by H J Weaver
‘We are sitting among the crew of the U-boat which has returned to its home base after its successful voyage to Scapa Flow. The crew are still full of the adventure. Lt. Prien, commander of the triumphant U-boat, tries to describe to us in a speech the voyage and what it was like in the British war anchorage of Scapa Flow . . .
‘Questioned about the penetration of Scapa Flow, he said frankly: “The war has already lasted six weeks. On all the trips27 I have made in my U-boat up till now, I have not caught a glimpse of a single enemy warship. It was the wish of the whole crew to have just one British warship in the sights of our torpedo tubes. This was not just what I wanted. Every officer and every man wanted it as well. However, as it is not possible to meet a British warship on the high seas today, the only remaining possibility was to penetrate a British harbour . . .” ’
Scapa Flow, it was explained, had been chosen to avenge the internment of the German Fleet after the first World War and its subsequent scuttling. ‘The commander then went on to speak about details of the voyage: “It was as bright as day because of the Northern Lights on a scale I have never before encountered in my service at sea . . . After we had penetrated the harbour, my first concern was to ensure that we were not discovered before we found the targets hidden from us. To the north, directly ahead of me, I saw the silhouettes of two battleships, the target which every U-boat sailor hopes for. So, onto them! Torpedo tubes ready! Crew at action stations!”
‘While Lt. Prien was speaking these words, the faces of his crew, standing around him, shone with pride over the memory of what lay behind them. All want to contribute to describing the hours and minutes which they will never forget as long as they live. Nobody speaks of himself, each tries to praise the heroic deeds of his comrades.
‘The commander of the U-boat finally came to the eventful climax: “When we were at the right distance from the two battleships, the torpedo tubes were prepared for firing. Now it’s all up to the technicians. And they do the necessary. The first torpedo struck the battleship with two funnels that was furthest away from us, the second torpedo struck the nearer one . . . The northern ship – it looked like the Repulse – was not sunk but was, without any doubt at all, seriously damaged. The bow of the ship sank deep in the water immediately.
‘ “The effect of the second torpedo was peculiar . . .” ’ Lt. Prien then went on to describe the violent end of Royal Oak with cascades of water, flames ‘in all the colours of the rainbow’, chunks of the battleship flying through the air. ‘These,’ he explained, ‘were parts of the funnel, the mast and the bridgework.’ The story went on: ‘Finally, we asked the commander of the successful U-boat about the impression the reception given to him and his crew on their return had made on them. Lt. Prien replied: “On my arrival . . . I became conscious for the first time of the deep interest the German people had taken in what was, for us U-boat men, a routine voyage. I am convinced that my crew has also been inspired to do everything they can to bring this war to an early, honourable and victorious end.” ’
Back in England that same afternoon the atmosphere in the House of Commons had been considerably more sombre when Mr Churchill, who had been brought back into favour as First Lord of the Admiralty at the start of the war, rose to make his preliminary statement about the loss of Royal Oak. ‘The Royal Oak was sunk at anchor by a U-boat in Scapa Flow approximately at 1.30 a.m. on October 14,’ he said. ‘It is still a matter of conjecture how the U-boat penetrated the defences of the harbour. When we consider that, during the whole course of the last war, this anchorage was found to be immune from such attacks on account of the obstacles imposed by the currents and the net barrages, this entry by a U-boat must be considered as a remarkable exploit of professional skill and daring.
‘A Board of Inquiry is now sitting at Scapa Flow to report upon all that occured, and anything that I say must be subject to revision in the light of their conclusions. It appears probable that the U-boat fired a salvo of torpedoes at the Royal Oak, of which only one hit the bow. This muffled explosion was at the time attributed to internal causes, and what is called the inflammable store, where the kerosene and other such materials are kept, was flooded. Twenty minutes later, the U-boat fired three or more torpedoes, and these, striking in quick succession, caused the ship to capsize and sink.
