THE SUICIDE FLEET.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1870, 29 August 1918, Page 3

THE SUICIDE FLEET.

BIG BRITISH BLUFF. The story of “The Suicide Fleet” was told bv the Minister for Marine (the Hon. T. M. Wilford) at a recent meeting in Wellington. It was, he 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 the 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 was a big German liner camouflaged as a man-o’-war. Once the Suicide Fleet were mentioned in despatches, and that was when (hey “ran away” apd led the German fleet into a trap on (he Dogger Bank, where Admiral Beatty dealt will', them. They had, no doubt, seen several telegrams stating that a. British Fleet had run away Prom the Germans. And those statements were true. The fleet that ran away was the Suicide Fleet. (Laughter and applause.) Once, alfco, 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 course, said Mr Wilford, the Suicide Fleet were, not allowed to go in too close to the shores of Germany, in ease they might |te found out for what they wore. They did not go in closer than twelve miles. But sometimes ten or more real battleships would join them, and then the real battleships would go in and bombard the Germans, while the others kept well in the offing. One of.the greatest jokes of the world-war was how No. 14 of the Suicide Fleet escorted a troopship to the Dardanelles. The submarines torpedoed No. 14, and the guns and the turrets floated ashore. (Laughter and applause.)