How The Royal Navy Concealed The Loss of HMS Audacious
by At the start of the First World War HMS Audacious was one of the Royal Navy’s most up to date battleships. It was decided that these expensive Dreadnoughts needed extra gunnery practice.
This magnificent ship had only been built as a result of the Anglo – German Naval Arms Race, which had done so much to damage the relationship between Britain and Germany. The Royal Navy still had more Dreadnoughts than the Germans did but did not want to lose any of them.
The Admiralty feared the German surface fleets and submarine but was not overly concerned about the danger posed by magnetic mines. All that changed on 28th October 1914 when Audacious and seven other battleships went into the North Sea to fire at targets. She struck a mine and was abandoned by the crew. The ship did not sink until the following day but only one of her sailors had died.
The Admiralty decided to cover up the loss of a major ship by maintaining fake radio signals to and from the Audacious for the remainder of the war that fooled the Germans into believing she was still afloat.
Bibliography
Massie R K (2005) Castles of Steel – Britain, Germany and the winning of the Great War at Sea, Pimlico, London
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