From Jutland to Junkyard: The raising of the scuttled German High Seas Fleet from Scapa Flow - the greatest salvage operation of all time

by George, S. C.

  I went on board the Hindenburg when she was sinking to shut down all the doors we could find. It was awful on board, you could hear the swishing of the water in the boiler-rooms and see the oily surface of the water getting gradually higher and higher. We closed as many doors as we could, but it was no use and eventually she sank. One diesel engine was still running making the electric light, so we could still see a bit, but it stopped suddenly when the water came upon it, and we were plunging into absolute darkness on board the sinking Hun. Luckily we had some hand lamps with us, so we could see a little. When we had closed as many doors as possible, we had to come away as there was great danger of one of the boilers bursting. The ship was also beginning to heel dangerously. We went back to get some dynamite to blast cables as we could not part them on board; we had to blow them up so that the ship could drift ashore. However, she sank before drifting ashore. The cabins and everything were in complete disorder where things had been snatched up hurriedly. I bashed in a portrait of old Hindenburg with a hammer. In the Ward Room were silver cups etc, but we could not take anything as there was too much hurry.

  At the coxswain’s suggestion, the cable was parted after TNT had been lashed to it above the waterline. As she was sinking more slowly than most of the ships, British tugs took her in tow intending to beach her on Cava Island, but just off shore she began to settle in shallow water on an even keel with her upper decks just awash and her funnels, masts and upper gun turret showing above water. Destroyers and tugs tried to move her, but suddenly she rolled over and had to be abandoned.

  It was now too late to attend to the other ships, for two hours after the first alarm the whole of the German fleet was sinking in various stages. Boats and rafts and men in life-jackets were everywhere. Some men had not put on their jackets properly and when overcome by cold floated head down with their feet sticking in the air.

  After sinking the boats in which the crew were leaving their ship, Westcott’s men boarded the sinking light cruiser Nürnberg, hauled down her ensign and slipped her cables so that she drifted ashore and beached herself. The drifter Caersin drove back deserting crews with rifle fire. The drifter Clonsin took the light cruiser Dresden in tow though her main deck was already awash. They were only a mile from Cava beach when Dresden sank so quickly that there was no time to cast off the tow rope. Seydlitz was boarded, but everything movable was wired fast and she had to be left to her fate.

  The first destroyers of the First Battle Squadron returned at full speed at about 14.30 hrs when only two German battleships, one battlecruiser and four light cruisers remained afloat, and they were sinking. Markgraf, a battleship, was one of them, and her crew had not left when she was boarded by the crew of the drifter Cabalsin; they were obstructed by the Germans, and in the ensuing scuffle the captain of Markgraf, a married man with four children, was killed and her engineer officer seriously wounded. But nothing could be done to save Markgraf, and shortly after her captain’s body had been taken off she went the way of the rest.

  Von Reuter recorded in his book the various times at which the capital ships sank. The first was Friedrich der Grosse at 12.16 hrs followed by König Albert at 12.54 hrs. By 14.00 hrs 11 more had gone, by 15.00 hrs another four. Karlsruhe went down at 15.50 hrs, Markgraf at 16.45 hrs and last of all Hindenburg at 17.00 hrs. Friedrich der Grosse had gone down in a few minutes. Brummer, a cruiser of the Emden class, began to lean over and sink, her crew in boats cheering as she went under. From the number of lifebelts floating about, it was thought that many lives must have been lost. Despite the violence which had to be used against the Germans, only two officers and six men were killed and five wounded. Von Reuter said that four were killed and eight wounded, all of No VI Flotilla (German sources state that one officer and seven petty officers and men perished and 21 were wounded).

  ‘Unconfirmed’ and quite unveracious eye-witness accounts soon appeared in the local press. A member of a drifter’s crew alleged that a German officer, who presumably had refused to sanction the action taken by his crew and was hated by them, had been strung up to the mast and had gone down with the ship. An extended version of the story alleged that several officers had been tied to the masts of their ships and had been drowned as the ships sank. On board a dirty destroyer a German officer ‘dressed in a frock coat and black gloves’ was seen standing on the deck of a sinking ship while the crew in small boats were stabbing each other. German officers were frequently seen to be using their revolvers against their men. Even more imaginative was the story of a girl who reported that her brother, employed in a vessel in the Flow, jumped into a boat and found himself in blood ‘up to his knees’, and that he saw a German surgeon lying dead with stab-wounds in his back.

