"DUMMY" BATTLESHIPS AT SEA

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 194, 6 May 1918, Page 6

"DUMMY" BATTLESHIPS AT SEA

HOW GERMANS WERE DECEIA 7 ED FOE SEA-EN MONTHS. A recent issue of the. New Fork "Times" contained a graphic story by an officer of the Royal Naval Jleserve, giving an account of how a British squadron of fourteen dummy battleships, armed with only wooden guns, deceived the enemy for seven months in the North, Sea. Tho ?inrrativo is preceded by a statement that the British Admiralty no longer objects td the publication of the facts. From a AVhite Star liner to the flagship of the British "suicide squadron," the grey Armada which never mounted a single gun nor fired a shot, yet patrolled tho North Sea, keeping Hie German Navy huddled behind its minefields, and played an important rolo in the battle of tho Dogger Bank. This was my experience doing my bit for the Allies. No such colossal war just had been played on an enemy since the day of the Trojan Horse. The British Admiralty tantalised the German Navy with mysterious manoeuvres of a wooden squadron, some of the vessels made of barn lumber, and the Germans were completely baffled for months by the unexpected number of their enemios. Tho wooden ships, without a single real weapon aboard (tho British Navy called them "Hock Turtles"), helped Britannia to rule the wave' during tho first year of tho war, ami the Germans nover once suspected that they wore aught but what they seemed. Tho foe did not catch on to the joke. Even whon one of their submarines sank a dummy at the Dardanelles, where it was serving as a mail ship for the Allied fleets, they announced, and rejoiced, that a British battleship of the -— Class" was sunk by one of our submarines," although the huge guns and turrets of the "Dreadnought" floated for days about tho entrance to Stamboul.

On board the joko was evident at once. The fighting turrets were little wooden barns, with bare rafters inside. The I great guns were logo graduated from n i sapling, tapered and bored in exact ' imitation of naval cannon. Not a single i gun aboard! We could not have sunk j a rowboat. Tlio deck was covered with i tightly-stretched canvas, painted grey to i represent the smooth steel deck of a man-of-war, so that reejnnoitring aeroplanes would be deceived. Antiquated merohaiitniont of about SOOO tons burden, unfit for sea traffic in ordinary times, were the material out ill' which the Admiralty constructed the squadron. The flagship, hoivever, was n better bottom than tho others. The ironical part of her history was that she was a_ captured German boat, the Kronprinzessin Ceiile. In the battle of tho Dogger Bank it took the Admiralty experts themselves to discover what we really did in tho spanking of Germany's prize squadron Kir David Beaity's famous squadron of battle cruisers, led by tho Lion, at that time the last word in naval achievement, war inside Harwich or thereabouts, and not discernible to scouts in or over tin.' North Sea. The dummy fleet was manoeuvring jibout one hundred miles north of that point, in easy view, and expert? deduce that the German scout:; saw us, and reported the way clear for another raid on the English coast. When the Germans came out Beatty appeared at uncomfortably close quarters, and offered them a bit of sport, for which they seemed to have little relish. A'ter referring to the sinking of one of tho "dummies," which it is believed the Germans took to be a well-known battleship, the writer says: "The remainder of lvar consorts bud Men permanently interned at Belfast. Before disbanding, however, we were told that the Admiralty eon-ddoied tI;J 'lummy fleet a success, inosniu- h as thv Dogger Bank episode was in part our :\,--luevcment.