Scapa Flow is a dramatic and windswept expanse of water some 12 miles across, which is almost completely encircled by the islands of Orkney. To get there from mainland Scotland entailed a long drive up to the ferry port of Scrabster, near Thurso. This was followed by a 2 hour sea crossing on the P&O ferry St Ola, past the rugged sheer cliffs of the island of Hoy, home to the fabled Old Man of Hoy, a 200 metre high rock pinnacle.
On the land all around Orkney there are poignant reminders of its war-torn past. Long deserted military bases, barracks and gun emplacements bear silent witness to its military history. For centuries Scapa Flow has been a safe, sheltered and heavily defended anchorage for the Royal Navy. Great warships and dramatic deeds are an integral part of that past.
In the First and Second World Wars, the main Atlantic Operations HQ was set up at the naval base of Lyness on Hoy. Today the naval presence is long gone and modern tankers and oil supply vessels mix with small and large fishing boats in the crowded harbours. But it is what lies beneath the waves of Scapa Flow that makes Orkney a magnet for today’s sports divers.
For seven long months from November 1918, 74 of the finest warships of the Imperial German Navy’s High Seas Fleet had been interned at Scapa Flow as a condition of the Armistice, which halted the fighting that November. The interned Fleet of powerful warships was made up of five battlecruisers, 11 battleships, eight cruisers and 50 torpedo-boat destroyers. Built up over the preceding 20 years in a naval arms race with Britain, the High Seas Fleet had been created at huge cost to the German nation to challenge the traditional naval supremacy of Britain.
The mighty force of the High Seas Fleet had not been surrendered to the British - nor had it been crushed in any sea battle. The German land forces however were however facing defeat and their leaders had pressed for surrender terms with the Allies. The High Seas Fleet, which had not fought against the Royal Nay in any significant fleet action since the Battle of Jutland in 1916, was a pawn in those negotiations. It had survived the War relatively intact and could still pose a significant and potent threat if the Armistice broke down and fighting recommenced.
Therefore, as a condition of the Armistice, the Fleet was to be taken into internment and be heavily guarded at Scapa Flow - until the Treaty of Versailles determined its fate. German guns were to be disarmed in Germany before their Fleet set sail.
Once the Armistice was called, arrangements were made by the Allies to receive the High Seas Fleet into internment. The entire British Grand Fleet had rendezvoused with the High Seas Fleet in the North Sea to escort it into Scapa Flow where it was thought the German Fleet could be kept safely under guard. No such sea force had ever been gathered before – a staggering 90,000 men were afloat, on a total of 370 warships.
The British were taking no chances on any German treachery. Their guns were loaded and all crews were at action stations, alertly looking out for any signs of trouble. The British Grand Fleet split into two long lines of battleships and battlecruisers, six miles apart and stretching beyond sight into the distance.
The German High Seas Fleet had sailed through the passage thus created in single column and been escorted by the British Grand Fleet up to Scapa Flow and into internment. The German ships were lined up in neat compact rows once in Scapa Flow, sometimes with up to three or four of the smaller vessels moored to the one buoy.
The warships, although under Allied guard, remained German property. The bulk of the 20,000 German sailors who had brought the ships to British waters were repatriated leaving only skeleton care-taker crews of up to 200 on the larger vessels. There were no British guards aboard the German ships, which were also prohibited from flying the German Imperial Navy ensign with its black cross and eagle.
The German sailors had to endure the savage cold of the long Orcadian winter as 1918 turned slowly to 1919 - as all the while their ships swung at their moorings. The German crews were not allowed ashore and all their provisions other than water and coal had to be sent to them from Germany. The peace negotiations dragged on as the Germans and the Allies made demand and counter demand. The snows and cold of winter gave way to spring 1919 – and then in turn to summer. And still the ships swung at their moorings.
In June 1919, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, in charge of the High Seas Fleet, learned from a four-day-old newspaper given to him by the British that the Armistice was due to end on 21 June. He read that the peace negotiations were in trouble and the newspaper reports indicated that no agreement was likely to be reached. If the peace negotiations broke down then it was clear that the fighting would start again. Manned by a skeleton crew and with his ships’ guns disarmed, his Fleet could not defend itself if the British tried to seize it on the Armistice ending.
At 9am on the 21 June, the British guard force of battleships and battlecruisers sailed out of the Flow on exercise with their supporting light cruisers and destroyers leaving only two serviceable destroyers on guard duty. The Armistice had been extended by two days to 23 June and they were under instructions to be back in Scapa Flow by then to deal with any trouble that might arise should the Armistice not be further extended.
At 10 am, von Reuter appeared in full dress uniform on the quarterdeck of his flagship, the light cruiser Emden. Reuter proudly bore the insignia of his highest decorations around his neck. The Iron Cross and his other medals were pinned to the breast of his frock coat. He studied his ships through a telescope and was advised by one of his staff that the British Fleet had left on exercise earlier that morning. He could hardly believe his luck.
Reuter issued an order that the international code flags “DG” be raised on Emden. This alerted officers on the other ships that they should watch for further orders.
10.30am. Rear Admiral von Reuter addressed an attendant signaler and shortly afterwards a string of command flags appeared over his ship - even although this was well outwith the permitted times for issuing signals. The order read ‘PARAGRAPH 11. BESTÄTIGEN (Paragraph eleven. Confirm.)’ The prearranged coded order to the commanders of the other ships in the Fleet to scuttle had just been given.
The details of the plan to scuttle the Fleet had been finalised four days earlier on 17 June with a view to avoiding the Allies seizing the powerful warships. (Unbeknown to Reuter the Allies had formulated just such a plan months before, as part of their contingency planning.)
The signal to scuttle was passed from ship to ship by semaphore and by Morse code on signal lamps and travelled slowly around the Fleet. The southernmost ships of the long lines of destroyers were not visible from the Emden. They had to wait for a full hour until the order reached them.
The prearranged formal responses came back, slowly to begin with. The first signal reached Emden at about 11.30am, just as the original signal reached the last of the destroyers: ‘Paragraph eleven is confirmed.’
In a patriotic gesture of defiance many of the German ships ran up the Imperial Navy ensign at their sterns. The prohibited white flags with their bold black cross and eagle had not been seen at Scapa Flow before. Others ran up the red flag, the letter ‘Z’ which in international code signalled: ‘Advance on the enemy.’
Noon. An artist, who had hitched a ride on one of the patrolling British Navy trawlers to sketch the assembled might of the interned German Fleet, noticed that small boats were being lowered down the side of some of the German ships, against British standing orders. Sixteen minutes later the first of the German ships to sink, the Freidrich der Grosse, turned turtle and went to the bottom.
The other ships in the Fleet also began to list as the water rushing into their hulls altered their buoyancy. For the last four days, Reuter’s trusted sailors had been fixing doors and hatches in the open position - to allow water to flood through the hull more easily. Seacocks were set on a hair turning and lubricated very thoroughly. Large hammers had been placed beside any valves that would allow water to flood in if knocked off. The sea valves were now opened and disconnected from the upper deck to prevent the British closing them if they boarded a ship before it went down. Sea water pipes were smashed and condensers opened. Bulkhead rivets were prised out. As soon