More Heroic Failures

The Most Unsuccessful Showing of a Picture 
Between 17 October and 3 December 1961 the famous 
picture 
Le Bateau 
by Henri Matisse hung in a show in 
New York. But the great painter’s work was hanging the 
wrong way — the top was at the bottom. The picture 
shows a sailing boat in the water on a summer’s day. 
About 116,000 visitors went round the show before the 
painter’s son noticed the mistake. 
The Most Unsuccessful Warship 
In times of war, everyone must be ready to die for his 
country. Nothing has shown this more clearly than the 
warship 
HMS Trinidad 
in
 
1941 when it used an 
underwater 
weapon 
against a German ship. The two 
ships were sailing in the Arctic Sea and the icy water 
changed the way the weapon travelled. Instead of going 
straight towards the German ship it began to turn. In a 
few seconds the weapon turned round and was on its way 
back to the 
Trinidad. 
The sailors successfully hit a ship 
but sadly it was theirs. The 
Trinidad 
could not sail again 
for the rest of the war. 
 
 
30 

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The Weapon That Was Too Secret 
In
 
the Franco-Prussian War, the French side had a very 
secret weapon. The ‘Mitrailleuse’ machine gun was the 
first of its kind and they thought it was sure to kill many 
enemy soldiers. 
They decided to keep the new weapon secret until the 
first day of the war in 1870. But by that time the French 
soldiers were too busy to learn how to use it. 
The Most Unsuccessful Study of a Weapon 
German soldiers went into the town of Brest in France in 
1940 and found a new French secret weapon, the 15-inch 
‘Richelieu’ gun. They were very pleased and they 
immediately asked someone to study the new weapon. 
They wanted to know how to use it and they wanted to 
know quickly. But the man who was studying the 
weapon did not like working fast. He was always careful 
and he wrote down every little thing about the weapon. 
He did not finish the study until April 1944. Also, it was 
not possible to use the gun for the rest of the war because 
there were no more bullets left for it. The man used all of 
them during the study.