I mentioned this man in passing when I wrote about The African Queen,
I have read this story before but somehow 'lost' but I have now found it, if you have time grab a coffee and have a read, my thanks to Craig Mowbray, whose factual story it is, I have just copied and pasted it,
"You English have a genius for amateurism. That's what makes you so dangerous. Who but amateurs could have dreamed up an expedition this?" Unknown Belgian officer
Background:
1915, the Great War is in full flow; titanic battles consume the great land armies of Europe and the two largest fleets in the world tentatively face off across the North Sea. Meanwhile, scattered around the globe, there was the small matter of a series of regional conflicts where conflicting empires bumped into each other and those not able to join in all the fun in Europe kept themselves busy by annoying one other.
These little bushfires, although insignificant in the grand scheme of things, did offer the opportunity for giving the public back in Blighty, something to cheer about. They also offered a potential outlet for bored, testosterone-fuelled military types, to lock horns with their enemies and grab a few medals in doing so. Perhaps more importantly, they also offered the War Office a means of shunting off officers of questionable abilities to places they would be unlikely to cause harm, or indeed where their loss would hardly be noticed.
The Problem at hand
One such irritating little squabble in need of such an officer was to be found on Lake Tanganyika, at the time, German East Africa. Here, much to the annoyance of the War Office, the Colonial Office and the Belgians occupying the Congo, the Kaisers little Squadron was swanning around looking like they owned the place (which of course they did, but hopefully, not for much longer).
Lake Tanganyika
As anyone familiar with the Royal Navy will know, it has a reputation for ferocity and engaging the enemy wherever they might find them (a certain Admiral Byng could have testified to how strictly the RN stuck to this tenet; the Admiralty having chosen to have him shot for not showing suitable levels of said ferocity). What was needed was to rid the Lake of the Germans and free up the surrounding for both the Belgians and British troops to capture the German territories.
The master plan
Therefore when a Big Game hunter by the name of J R Lee, informed the Admiralty that the Germans had managed to get the armed steamer the Graf Von Grotzen dragged over and launched on the Lake, they were a tad displeased. When he informed them that he had a plan to nullify these impudent Germans, they were less displeased. Lee's plan, although quite outlandish, benefitted from someone who understood the situation, knew the tribal people and geography of the environment, that had carried out thorough intelligence and who appreciated the many issues involved. It was a remarkably well thought through plan though still a clearly mad idea.
As envisaged, it required two purpose-built motorboats, their crews and support staff to be transported in parts (that’s the boats, not the crews) by ship from the UK across to Africa and once there, dragged by means of oxen, steam engines and human brute force, overland to their intended destination where they could be reassembled. With all that done, there would then be the small matter of engaging the dreaded Hun and defeating them.
Cometh the hour…
Obviously, in order to successfully carry out such an audacious plan, the admiralty had need of men of the highest order; brave, talented, dynamic and most importantly...disposable. Unfortunately, all such men with the first three qualities were currently somewhat preoccupied manning the RN's ship upon the high seas. This, therefore, left the Admiralty with only those with the fourth trait to their name, and it is by such a process of elimination that they arrived at their most suitable (or unsuitable depending on your viewpoint) candidate. Lt Cdr Geoffrey Basil Spicer-Simson RN.
Despite at first having a quite meteoric start to training life in the Royal Navy, Spicer-Simson can hardly have been described as a sea-warrior. Once out of training he had illustrated nothing that would suggest a dynamic, charismatic, talented leader of men. His expertise lay in hydrography though he had at least experience of carrying out such surveying in Africa. But other than also being fluent in French and German, it could be said that he exhibited barely the minimal of competence. and using today's parlance, his choice would be best be described as suboptimal. There was also the small question of litany of notable disasters which came his way, or to be more accurate, that he caused.
Commanding a ship during a training exercise with a submarine, he decided it would an interesting experiment to run a cable between his own and another ship to try and locate the submarine. The result of all this was that the experiment ended with the sub nearly having its conning tower sliced off as one would do with a boiled egg. He also managed to beach another ship under his command and on yet on another occasion, accidentally rammed a boat in his squadron.
