Auten, Harold

HMS Stock Force, for which her commander was awarded the Victoria Cross.


At the end of July 1918, the British Royal Navy vessel HMS Stock Force was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Harold Auten, a Royal Navy Reserve officer. HMS Stock Force was "Ship Q", a heavily armed ship that was intended to appear as a harmless merchant vessel. The Royal Navy used the Q-ships in response to the increasing pressure on Allied shipping from German U-boats. German U-boats were very effective and almost impossible to destroy unless surfaced, so the job of the Q-ships was to lure the enemy into a confrontation by exploiting false displays of weakness until they could unleash their hidden power.


HMS Stock Force succeeded in this purpose on 30 July 1918, some 4 months before the Armistice and the end of the war. At 5 pm she was torpedoed by a German submarine UB-80, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Max Viebeg (carrier of Pour le Mérite and ace with over 40 ships sunk) in the English Channel, 25 nautical miles off the coast of Devon.


A torpedo hit the forward section of the innocuous-looking steamer and the explosion blew a large amount of debris into the air. Many officers and men were injured and the forward battery was disabled. The damaged side began to list and dive into the water.


Below decks, the ship's doctor, surgeon on probation G. E. Strahan, worked waist-deep in sea water on a wounded man who had been brought to him.


Part of Ship Q's confusing tactics was to send out so-called "scarecrows." This was a group of men whose job was to make a show of abandoning ship, thus attracting enemy U-boats to finish the job.


The "scaremongers" on HMS Stock Force were launched, under the command of Naval Lieutenant Workman, who was wounded in a torpedo attack. He and his men paddled away from the damaged ship in lifeboats. Half a mile from the ship, a German submarine surfaced.


The captain, Marine Lieutenant Harold Auten, remained in his seat. The crew of the two undamaged guns of HMS Stock Force remained hidden. For about three-quarters of an hour, all was quiet. In the ripped side, one of the gun crew remained trapped under the remains of his weapon. Water rose around him, but he and his crew knew that if they tried to rescue him, they risked the Germans seeing through the illusion they had so far successfully maintained.


He lay still and accepted his fate. The U-boat's crew were aware of a possible ambush, but in watching the sinking Q ship they concluded that it was nothing more than what it was - a crammed supply vessel and easy prey for the shells of the mighty U-boat.


When the small boats that had abandoned the ship were spotted making their way back to HMS Stock Force, the submarine captain gave the order to approach. Slowly, their vessel approached the seemingly defenseless enemy until they were only three hundred yards away.


Marine Lieutenant Auten still had not given the order to fire. The submarine approached the port side of the crippled ship, but not until the vessels were perfectly lined up side by side within range of the two remaining guns, only then did Navy Lieutenant Harold Auten finally give the order to break cover and return fire. It had been a full 40 minutes since the initial torpedo attack.


Marine Lieutenant Auten was only 27 years old in July 1918. Normally he was known as a pleasant fellow with a nice, pleasant smile, but now he was not smiling. His mouth was mute and his eyes were fixed on the destructiveness of his hidden weapons, which were now destroying the enemy submarine. HMS Stock Force fired once, twice, three times. The hunter began to be hunted, the hunter became the prey.


The first missile from HMS Stock Force destroyed one of the periscopes, and the second hit the conning tower, shattering it to pieces and scattering the men in it far and wide. The third shot tore through the hull of the submarine and flew through.


The sea plunged into a hole in the submarine's waterline. Unable to resist, the sub's bow rose out of the water and sank stern first. The Stock Force gunners fired on the sinking submarine until it disappeared beneath the waves (the submarine was not sunk, however, but was badly damaged and managed to return to its home base; after the war it was handed over to Italy as war reparations and scrapped in May 1919).


It took nearly 4 hours for HMS Stock Force to manage the extraordinary damage caused by the initial torpedo attack. The crew worked flat out to keep her afloat until help arrived, which eventually came in the form of a trawler and two torpedo boats. The rescued crew watched as their damaged ship finally disappeared beneath the surface, flag proudly flying.


The gunner trapped under the wreckage of the forward gun was eventually rescued when he nearly drowned and was commended for his bravery during this encounter months later.


The captain of HMS Stock Force, Marine Lieutenant Auten, remained calm and resolute during the action and achieved victory using all the capabilities and potential of the Q, her underhand tactics with the bravery of himself and crew. The Q ships were a closely guarded secret throughout the war and when Naval Lieutenant Auten was awarded the Victoria Cross shortly after the action and with the war still ongoing, very little was said about the exact conditions of its award.


After the war his popularity grew. He wrote a book about the Q ships and even appeared in a silent film about HMS Stock Force, where he played himself. He returned to the Royal Navy after the outbreak of World War II, where he again distinguished himself with meritorious service.


He survived that conflict too and lived in peace in the United States, where he died in 1964 at the blessed age of 73.


The wreck of HMS Stock Force was discovered by divers in 2013, 95 years after she sank at a depth of 57 metres.

www.warhistoryonline.com
https://falcondivingcharters.com/wrecks-in-50-70m/