THE SUICIDE FLEET

Levin Daily Chronicle, 3 September 1918, Page 4

THE SUICIDE FLEET

BIG BRITISH BLUFF,

The story of "The Suicide Fleet" ■was told bv the Minister for Marine (the Hon. T. 11. Wilford) at the anniversary meeting of the Sailors' Iricnd Society. It was, ho said, the biggest bluff and the greatest joke of the war. The British Navy was short of vessels for convoy work at the beginning of the war, so tho Suicide Fleet was formed. It was composed of fourteen bogus battleships, with wooden turrets and dummy guns, and for eight months patrolled the North Sea and kept the German Navy in the Kiel Canal (Laughter and applause.) Its flagship ivas,a big German liner camouflaged as a man-o'-war. Once the Suicide Fleet was mentioned in dispatches, and that was when they "ran away" and led the German fleet into a trap on the Dogger Bank, where Admiral Beatty dealt with them. They had, no doubt, seen several telegrams stating that a British Fleet had run away from the Germans. \nd those statements were true, Ine fleet that ran away was the Suicide Fleet. (Laughter and applause.) Once, also, a serious complaint came from America that a British warship had been seen within the United states three-mile limit. That was one of the fourteen bogus battleships. Of c ° lirsc > said Mr Wilford, the Suicide Fleeet was not allowed to go in_ too close to tho shores of Germany, in case they misht be found out for what tlicy were. They did not go in closer tiian twelve miles. But sometimes U-n or more real battleships would join them, and then the real battleships would go m ana bombard the Germans, while the others kept well in the offing. One of the greatest jokes of the world-war was how No. 34 of the Suicide Fleet escorted a troopship to the Dardanelles The submarines torpedoed No. 14, ana the guns and the turrets floated ashore. (Laughter and applause.)