to put a free people under an abomin- 

 able bondage ; the battleships of Germany were 

 waiting for the chance to get supremacy at sea and 

 enable a crushing swoop to be made in the very 

 midst of the people who were Germany's most dan- 

 gerous, most powerful, and most bitterly hated 

 rivals. Spanish prisoners, when the Most Happy 

 Armada had been shattered by English guns and 

 storms at sea — " God blew with His wind, and they 

 were scattered," said Elizabeth, on a medal which 

 was struck — plainly told what the Spanish purpose 



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