‘She was lying at the extreme edge of the harbour and therefore many officers and men were drowned before rescue could be organized from other vessels. Serious as this loss is, it does not affect the margin of security in heavy vessels, which remains ample. Meanwhile, an intensive search of the anchorage has not yielded any results. It is clear, however, that after a certain time the harbour can be pronounced clear as any U-boat would have to rise to the surface for air or perish. All necessary measures are being taken to increase the precautions which in the late war proved effectual.’
Up in Scapa Flow, the day had brought two German air raids and another set-back for the Royal Navy. In the first raid, Iron Duke, the partly-demilitarised veteran of Jutland which served as headquarters for ACOS and his staff, was holed on the port side, took an immediate list of 12 degrees and had to be beached near Lyness.
The two raids had a shattering effect on the Royal Oak survivors, who were being kept at Scapa Flow pending the Board of Inquiry. In response to protests the Admiralty agreed that, for the sake of their morale, the vast majority of them could be transferred by minesweeper to Thurso on the mainland. They looked a motley collection of men – some with white caps, some with black caps, some with no caps at all . . . some in boilersuits, some in fishermen’s jerseys and ill-fitting trousers . . . some wearing seaboots, some gym shoes – when they arrived a few hours later to be billeted on hospitable local families.
News of the sinking of Iron Duke was brought to Vincent Marchant, still recovering in the cottage hospital at Kirkwall from his long swim, by a 15-year-old ward maid, with whom he had struck up a friendship. ‘She had never been out of the islands,’ he told me ‘and she used to like to sit on my bed and ask me questions about England – had I been to London, had I seen Piccadilly, that sort of thing. She was a nice girl – I saw her again a couple of years ago when a lot of us went up to Scapa Flow for a remembrance ceremony over the wreck of Royal Oak – and she came in on the day of the air raids and said “The Germans have sunk a battleship.”
‘I said: “I know, luv, I was on it.”
‘She said: “Not the Royal Oak, another battleship, the Iron Duke.”
‘I thought: “Bloody hell, if it goes on like this we won’t have a Fleet left by Christmas.” ’
7
Board of Inquiry
The three members of the Board of Inquiry appointed by the Admiralty caught the Euston–Thurso train on the night of Monday, October 16. Their president was the splendidly-named Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, KGB, DSO, RN, second son of the 17th Baron Dunsany, and he had the assistance of Vice-Admiral Robert Raikes, CB, CVO, DSO, RN, an experienced submariner, and Captain Gerard Muirhead-Gould, DSO, RN.
During the voyage from Scrabster, the port of Thurso, to Lyness, Admiral Raikes appeared on the bridge of the minesweeper Seagull where Harry Smith of Portland, then an Acting Yeoman of Signals, was on duty. ‘I heard a fair amount of the conversation,’ he recalls. ‘Admiral Raikes most certainly did not hold then with the opinion that it was a U-boat job.’ If this was the case, his mind was changed for him in the course of the next week, during which the Board heard formal testimony from 31 witnesses – 19 survivors from Royal Oak, ACOS and six members of his staff, two civilians and three ratings from the boom defence vessel Dragonet who were questioned about propeller noises heard on the night of October 11–12. In addition to verbal evidence, the Board had at its disposal the written answers to a questionaire filled in by survivors, a history of the Scapa Flow defences, two 1939 surveys of the eastern entrances, details of the action to be taken in the event of an enemy surface vessel or submarine penetrating the anchorage a
nd three newspaper cuttings containing Lt. Prien’s story.
The following account of the proceedings before the Board has been edited to some extent to avoid repetition of survivors’ individual experiences and to excise irrelevant testimony, arising from the fact that, at that stage, nobody could be sure whether a U-boat had penetrated one of the eastern entrances, followed a ship in through a boom, or even slipped around the side of a boom.
The first witness was Skipper Gatt, who was questioned briefly about whether it had been the practice of German trawlers to enter Scapa Flow by the ‘blocked’ eastern entrances between the wars. He agreed that it had, and added that he himself had made the passage as a deckhand on a British trawler. For his experience of the actual sinking, the Board relied on a report written in his own hand 24 hours after his gallant rescue work. It ended with the postscript: ‘One item I forgot to mention was that there was no panic and the men behaved wonderfully in the circumstances.’
