The C-29 was a Type ´C´ Class coastal submarine of the Group-2 design and formed part of a trawler – submarine decoy team in which the trawler towed the submarine trimmed down so that its deck was almost awash. When a German U-boat was sighted the trawler would alert the submarine, which would surface and fire one of its torpedoes.

C-29 was used twice successfully as a decoy for U-boats attacking the British fishing fleet until she finally sank with the loss of 17 lives, including that of a boy telegraphist, after it was towed accidentally into a minefield. The loss of C-29 brought an end to trawler/submarine operations.

William Henry Faux   Royal Navy

BROUGHTY FERRY NAVYMAN DIES ON DUTY.

An Admiralty notification has been received by Mrs Faux, Argyle Buildings, King Street Broughty Ferry intimating that her husband William Henry Faux, R. N., had died on duty.

Deceased was connected with the submarine flotilla at Dundee, and took up his residence at Broughty Ferry. He had been 17 years in the Navy.

Dundee Courier 2nd September 1915

BROUGHTY FERRY

NAVAL MAN DIES ON DUTY.–Leading Stoker William Henry Faux, whose home is at Argyle Buildings, Broughty Ferry, has died at the post of duty.  Such was the intimation that came on Wednesday night to his widow from the Admiralty. Leading Stoker Faux was for a time in the Vulcan.  He had served in the Royal Navy for 17 years, and had three medals.  He was in China on service during the Boxer Rebellion.  The Admiralty simply say “he died on duty.”  The deceased’s eldest son joined the Navy last week, and while it is noteworthy that quite recently his youngest boy–a lad of 13–saved a child from drowning at the pier, Broughty Ferry, by gallantly jumping in and rescuing him.  Faux leaves a widow and three boys.

Dundee People’s Journal 4th September 1915

William H Faux was the son of Mr Benjamin and Mrs Sarah Ann Faux of Clifton, Bristol and he joined the Royal Navy in 1900. He was married to Mrs Margaret Gall Paton Faux of 11 Bath Street, Broughty Ferry and it is highly probable that they first met when he served in with the submarines based in Dundee before the First World War. Before he trained as a submariner in 1905 he served in both the Boxer Rising in China and the Second South African War. William Faux died along with all his crewmates when the C-29 was used to try and trap German submarines. A decoy vessel would tow a submerged British submarine in an area where German submarines might surface and attack merchant ships. The ship towing the C-29 strayed into a minefield and the submarine was sunk by a mine just off the Humber Estuary. William Faux is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial on Plymouth Hoe in Devon. William R Schofield below also died in the sinking.

Iain Stewart and Iain Birnie