<p>This, I imagine, is an example of Japanese cottage industry in the early decades of the last century.
</p><p>I bet little boys had fun playing with these boats.  Exactly <i>how</i> they played with them is a bit of a mystery.  Unless the battleships were designed to come off the sticks easily, all a kid could do was parade around holding his warship in the air.
</p><p>However, there may be another explanation for the sticks:  rather than remaining affixed to the battleship's hulls, perhaps the sticks were used as an aid in the manufacturing process.
</p><p>Given the ship's relatively small size, it might have been more convenient and faster to assemble and paint the ships on a stick. The final step would be to remove the finished boat from its assembly stick.
</p><p>This photo is from an album Elstner Hilton compiled in Japan between 1914 and 1918.
</p><p>Elstner was my spouse's uncle.
</p>
While Uncle Elstner sometimes annotated photos that required an explanation, he never dated the pictures.  So all we know is they were taken between January, 1914 and December, 1918.<br>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/people/40595948@N00">A.Davey</a> from Portland, Oregon, EE UU
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<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/adavey/4942674181/">Battleship on a Stick</a>