One would have thought that he would have learnt from such disasters, yet his most celebrated calamity (up until his mission to Tanganyika) was yet to come. Just prior to the commencement of WW1, Spicer-Simson returned to England from surveying in The Gambia. Bored whilst sat aboard his new command, a small gunboat, HMS Niger, he decided what he needed to lighten things up was a little light refreshment with his wife in attendance. He thus found a suitable hotel overlooking the harbour where his vessel was moored. What could possibly go wrong, thought the Spicer-Simson, as he tucked into his fare whilst enjoying a pleasant conversation with his wife? All he had to do was take the occasional trip to the restaurants French window and look out to check on the ship he was theoretically in charge of.
One can imagine the contents of his now full stomach and bladders hastily making their exit as he looked on, powerless to intervene, the ship for which he was solely responsible, slowly disappeared beneath the waves, the victim of two torpedoes fired by a German U Boat. It might therefore come as no surprise that Spencer-Simson’s next command was a desk and a filing cabinet in a department responsible for non-military matters. When the call came for his help, he held the record for an officer holding the rank of Lt Commander without further promotion.
One wonders what (other than no one else being available) those in authority saw in the man. Did they see something everyone else had missed? What everyone else had seen so far was a character who was arrogant, offensive, a bully and a liar. A vile person who would erupt into impromptu verses of bawdy songs, berate those he regarded as beneath him and make outlandish claims for all manner of heroics he had nothing to do with. He claimed to have astonished big game hunters with his prowess in shooting rhinos on the Gold Coast. One would suspect if any hunters were in awe at his fictitious account, it would because there were no rhinos on the Gold Coast to shoot. Despite any expertise in a field, he would pick arguments with those that had and rubbish their opinions. His body was also festooned with an elaborate series of oriental styled tattoos depicting various colourful animals in all manner of poses. So proud of his tattoos was Spicer-Simson that he would regularly partially undress in front of all and sundry to illustrate their magnificence.
The omens for the mission were not good.
Despite this, Spencer-Simson took to his new duties with aplomb, met his crews and on receiving his new vessels requested the Admiralty name them HMS Cat and HMS Dog. The Admiralty, perhaps getting a feel for what was to come, would have none of it so the man instead, elected to call them, HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou. Spicer-Simson was now the proud Lt Cmdr of the two smallest ships in the Royal Navy
Simson’s Circus
Both boats loaded aboard the SS Llanstephen Castle, the motley selection of men started on their epic 10,000-mile journey to Lake Tanganyika. For 17 days they were at sea finally arriving at The Cape of Good Hope. Having arrived in Africa, Spicer-Simson took his first major decision as the mission's commander. He started to don a small khaki skirt his wife had made for him considering it the most suitable attire for such an arduous and dangerous journey.
Confronted with the task of getting everything and everyone to their intended destination, Spicer-Simson simply delegated (abdicated) the whole matter to his 2IC, one Lt Wainwright. Wainwright was a very highly skilled Rhodesian engineer without whom the mission would never have got anywhere near the Lake. They thus set off by rail to Bulawayo and from there, across the country through bush and shrub, pushed and pulled by various locals and the help of steam engines and oxen. All the time, Wainwright having to achieve remarkable feats to keep the mission from failing. he managed to build bridges, retrieve the tractors from being ditched and created boat cranes to shift the vessels. After much toil and discomfort, they reached Sanskika. From there, they travelled by rail until hitting the Lualaba River which was starting to get rather low in the water. Strapped to rafts, the two boats, crew and accompanying entourage paddled along for 56 miles at one point grounding the rafts 14 times over a distance of a mere 12 miles. After all this, there was only another 175-mile trip by train and they arrived at their intended destination, only for Spicer-Simson deciding it wasn't where he wanted to be and had the whole ensemble travel further along the river to a location more to his liking.
Once there, Simson's crew were finally able to assemble the boats, rest their weary limbs, and take stock of what awaited them. At this point, Spicer-Simson decided to dispense with the services of J R Lee. Supposedly on some trumped-up charge, the likelihood was that his skills no longer needed and the fear of him stealing the limelight. Saying that Spicer-Simson had a ready replacement at hand, a young female chimp who Spicer-Simson called Josephine and who he dressed as a crew member and would have seated at meals.
Spicer-Simson with new crew-member Josephine
unsurprisingly, it was around now that Spicer-Simson’s ensemble became known as Simson’s Circus. If treating the very man who made the project possible badly wasn’t enough, Spicer-Simson saw fit to insult and lambast his local Belgian allies who he was supposed to be assisting in their campaign.
