E C Cramp: photograph album

This photo shows one of Ark Royal’s dispatch boats, small vessels used to carry messages, tow aircraft at sea and for general harbour work.

Taken while the Ark Royal was stationed at the island of Imbros, off the Gallipoli Peninsula, the photo shows the dispatch boat and its crew in Kephalo harbour.

In the upper right background can be seen a number of ships, freighters deliberately sunk by the navy to form a breakwater to protect shipping as the Kephalo roadstead is very open to the prevailing northern and north-easterly winds.

In the lead up to the evacuation of the Helles sector in early January 1916, and following storm damage to the breakwater, the artificial harbour was reinforced by the sinking of the freighter SS Oruba. The Oruba had been converted into a mock up of the Royal Navy battleship HMS Orion, one of 14 civilian ships disguised as capital warships in an attempt to fool the Germans as to the location of the real vessels.

A number of these dummy battleships, including the Oruba, the Merion (HMS Tiger) and Michigan (HMS Collingwood), were sent to the Aegean in 1915 to trick the Ottomans and their German allies into believing the Allied fleet had been reinforced with modern warships.

The mocked up Tiger was sunk by the German submarine UB-8 on May 30, while the dummy Orion and Collingwood were sunk as blockships in Kephalo and Mudros harbours respectively.
(with thanks to Michael Robson for additional information)

A similar view of the harbour, taken in 2016 from Kephalo Point.
(Photograph: Bernard de Broglio)

Fake Orion. You can see the wooden frames to support the canvas ‘superstructure’ around her bows.
(From the collection of Serpil and Bill Sellars)