Name that Ship

[Jim Craik]

Can anyone identify this ship.

New photo

 

[Robert May Eng.]

I see no ship captain

Bob

 

[Charlie Farley]

Is it a ghost ship ?

 

[Charlie Farley]

Got it,
it's one of those new fangled cloaked ships that do not show up on radar...
wait... is it in a fog bank ?

Jim, perhaps a pie chart or graph might help us..

 

[Robert May Eng.]

SS Invisible , where`s my cigar?

Bob

 

[Glenn M]

Marie Celeste? Black Pearl? Jolly Roger? irate:

Glenn

 

[Jim Craik]

I dont know what happened to the photos, I have added a new one.

 

[Pat]

Try the merchant ship SS Mamari, fitted with a false flight deck and island. This decoy ship, and others were meant to distract the Luftwaffe in WW2.

 

[Larry L.]

Jim:

Is this ship 'one-of-one'? Or one of a certain class?

 

[Mike Pass]

It looks like the U.S.S. Liberal. It was apparently decommissioned some time ago as it attracted too much flak from right wing sources.
Cheers
Jolly Jack Tar

 

[Keith]

You're a very naughty boy Mike.:bobby:

 

[Robert May Eng.]

Try the merchant ship SS Mamari, fitted with a false flight deck and island. This decoy ship, and others were meant to distract the Luftwaffe in WW2.

Yep she is definitely number four on the list. Next?

http://www.hazegray.org/mysteries/oldmyst/ansgrp00.htm

Bob

 

[Jim Craik]

Well Pat, we cant sneak anything by you!

Yes, thats the SS Mamari, done up to look like the HMS Hermes, to fool German bombers.

When I first saw the photo, I just assumed it was the Hermes......

Apparently the disguise worked, the Germans bombed it several times. Here it is sunk in shallow water with some of the fake siding blown off, still performing the job of looking like HMS Hermes.

Here is a shot of the real HMS Hermes....

 

[Larry L.]

German pilots must have been dumber that door knobs. There's NO WAY to confuse one ship for the other.

 

[Jim Craik]

Larry,

I think those pilots reacted just as anyone would have reacted. They flew out, expecting/hopeing to find Hermes...... Remember, they were not quietly analizing photos, they were in combat, being shot at, scared, trying to keep formation, preparing their aircraft for attack, looking for enemy fighters......

At best they caught only a quick views of the ship, they expected to see HMS Hermes and in their mind they saw HMS Hermes.

 

[Pat]

Jim, to add to your point, they were probably bombing from around 30,000 feet and they didn't have Google...
I would suspect that the Royal Navy had full intelligence deception operations with radio and other sources leading the Germans to the fake Hermes.

 

[Larry L.]

While I 'see' your point, Jim (I really do), I have trouble agreeing with it. Supposedly 'Gerry' pilots were well trained re: target recognition (except at the end of the war, of course).

To put it in a modern-day context, confusing one of those ships for the other back then, to me, would be like confusing a mosque for a private residence/compound today. ('Just MHO...based on more-or-less having been there and done that myself to one degree or another in 'Nam...so-to-speak... )

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

Not the U.S.S. Pisscan, then. Wrong again. I'm giving up.

 

[Robert May Eng.]

Its not that different to the decoy tanks etc.

Bob

http://www.gt40s.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=70042&stc=1&d=1391331429

 

[Keith]

It's a Light Tank.