At about this time, I became tangentially involved in one of the most remarkable deceptions of the war. Several of us were sent to fly guard duty over an aircraft carrier in the English Channel, only it was not an aircraft carrier at all. In reality, it was an old tramp freighter with a huge false wooden deck, painted up to look like an aircraft carrier. It was designed to lure the enemy bombers out to attack it, and very obligingly, they did just that.

For some days the enemy planes returned, wasting ammunition and energy on a wooden dummy boat, as we and the guns on board hammered back at them. Then, on one particular dark night, a single Stuka dive-bomber risked oblivion to swoop down over the ship. Before it veered away, it dropped a single bomb that clattered on the deck but did not explode. A bomb disposal expert inched up to examine it. It was a wooden bomb, dropped on a wooden boat, the Germans' way of saying the game was up.