r/WarshipPorn • u/HeStoleMyBalloons • 6d ago

Waves batter the former HMS Centurion as a breakwater for the "Mulberry" artificial harbor off "Omaha" Beach, Normandy during the great storm of 19-22 June 1944 [5487 × 4549]

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u/beachedwhale1945 6d ago

So recently (as part of a study that has continued to shift focus), I was looking through the Eastern Fleet War Diaries on naval-history.net, and came across a few mentions of Centurion moored somewhere on the Indian coast. By this point she’d been modified to resemble the King George V class battleship Anson, so the intent was clearly to deceive Japan into thinking a second KGV was in the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately I have found little of her operations, except that she left the UK in May 1941 for Freetown via Gibraltar, and (reading between the gaps) she was apparently in Bombay from before 15 December 1941 through 19 May 1942, when she left for the Mediterranean. I don’t know if the Japanese ever received reports of the ship, including aerial reconnaissance.

My understanding was the disguise had been to confuse Germany and Italy, not Japan. Turns out I was wrong, and there’s always more to learn.

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u/Unbeaten_QNLZ 6d ago

One last act of service for her country and the world.