Cevic was built as a livestock carrier, she worked the
Liverpool to New York route. Requisitioned by the British Admiralty in 1914, she
was converted into a dummy battleship, renamed * HMS Queen Mary, and sent
out on patrol to fool the Germans into thinking a battleship was in the area for
protection of supply ships. The trick worked and her disguise was never
discovered. In 1916, she was renamed Bayol and converted into an oil
tanker. In 1917, she fell under new management and renamed Bayleaf.
In
1920 it was sold to the Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company and renamed Pyrula.
She was later scrapped in 1933 in Genoa.
* During the Battle of Jutland, (1916) the largest
naval fleet battle of WWI, the real HMS Queen Mary accidentally blew herself up
when the flash from one of her deck guns ignited a powder magazine on board
killing over 1,600 crew members.
