List, June 10th, 1918

Report about reconnaissance activity of Naval Air Station List on 10. June 1918

… 5.30 airplanes start with course to 061 alpha…
… 7.25 … smoke ahead port, a strikingly large ship within, later recognized as airplane mothership and four English destroyers. Position 051 alpha… Bombing run, strong defensive fire of the enemy ships, bomb hits lateral to the ship. The mothership turns to south west to turn into the wind. Three land airplanes start off the forecastle. Additional five airplanes stood on the forecastle in succession…

… The aerial battle lasted in eastern direction until position 143 alpha, where an English armored cruiser and three destroyers were sighted…

… airplanes landed in List with last remaining fuel.

Appearance of the airplane mothership.
The mothership was over 300m long with a large runway at the bow and stern, tripod mast with spotting top, bridge within the forward quarter of the ship. 2 guns at or on the bridge, one funnel behind tripod mast. No larger superstructures. F.U. in white color at the stern… 6-8 airplanes ready to start at the bow. Deck behind the bridge presumable arranged for landing. It is not impossible that the mothership was a new armored cruiser, with aircraft platform obtained by laying down wooden planks.

J.V. Wendt

Wilhelmshaven, August 3rd, 1918

… An exact measurement of the airplane mothership was not possible, because of faulty inclination display of the camera. However, under the assumption that the escorting torpedo boats had a length of 80m, the length of the mothership could be calculated to 220-240m; these numbers match the estimations of the airplane crews. Apparently it is a new English armored cruiser of an American ship-of-the-line, which had been rebuilt according the accompanying sketch…

Berlin, August 15th, 1918

… that the airplane mothership was a rebuilt of an American ship-of-the-line of the Pennsylvania-type seems impossible, more likely it was a rebuilt of an English ship-of-the-line of the Orion-type…

It looks like the turrets have just had dismountable structures built around them to provide the flight decks fore and aft?

The aft deck with that strange kink is also weird, surely the Germans would have used a little logic that a landing deck would need to be flat to be of any use!

Obviously I haven't seen the quality of the photographs the German seaplanes took, but I am surprised that they thought the fore launching deck was so high! Even having 6-8 aircraft parked on the foredeck seems rather cramped too.

How can i find more info on this project and the german ship?