FISHERMEN IN WAR TIME 



iniquities could be practised, and some sort of faith 

 was still put in German promises, some slender be- 

 lief in German humanity prevailed until accumu- 

 lated deeds of barbarism shattered the trust of even 

 the most credulous and indulgent persons. 



Amazing stories were told, tales that were incon- 

 testibly true, of men surviving one bad disaster only 

 to survive a worse ; and remarkable even amongst 

 these was the narrative which follows. The teller, 

 William Thomas Baker, a North Sea fisherman, 

 living on the East coast, became known as " Sub- 

 marine Billy " because of the affairs with which he 

 was unwillingly associated. His experiences showed 

 something of the price that had to be paid for fish 

 in time of war. " Submarine Billy," who was seen 

 as soon as he came ashore at the end of one of his 

 trips in a beam-trawler, said : — 



" It was nearly a year after the war began that I 

 was fishing in the smack Prospector, about eighteen 

 miles out, east-south-east of Lowestoft. By that 

 time the war had made a lot of difference to fisher- 

 men and the North Sea fishing. Most of the ordi- 

 nary fishermen, both neeters and single-boaters, had 

 joined up for mine-sweeping and patrolling, and 

 war work in other ways, and those who went to sea 

 to fish were either men over fighting age, like my- 

 self, or boys. 



" As everybody knows now, immense numbers 

 of steam trawlers and drifters had been taken over 

 as Government boats, and many of the old beam- 

 trawlers had got a new lease of life. These had to 



110 