  On a hillside overlooking the scene, a young farm worker named A.S. Thomson had been approached excitedly by his brother who cried, ‘Look! There’s a sub.’ ‘That’s no submarine,’ answered the other, ‘it’s a German ship going down.’ These two watched the whole dramatic event. Both were later to leave the farm and become divers with the salvage firm of Cox & Danks, with whom, at the time of writing, A.S. Thomson is still actively employed.

  One of the Trust-on officers who later went aboard Emden said that von Reuter was flying his flag, a black cross like a Maltese Cross on a white ground, that the cabin was gaily decorated with flags and bunting and smelt strongly of tobacco and spirits as though a celebration party had been held the night before, and he also described her officers as wearing yellow kid gloves and smoking cigars – which sounds like another unveracious story.

  Of all that great fleet which had so lately been the pride of the German people, only Baden, three cruisers and 18 destroyers remained afloat. The oil slicks of the sunken ships killed all life for years to come on the coasts where they settled. Frankfurt and Emden sank in shallow water in Swanbister Bay. Appendix 2 is a copy of a letter later recovered from Emden’s safe in Admiral von Reuter’s cabin. Baden was also beached there and later pumped dry and salvaged by the Admiralty.

  The German crews were rounded up, and with von Reuter were placed in custody in British ships. British guards were placed in the ships which were saved. It was said that sounds like the firing of rifles were heard as some of the ships heeled over and sank.

  This scuttling of the ships was a flagrant breach of the armistice terms, and von Reuter was angrily accused of treachery by Vice-Admiral Fremantle and made prisoner-of-war, while the crews were sent as prisoners to a military camp near Invergordon.

  It was 14.30 hrs on 21 June when Fremantle paraded von Reuter and his officers and said, ‘Before I send you ashore as a prisoner-of-war I would like to express to you my indignation at the deed which you have perpetrated, and which was that of a traitor violating the action of the arrangements entered into by the Allies. The German fleet was, in a sense, more interned than actually imprisoned. The vessels were resting here as a sort of goodwill from the German Government until Peace had been signed. It is not the first occasion on which the Germans have violated all the decent laws and rules of the sea.’ Von Reuter, not unnaturally, considered that he had done only what Fremantle himself would have attempted had the positions been reversed.

  On 24 June salvage advisers were sent by the Admiralty to survey the sunken ships and report on the possibility of raising them. The report concluded that little difficulty would be experienced in raising them by compressed air as they were undamaged. But the Admiralty had already decided that they were too heavy to be held by hawsers and that salvage was out of the question. An official statement was made on 23 June that the beached ships Baden and Emden would probably be salved, and possibly Frankfurt and Nürnberg, but as for the remainder, sunk in water from 12 to 20 fathoms deep and no danger to navigation, ‘where they are sunk, they will rest and rust. There can be no question of salving them’.

  However, in due course, the ships were a danger to navigation, and they were to be salved.

  In October 1920 the Aberdeen trawler Ben Urie, en route f
or home, ran on to Moltke and remained fast for several hours. Reporting this incident, the Orcadian commented, ‘Several trawlers have run on this battleship, and it is high time that greater precautions were taken to mark exactly where these sea monsters lie.’ Another trawler ran on to the same wreck and was lying there helpless as darkness came. The distressed ship signalled with lights and blew loudly on her siren for assistance. A motor boat was sent from Cava, but meanwhile a drifter from Lyness had got her off. But luck was not with her, for almost immediately she went right on top of Kaiser only a few hundred yards away.

  Relics from the scuttled ships were picked up almost daily for a considerable time on the Banffshire coast. A schoolboy found a wooden box full of postcards from a sailor’s sweetheart. Another card requested payment for 2,000 cigarettes which the sailor denied having received. Boys played football with black bread baked at Kiel, mistaking them for dumplings, and quantities of tea and soap were also washed up after having drifted 80 miles.

  Map of Scapa Flow showing position of the sunk German fleet.

