IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM / PUBLIC DOMAIN wreck Historical rap photo show- ing the upper- works of the German bat- tle-cruiser SMS Hindenburg jutting out of the water at Scapa Flow Text by Lawson Wood Separated from the northern coast of mainland Scotland by only the six-mile-wide channel of the Pentland Firth, Orkney has some 90 islands, only 18 of which are inhabited. In the southern region of the archipelago is the large area of sheltered water known as Scapa Flow. Scapa Flow was the base chosen by the British Admiralty as the home of the Grand Naval Fleet. This deep, formidable, cold, natural harbour has served the warring nations’ fleets since the time of the Vikings, the Knights of St. John, the Spanish Armada and the American War of Independence. Scapa Bay was also the rendezvous point for merchant ships en route to the Baltic Sea during the Napoleonic Wars from 1789 to 1815. Scapa Flow Graeme Spence, maritime surveyor to WWI Wreck Legacy & Recent Discoveries the Admiralty, said in 1812: “… the art of Man, aided by all the Dykes, Sea Walls or Break-Waters that could possibly whatever point the Wind blows a Vessel account it may be called the Key to of Jutland on 31 May 1916, when 25 languished under extreme duress until the be built could not have contained a in Scapa Flow may make a fair wind of both Oceans.” ships were lost from both sides and with end of WWI. As part of the terms of the better Roadstead than the peculiar it out to free sea . a property which both navies claiming a moral victory, surrender, it was agreed that the entire situation and extent of the South Isles of no other Roadstead I know of possesses, History the German fleet returned to her home German High Seas Battle Fleet (except Orkney have made Scapa Flow . from and without waiting for Tide on which After a rather confusing end to the Battle bases at Kiel & Willhelmshaven and the submarines, which went to Harwich) 7 X-RAY MAG : 93 : 2019 EDITORIAL FEATURES TRAVEL NEWS WRECKS EQUIPMENT BOOKS SCIENCE & ECOLOGY TECH EDUCATION PROFILES PHOTO & VIDEO PORTFOLIO wreck rap Historical photo showing destroyers of the German High Seas Fleet sinking in Scapa Flow ORKNEY LIBRARY ARCHIVES / PUBLIC DOMAIN ARCHIVES / LIBRARY ORKNEY would be interned at Scapa 70,000 naval personnel and 74 and that his fleet was to be Flow until the Allies could make a German ships, which included its used by their enemies against decision as to their fate. 11 best battleships and all six of its their homeland. The German The Orcadians were no battlecruisers. Commander thought that the strangers to large numbers of Time dragged on and many of Treaty of Versailles would leave ships on their doorstep, but on the disgruntled German Navy’s them with little choice but to 23 November 1918, they woke crew were moved to detention scuttle their own fleet, lest the up to witness the greatest naval camps before being repatriated. Allies get their hands on an entire spectacle ever seen on the Taking advantage of the navy. planet. Almost the entire naval internment to save the Imperial Whilst (coincidentally) virtually fleets of both Germany and Fleet from further disgrace and the entire British Navy left Scapa the United Kingdom were at not having been informed Flow on exercise on Midsummer’s anchor in Scapa Flow. When you properly over the reasons for the Day in June 1919, Admiral Reuter consider that the population of Armistice being surrendered on sent out a coded message to his the islands numbered around 21 June 1919, Admiral Ludwig von entire fleet (this coded massage 20,000 at the time, this huge Reuter was convinced that war was actually delivered by a British combined fleet manned by over conditions were to be reinstated dispatch tender!). This message instructed each ship to open their seacocks, break all valves and scuttle the entire fleet. Much to the astonishment of a party of Orcadian schoolchildren who were on a field trip that day, they watched the German crews whooping and shouting for joy as they made off in small boats from the sinking fleet. This culminated in the largest intentional sinking in worldwide naval history, where over 400,000 tons of modern shipping was lost that day. The British Navy were immediately alerted, returned as fast as possible and even managed to beach a few of the smaller ships; however, the fleet arrived too late for most of the sinking. ORKNEY LIBRARY ARCHIVES / PUBLIC DOMAIN ARCHIVES /PUBLIC ORKNEY LIBRARY Historical illustration showing the sunken vessels in Scapa Flow 8 X-RAY MAG : 93 : 2019 EDITORIAL FEATURES TRAVEL NEWS WRECKS EQUIPMENT BOOKS SCIENCE & ECOLOGY TECH EDUCATION PROFILES PHOTO & VIDEO PORTFOLIO ORKNEY LIBRARY ARCHIVES / PUBLIC DOMAIN wreck rap Historical photos of salvage work at Scapa Flow (right), two German motor torpedo ships, or destroyers, aground