Gosport: Sea Lions in the Solent

Available for over a year

In 1916, German U-boats were a growing menace: hundreds of thousands of tons of merchant shipping were being sunk every month and some British commanders were predicting a swift end to the war. Eager for solutions, they turned to the world of music hall and entertainment. They commissioned a popular showman to train his performing sea lions to detect and follow submarines. Joseph Woodward and his family were the first people to display sea lions as popular entertainment. He contacted the Admiralty with the suggestion that sea lions might detect the underwater sound of a U-boat, swim to the enemy vessel and signal its location. Initial trials in a swimming pool in Glasgow and then in Lake Bala in Wales were promising. But in the Solent the experiment failed. Two sea lions were tasked to chase a Royal Navy submarine but they were easily distracted by other vessels and by shoals of fish and they absconded for hours at a time. In the summer of 1917, the experiment was abandoned. Location: Gosport PO12 2AB Image courtesy of Christopher Woodward