  With the coming of peace, scrap-metal in enormous quantities was needed for post-war industries, and prodigious quantities of war material were available, so, for a year or two after the scuttling, the German ships lay undisturbed except for predatory raids upon them by Orcadian fishermen. It was not until world stocks of scrap showed signs of becoming exhausted that a wider interest was shown in the German ships.

  5

  The Men, the Means and the Ships

  IN 1922 THE STROMNESS Salvage Syndicate bought a destroyer which was towed into harbour at Stromness for breaking up. This was the first ship of the German fleet to be taken away, and it ended up serving many useful domestic purposes. For example, its boiler tubes were polished and cut up and sold in thousands for curtain rods.

  Then, on 26 April 1923, it was announced that ‘the Admiralty have invited an eminent engineer and salvage expert to make an offer for the contract of raising the ships. If the scheme materialises it will be the means of absorbing considerable local labour for a year or two.’ This promised to be a godsend to the islanders, for the Orkneys had been afflicted by terrible weather and poor crops, and fishing had been a failure.

  In June 1923 it was stated that the Admiralty had sold a portion of the sunken fleet to a company headed by Mr J.W. Robertson, convenor of the county of Zetland, who was to direct salvage operations. Confirmation came from London that four torpedoboat destroyers were to be salved; these were near the island of Fara and in much shallower water than the capital ships. Robertson said he did not expect to begin operations until the following month, that he proposed to seal the ships hermetically, and when he had pumped them out sufficiently to contain flotation, salvage should not be difficult. During the summer months a certain amount of material was brought ashore, but nothing of great interest. However, Robertson was not idle and his company, the Scapa Flow Salvage & Shipbreaking Co Ltd, planned to lift the ships by methods entirely different from others subsequently employed.

  Robertson acquired from the Admiralty two concrete barges, each approximately of 1,000 tons capacity. Between them they had a lifting capacity of 3,000 tons. Each barge had a length of 92 feet and a beam of 32 feet. They were to be moored 30 feet apart and spanned by eight lengths of steel girders, each weighing up to 24 tons. The outer edges of the decks on the barges were made level with concrete, to provide a flat bearing surface for the hard wood blocks and girders which were to be laid across the full beam of both barges. There were two tiers in each group of girders, and each tier was three tiers high, the lower line consisting of 17-inch by 6-inch H girders, the central line of 16-inch by 6-inch, and the top line of 12-inch by 6-inch ones. These were all held in place by steel plates and diaphragms needing in all some 20,000 bolts and nuts. Pulleys were then attached to the girders, two on each side, over which chains were to be passed and shackled to 16 steel belts under the destroyer.

  This work was carried out, and the belts were held in position by distance pieces. When the chains came over the pulleys they were gripped by huge 7-foot eye-bolts with a heavy thread or worm. This passed through an eye with a large nut on the end. By turning the nuts with spanners – the large spanner was six feet long – the load was taken by the wires, and lifting began.

  Robertson also proposed to assist lift and manoeuvrability by placing a large balloon (a ‘camel’ or air bag), capable of lifting over 100 tons, directly above the destroyer but floating between the barges. The balloons, which were really flexible pontoons, were patented jointly by Robertson and their co-inventor, Thomas. Eventually they had four of these balloons, two with a lifting capacity of 150 tons each, and two with a lifting capacity of 100 tons each. The huge bags were made of 12 thicknesses of canvas securely joined with rubber solution. The length of the large balloons when inflated was 47 feet 10 inches.

  Wires passing round the envelope were joined at four points six inches apart to the H girder keel. The deflated weight of each balloon was 25 cwt. The 100-ton lifting balloons had their wires gathered at two suspension points. They were fitted with valves which automatically cut off the air when the balloons were fully inflated.

  There were no rocks where the destroyers lay, but divers working below found conditions difficult, for though it was a safe anchorage for ships, it was a diver’s nightmare because of mud on the bottom which every movement stirred up into an inky mass that blurred their vision.

  But before Robertson had lifted his first destroyer, a rival appeared in the person of a Mr Cox who, on 10 January 1924, accompanied by his wife, visited Stromness, looked over the scuttled ships where they lay and examined the land around Lyness. In answer to local enquiries he said he had bought upwards of 20 small craft in addition to Seydlitz and Hindenburg, and that Lyness had been placed at his disposal together with all available plant. The Admiralty promptly declared that the statement was premature, but in February confirmation was given, and the Annual Register of 1924 records that a contract for the work of salvaging German ships was agreed between the Admiralty and the firm of Cox & Danks, Cox’s tender having been lower than those of several larger concerns, one of them a powerful American syndicate.