To war
Incredibly, Spencer-Simson’s band of merry men managed to achieve remarkable success, mostly in spite of the involvement of their commander. The first encounter with the enemy was on Boxing Day 1915 when the German armed tug, Kingani came steaming along the river near their encampment. At first, acknowledging its sighting but carrying on with the Sunday service he finally launched Mimi and Toutou and set upon the German boat. A brief firefight ensued resulting in the gunboats captain and four crew dead and the boat now in British hands. Spicer-Simson, proud of his accomplishment, returned triumphantly to the camp, the dead German captains, ring upon his finger. Keeping in character, he also declared that it was he (untruthfully) who it was that commissioned his prize into the RN, and his little fleet, as HMS Fifi.
HMS Fifi, ex Kingani
The second conflict was a little more exciting and occurred when a second German boat, the Hedwig Von Wissman came to investigate the disappearance of the Kingani. This time though, the German vessel was far more agile and on seeing the British boats quickly took an about-turn in order to escape. There followed a chase lasting 31/2 hours long.
The two chasing boats were led by Spicer-Simson in the slower, captured Fifi with his subordinate Lt Wainwright in the Mimi. With Wainwright pulling ahead in this desperate race, Spicer-Simson still sporting his khaki leather skirt, saw his chance for further accolades disappear into the distance with the two faster boats. He, therefore, decided to instruct Wainwright to slow down and allow him to catch up.
Hedwig Von Wissman
Desperate to have Wainwright obey his order, Spicer-Simpson began to use the signalling flags aboard his vessel. Sadly, having long since forgotten any form of semaphore, clasping his cigarette holder between his teeth whilst ranting at his crew for more speed, he started to wave the flags with what he thought were clear and direct instructions. Unfortunately, to onlookers, his manic antics looked like those of someone suffering from a rare jungle malady, rendering its victim both mentally deranged and his limbs in a state of constant irregular animation. A sort of early rendition of drug-induced break dancing ensued with Spicer-Simson getting ever more enraged.
Despite such manic incompetence and glory-seeking, the German vessel was sunk, and its crew captured. Interestingly, amongst the flotsam was a small locker which contained a German naval flag, the first of its kind to be recovered in this war.
News travelled fast to London and SS was finally promoted from the longest standing Lt Commander in the RN to Commander.
With a couple of successes under his belt, Spicer-Simson was starting to warm to his new role of self-declared hero and what is more, the local tribesmen started to regard him as something of a deity, making clay models of him and laying down prostrate in his honour. They would look on as, flexing his stomach muscles, he would manipulate the various animal tattoos that adorned his body.
He took to having his ablutions out in the open and to an audience, his manservant filling a large canvas bath for him where he reclined whilst sipping a cocktail, smoking his monogrammed cigarettes in a silver holder and to finally retire to bed dressed in a silk dressing gown. He had also accrued another crew member, a goat captured from the Hedwig Von Wissman and which, like the chimp, he had dressed up in military clothing. He also had a couple of new names bestowed upon him by the local tribesmen who now referred to him as Navyman God and Bwana Chifunga-tumbo” Lord Bellycloth
Sadly, Spicer-Simson’s reputation didn’t last much longer. Avoiding seeking combat with the much larger Graf Von Gotzen, he took to travelling to the far side of Africa in pursuit of acquiring additional firepower (which eventually did manage to find its way to the lake). On his return and outrightly refusing to assist the Belgians in their quest to attack the german bases on the lake, his tenure as faux admiral and demigod was short-lived.
During a meeting with a British officer furious over his refusal to support the attack, Spicer Simson was left so distraught that he retired to his bed almost shell shocked. To avoid further inertia and embarrassment, his medical officer H M Hanschell signed him off as having as suffering from a ’debilitating’ ailment and he was sent home to recuperate. By this time, the truth of how Spicer-Simson had conducted himself had been made clear to the Admiralty and he would spend the rest of the war in naval intelligence at the rank of captain and after, serving as a naval attache and interpreter at the Versailles Peace Conference. Never again would he be given command of anything remotely like a warship.
From being the longest-serving Lt Cmdr in the RN to a Demi-God worshipped for his tattoos and then back to commanding a desk.
Geoffrey Basil Spicer-Simson RN
only us Brits could ever field a character like this, unless you know better!
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