at Scapa Flow (lower right), and the scut- tled SMS Derfflinger C. W. BURROWS / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS / PUBLIC DOMAIN (far right) Salvage scrapping of railway It did not take long for the locals engines and quickly to start that “diving lark.” Seeing recognised the potential the potential for some easy scrap on offer in Scapa. metal, the first salvage company The greatest marine started three years later by the salvage operation ever Stromness Salvage Company, undertaken on the which raised the Light Cruiser G-89 planet was set to begin off the Isle of Cava. They eventually with quite exemplary sold this to Cox & Danks. and innovative But before Frank Cox and techniques. This basically DOMAIN ARCHIVES /PUBLIC ORKNEY LIBRARY his team moved in, the Scapa consisted of building Flow Salvage and Shipbreaking huge towers, which were Company opened for business attached to the hulls of in 1923 and initially bought four the upturned ships. The destroyers. They hoped to raise water in these tubes was then raised 32 ships in the next eight responsible for the sad fate of left behind were not worth further Gobernador Boreis, Inverlane, these ships by running hawsers pumped out, and a hole was cut years. He then sold out to the the remaining deep battleships, effort. Those that were left are Aorangi, Numidian, Thames, under the hull, so that when the into the hull to allow the hard hat Alloa Shipbreaking Company, which now have horrendous what we all dive on now. This Minieh, Rosewood, Almeria, rise and fall of the tide raised them divers access into the wreck’s which changed its name to cavities in their hulls, resulting in comprises the following: AC6 Barge, Emerald Wings, up sufficiently to get them off the interior, where they proceeded Metal Industries and continued the hastening of the deterioration Ilsenstein, Martis, Empire seabed, the salvagers could pull in blocking off all the holes in the the salvage works from 1934 until of this once grand fleet. He finally • 3 German battleships: König, Seamen, Reginald and Juniata them into shallow water. They rest of the ships. Compressed air 1947. Using the same techniques sold out to Scapa Flow Salvage Markgraf and Kronprinz Wilhelm • 47 large sections of remains would repeat the process until the was then pumped into the hulls, as Cox & Danks, Metal Industries in 1972, which worked on the • 4 battleship debris sites: Bayern, and salvor’s equipment ship was above the surface at low filling the ships with pressurised air even managed to raise the intact remains of the sunken fleet until Seydlitz, Kaiser and von der Tann • Many other bits of unidentified tide, where the water in the hull and simply floating them off the Derfflinger at 28,000 tons, which the removal of the scrap became • 4 light cruisers: Brummer, wreckage and numerous small would then be pumped out and bottom. Employing this method, was the largest ship ever raised no longer viable. Karlsruhe II, Dresden II and Cöln II ships, supply barges and aircraft the vessel could float off easily on Cox & Danks raised the heaviest from the deepest water at 45m • 1 light cruiser debris site: Bremse the next high tide. ships from the deepest water— (150ft). Wreck legacy • 5 torpedo boats (small What these erstwhile salvors However, before they could and just about everything else in Arthur Nundy then took up Virtually all of the German destroyers): B109, S36, S54, V78 left behind are now classified start this enterprise, Cox moved between! the challenge in 1956 and High Seas Battle Fleet were and V83 as national monuments and in with all of the equipment and Using equipment gained systematically blew the guts out subsequently raised and • 1 WWII destroyer: F2 protected under the Protected personnel required to raise a fleet from Germany as part of the of most of the remaining ships to scrapped. But by the time • 1 German submarine: UB 116 Wrecks Act of 1973 and Ancient of sunken ships. Cox had earned reparations for their “illegal” get at the valuable scrap inside. the value of scrap metal had • 17 large diveable blockships Monuments and Archaeological his fortune and reputation in the actions of sinking their fleet, Cox Unfortunately, he was the person dropped, the state of the remains (out of 43 sunk): Tabarka, Dyle, Areas Act of 1979. The two War 9 X-RAY MAG : 93 : 2019 EDITORIAL FEATURES TRAVEL NEWS WRECKS EQUIPMENT BOOKS SCIENCE & ECOLOGY TECH EDUCATION PROFILES PHOTO & VIDEO PORTFOLIO wreck rap ORKNEY LIBRARY ARCHIVES / PUBLIC DOMAIN ARCHIVES /PUBLIC ORKNEY LIBRARY Historical illustra- tion with map of the German ships scuttled in Scapa Flow Graves of HMS Vanguard and HMS scuba diving in this area that much unqualified, there are a couple of dive diving qualification through the Royal Oak are also protected under richer and more interesting.