Bit on Scapa Flow

[Simon TW]

Orkney is a group of islands north of Scotland, the sea separating the islands had ships sunk (on purpose) between them to create a enclosed area of sea. This is called Scapa Flow and was at one time a very important part of British Naval strategy. In the first world war the British thought that they had all shipping coming in and out of the flow monitored, one German U-boat (UB-116) tried to enter and was detected and sunk however years later in 1939 on one particularly high tide another U-boat (U-47) did get into the flow over the top of the block ships. The result of this was that HMS Royal Oak was sunk with a torpedo and 833 men died. The Royal Oak is still here but it is a protected war grave and it’s illegal to dive within 100 metres of it.

At the end of the first world war Germany signed an Armistice, which was a cease fire while terms of surrender were agreed. The Kaiser’s Imperial High Seas Fleet were in port where they had remained, penned in for most of the war. A condition of the Armistice was that 74 ships were to be disarmed and taken to a neutral port if at all possible. However, the High Seas Fleet were taken by escort to Scapa Flow.

The crews on the fleet were disheartened and revolution had broken out in Germany and a new communist government had taken power. The Fleet were kept in the Flow for months and the timeframe by which the Armistice was agreed was being continually extended. News was withheld from the German crews and the leader a Rear-Admiral Ludwig von Reuter decided that as the Armistice was to end the state of War was to be resumed. He did not want the ships to fall into enemy hands therefore he gave the command to scuttle the fleet. This was at mid day on the 21st June 1919.

The sea-cocks had been opened and the mechanisms for closing them were disconnected and damaged, the ships slowly and quietly began to take on water and sink.

When the British who were guarding them realised what was going they panicked and a few fights broke out resulting in 8 German deaths (the last of the first world war) they tried to board boats and tow boats to shallower water to beach them. In the end 47 ships sank.

The scuttling of the fleet at Scapa was the greatest loss of ships ever in one go and also the most ships sank by one man. Reuter took full responsibility for the sinking and was decorated for it.

What he also unwittingly did was make Scapa Flow on the worlds best dive sites. Most of the scuttled fleet have been salvaged, ironically a lot of the armour plate was sold to Krupps and used to build ships like the Bismark and Terpitz for Hitlers Navy.

Seven ships of the scuttled fleet remain. The three Battleships are all inverted due to the weight of their guns, when they took on water they became top heavy and rolled over. When these ships were built they were some of the biggest ships in the world at over 25,000 tons each, the Konig which lies in 40m metres, Kronprinz Wilhelm in 34 metres and Markgraft at 42metres. All of the ships have been blasted in places to give salvage access to the non ferrous metals, this also means that divers can get a good look inside. Because of the sheer size of these vessels when diving on decent it gives the impression that your on the seabed not on the underneath of a battleship.

The other ships that remain are four light cruisers the Brummer (36 metre), Coln (35 metre), Dresden (34 metre) and karlsruhe (24 metre) these all lie on their sides.

There is a further ship, V83 this was a torpedo boat (destroyer) it was scuttled and then raised by the salvage company who used it to help re-float the Hindenburg, when this was achived she was dumped in her present position. V83 is broken in two and well broken up, she lies between 20 metres to as shallow as 5 metres.

Scapa Flow boasts 92 wreak sites and 54 further unidentified or unknown wreak sites it is a sheltered area covering 120 square miles. In the morning in the main harbours there are many boats full of divers waiting to explore.

[Simon TW]

"Bumped" this to go with Hazels thread