CHAPTER IV 



A SKIPPER'S TALE OF GERMAN INHUMANITY 



At the very outset of the war the Germans put 

 into operation their threats of " f rightfulness " ; 

 and against the English in particular they directed 

 their inhuman methods. Fishermen who were 

 peacefully at work offered a target to German naval 

 forces which could not be resisted, and the sinking 

 of defenceless vessels, with the capture of unpro- 

 tected and powerless toilers were enough to set the 

 German banners of "victory" waving and the Ger- 

 man joybells ringing. There were such signs of 

 exultation in the earliest days of the war, when 

 German armed forces swooped upon defenceless 

 British fishermen who were working on the Dogger 

 Bank, and after destroying their vessels, taking the 

 men prisoners to Germany. Amongst these victims 

 was Skipper R. W. Kemp, who, after much suffer- 

 ing as a prisoner of war, was repatriated, and made 

 the revelations which follow. 



" I was bound apprentice to the fishing when I 

 was fourteen and a half years old ; and I have been 

 to sea close on forty-two years, all the time in fish- 

 ing craft. I have been master of a vessel ever since 



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