  It is believed that the destroyers on the bottom were sold by the Admiralty on behalf of the Inter-Allied Reparations Committee for about £250 each, one condition of the contract being that the sea-bed where each ship had lain was to be left free of all obstructions. It is presumed that these conditions were modified for the final phase of the operations after World War II when the last few remaining ships had their bottoms blown open so that they could be gutted of anything quickly accessible and profitable, especially of non-radioactive steel.

  In April Cox installed listening-sets, cinematograph and other equipment at Lyness for the entertainment in their leisure time of a large work force to be employed by the new firm.

  Ernest Frank Guelph Cox, whose salvage work was soon to give him a world-wide reputation, was born in 1883, the 11th child of a Wolverhampton master-draper. At the age of seven he attended Dudley Free School, Wolverhampton, leaving at 13 to become errand boy to a draper. From his youth he was interested in everything mechanical, and particularly in electrical matters on which he obtained books from the Mechanics Institute Library. He came from a modest home. He was a forceful man, often violent and intemperate in speech, and with an unshakable belief in himself, though in administrative matters he was by no means a genius. He left the draper’s for a job in a generating station. At the age of 20 he applied successfully to the Corporation of Ryde in the Isle of Wight for the post of chief engineer in charge of a new installation at Lymington in Hampshire. Next he became an assistant engineer at Hamilton in Scotland where he was concerned with the application of industrial power. This was followed by a post as chief engineer to Wishaw Corporation in Lanarkshire where he gained the respect of the local council and married the daughter of a councillor who was proprietor of the Overton Steel Works. He joined this firm as a par
tner and reorganised it.

  He had known from the first what kind of work he wanted, and he applied his considerable powers of concentration and memory to the acquisition of knowledge concerning the use of power in industry. His quick temper, strong language and outspoken remarks earned him the dislike of many people, but he is said to have borne no malice. He worked his men hard, but he seems to have been popular with them, for he knew them all, spoke their language, was constantly among them and was always sensitive about safety precautions. He had courage, too, both moral and physical. When on one occasion he was injured by a baulk of timber falling across his legs, he insisted upon being carried about the wreck until that particular job was finished. At times he was stubborn to the point of foolhardiness, as, for example, in his Scapa Flow operations when an expensive derrick was wrecked because in the face of all expert advice he insisted upon a cable being stretched beyond its breaking point.

  Five years after joining the Overton Steel Works, Cox left to set up in partnership with Thomas Danks, his wife’s cousin. Danks provided the money. Cox the knowledge and drive. The new firm of Cox & Danks accepted contracts in 1913 and, when war broke out the following year, it began to make shell cases, which provided Cox with sufficient capital to enable him to buy out his partner. At the time of the armistice he was in sole control of a prosperous business equipped with plant and machinery. In 1921 he turned to shipbreaking, and bought for £25,000 each the old battleships Orion of 22,500 tons displacement and Erin of 23,000 tons. He had these towed to Queensborough, on the Isle of Sheppey in the mouth of the Thames, where he opened a yard. In this yard lay a dock with a lifting capacity of 3,000 tons, surrendered by Germany as part of the reparations for the scuttling of the fleet. Cox bought it from the Admiralty for £24,000. On its floor was a huge steel cylinder used by the Germans for testing the hulls of submarines. It was 400 feet in length and 40 feet in diameter. The method employed was to sink the dock with the submarine sealed inside the cylinder, and then to apply external pressure to the hull. This cylinder projected several feet above the high retaining walls. Otto Willer-Petersen, founder of Petersen & Albeck of Copenhagen, a Danish firm which was a principal buyer of Cox’s scrap-metal, suggested that, after the cylinder had been removed from the dock and sold, the dock itself might be used very profitably in the salvage of enemy destroyers in Scapa Flow. At this time Cox expected to be running out of work soon, so he considered the suggestion, at first somewhat doubtfully as he had never before lifted a ship.