A family event of a dire, although not entirely unexpected nature is in progress, and at this time demands as much of my attention as I have at my command...In addition, a sudden and otherwise unexpected calamity landed on my shoulders, but was dealt with, although not entirely to my satisfaction...Both of these events will be written of here in future articles, but the effect on the amount and quality of time I am able to put forth in research and writing has been severely curtailed due to the constraints of time...I cannot expand on these thoughts any more at this time, but I can share some of the few tidbits found in my few leisure moments...
Even though my research into booklength treatises has been put on temporary hold, I still devote spare moments to reading topics of interest...Some of these have been posted on the USS APc-1 WWII Facebook group (a group which requires a no-cost membership to view)...The latest in the series of books I have set aside for casual reading and further research is Adm. Samuel E. Morison's fifteen volume "History of US Naval Operations in WWII," first published in 1947...My copy of this collection is the updated 1984 edition...
In reading the first volume ("Battle of the Atlantic"), I ran across a connection to the Small Coastal Transports which I discussed in great length in the "APc-48" series of books...In the prewar climate of pacifism and appeasement, no country which had to answer to its voters was prepared completely for the outbreak of war...Dictatorships, such as Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, could build huge stockpiles of warmaking materials, while at the same time deceiving other governments by declaring peaceful intentions...The US and Great Britain had to contend with internal pressures to avoid war while still maintaining the semblance of a defensive posture...This caught the British by surprise first as they were totally unprepared for the U-Boat attacks on their commercial shipping beginning immediately following the German attack across Polish borders...
Keeping the U-Boat menace as far as possible from British shipping lanes and coastal waters was thrust upon the Royal Navy which was better prepared for blue water war in deeper seas than it was with defense against attacks closer to home...The RN's inventory of shallow draft warships was itself shamefully shallow, forcing it to press into service commercial fishing and cargo vessels, arming them in whatever means lay at hand...Equally defenseless were the deepwater cargo ships sailing under the British flag, as they were initially unarmed and vulnerable to attack because of the British adherence to the Washington Naval Limitations Treaty of 1921, which forbade arming of merchantmen...
Not only were armed coastal-capable ships thinly spread for the RN, but even scarcer were suitable armament for conversion of merchant ships, and the absence of trained crews to man the new positions only exacerbated the problem...A dearth of RN aircraft carriers meant that an air arm consisting of 220 light bombers separated into 19 hastily formed squadrons from Bomber Command were the only defense from the air along the shorelines...These bomber crews were forced to develop their own anti-submarine warfare techniques, and thanks to a detachment of American aircrews as observers, US planners were able to gain a wealth of knowledge in the hitherto uncharted science of defense against, as well as attack of submarine fleets...
Writing of these early days of WWII on 1/5/1944 for the February 1944 issue of the "Royal United Service Institution Journal," Admiral Sir William James said:
"I was on the board of the Admiralty before the war and it was always a question of trying to do the best we could with what money was available, and the plan arrived at with regard to Coastal Craft was that we should go for prototypes. There were three reasons for that. One was that the type was in the process of development: it was no good giving an order for say a hundred of a certain type when next year something very far in advance might be produced. Another was the manning problem: you cannot in peacetime keep a large number of Coastal Craft in commission; they wear out very quickly and we could not really find the personnel for them. The third reason was that we felt they were of the one type of craft that could be built quickly, and that what money we had ought to be put into ships that took a long time to build - destroyers and cruisers."Faulty strategic thinking notwithstanding, the Admiralty's pursing agents scoured the world for bargains in warmaking materials of any kind, especially those which could be had for trade or promise of payment later...The informative Shipscribe website tells of the interest by the British Admiralty in the newly created APc hull designation, resulting in their order of 50 of the increasingly versatile design...One of the suggested uses of the design by the office of the CNO, before the first one was ever launched, was that of "Raider Transport, AP"...Seeing the easy adaptability of the Small Coastal Transport design to the needs of British coastal defense, and later invasion uses, the order for 50 was quickly placed and accepted...
65 hull numbers were eventually assigned for British use before their construction...The aforementioned Shipscribe site lists the deployment and/or fate of each of these hull numbers...
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