Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/705

 Dummy Ships That Fooled the Germans

��Their "suicide fleet" of imita- tion dreadnoughts a huge joke

���Because of their utter helplessness in the event of attack, the British naval officers who knew of this wooden hoax referred to the fleet as "The British Suicide Squadron"

��THE sinking of two wooden 'dread- noughts' by Great Britain, some days ago, to form a breakwater, brings up more evidence of what disposi- tion is being made of the dummy fleet of fourteen battleships with which Great Britain fooled Germany for some fifteen months during the earlier part of the war.

This titanic war jest, which was re- cently exposed by Lieutenant Henry Clay Foster, with the consent of the British Admiralty, completely deceived not only the Germans, but the English people themselves. No one in England was able to explain how the Germans could claim to have sunk the Agamem- non at the Dardanelles, when the Admiralty had admitted, officially, the sinking of only the Goliath and "some supply ships."

Germany rejoiced over this supposed sinking of the Agamemnon. But they must have wondered why the turrets and "guns" of the sunken dreadnought floated, for days, in the Dardanelles.

Lieutenant Foster states that the

��dummy battleships were converted from old third-class passenger ships of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company, which were enrolled in the English Navy.

In an Irish port, says Lieutenant Foster, the dummy battleships were painted in exactly the same hue as the vessels of which they were counterfeits. Canvas was stretched over the decks and painted gray, and the upper decks and equip- ments finished in every detail to resemble the Grand Fleet ships so that any foreign aviator — or any British one, for that matter — flying overhead, would never suspect he was looking down upon any other than a member of the Grand Fleet.

Turrets and guns were all made of wood, with a careful exactitude in their outer color and finish. There was nothing real about the ships, so far as war pur- poses were concerned, except the brass trimmings, which were kept shining, as on a battleship, and some lifeboats, in which the crew were required to drill. The ships had neither speed nor defenses. Not one carried a real gun.

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