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Finished Q-Ships and Their Story by E. Keble Chatterton. Written in 1922 but apparently only published recently this year, it is a rather British telling a of British innovation during the first World War: the Q-ship (the Germans called them trap-ships) were boats of various classes and weights re-purposed to lure in and attack german U-boats.
The duty itself was quite arduous-- days, weeks, months of cruising the waterways, hoping to spot a periscope. When finally a torpedo track was seen or a 4.1 inch gun was fired in your direction, then act in ways to get that submarine to close in so your own 4 inch gun and six-pounders could do some damage.
In some cases, the Q-ship would intentionally take a torpedo, in order to convince the submarine commander she was definitely not what she was: a decoy, a sub-hunter, the end of many a sub-surface sailor's career.
This is definitely not a book for everyone to read. As I went through, I could hear the very English voice of a Colonial aristocrat droning on and on about stuff that happened during the big war. with gads of nautical terms thrown in that only a dedicated yachtsman would actually understand. Seriously, the only reason I held on is because I was a sailor who studied mostly WWII naval campaigns.
At any rate, I am going through The Three-Body Problem by Xixin Liu.
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