Skipper Gatt was followed by Captain Benn, who was to be recalled several times in the course of the hearing. On this first appearance he was asked: ‘Have you any personal knowledge of whether there were columns of water that might have indicated torpedo explosions outside?’
He replied: ‘Only from what I have heard afterwards. I have subsequently been told, although I did not notice it myself when standing on the forecastle before going below, that the forecastle deck forward was quite wet. The whole of what I saw of the rest of the upper deck was quite dry. Further information I gained from men whom I questioned is that a spout of water was seen to go up with the first explosion. Also that the second or third explosion drenched the air defence position, which is on the foremast above and abaft the compass platform.’
Commander Edmund Hopkinson, the Boom Defence Officer, next answered some questions about boom openings on October 12 and 13.28 Then . . .
‘Please give us the times of high water at Hoxa on the night of October 13–14’ – ‘I have not got it for that day, but next day it was 1158.’
‘It has been stated by the First Lord that Royal Oak was sunk by a submarine. Assuming this to be established, at what entrance do you think it most probable that the submarine came in?’ – ‘Through Holm Sound.’
‘Is the strength of the tide at Hoxa as shown on the chart correct or are you exposed to stronger than that?’ – ‘Considerably stronger than that are experienced. The tides are very inconsistent. At spring tides the tide runs between two or three knots and varies considerably in direction in that sometimes one section of net will be bowed to the flood and the adjacent section will be sagged to the ebb. At times you get a lateral tide and you see the trots and nets turn round sideways. There are also considerable eddies.’
The Board then called Thomas Mackenzie, chief salvage officer of Metal Industries Ltd., whose experience with the German Fleet, scuttled after the first World War, had given him a profound knowledge of the Scapa tides and entrances. In 1939 he had also carried out a survey of the entrances on the Admiralty’s behalf.
‘I believe you have long experience of working drifters through all these passages’ – ‘Yes sir, a lot.’
‘What is the average draught of drifters using these waters?’ – ‘We have taken drifters and trawlers up to 12ft.6in. draught.’
‘Will you please tell us the passage a vessel of 12ft.6in. draught, or perhaps up to 15ft., could pass?’ – ‘Ahead [note: to the north] of the [blockship] Soriano in Kirk Sound. I took the anchor of the Soriano and stretched it right inshore until my tug was aground, but I would not say it was completely sealed. Ahead [note: to the south] of the [blockship] Thames: between Thames and Lamb Holm, there is a definite passage about 400 feet wide and with a depth of four to four and a half fathoms (24 –27ft.) at low water. Of course, there is a very strong tide running up to 10 knots, but there is slack water of 15 minutes.’
‘Then for the defence of that passage I gather we rely on the tide rather than on the complete blockage’ – ‘Yes, I think that is right.’
‘Is there [another] channel a submarine could come through?’ – ‘Yes, through Hoy Sound.’
‘Is it your opinion a submarine could quite easily enter through Hoy Sound?’ – ‘I think a submarine could. The passage is much easier than Kirk Sound. It is regularly navigated by Coast of Scotland steamers with a draught of 16ft.’
‘The gap you refer to at Kirk Sound. Would it be correct to say that the tide runs up to 10 knots to within half an hour each side of high and low water?’ – ‘Yes, that is correct, but the velocity of the tides decreases slowly from about half an hour before high water and low water and attains its maximum velocity about half an hour later.’
The next witness to be called was Admiral Sir Wilfred French, ACOS.
‘Will you please tell us what you consider caused the loss of Royal Oak?’ – ‘A submarine that fired four or five torpedoes.’
‘Do you think there is any doubt that a submarine did enter the Flow and attack her?’ – ‘I think there is a possible doubt because it has not yet been established that she was sunk by torpedoes.’
‘Do you expect to get a further report from divers tomorrow or shortly?’ – ‘As soon as I can take them off Iron Duke.’
‘Do you think the divers’ reports will make this point quite clear?’ – ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Do you think the submarine got out again and, if so, how?’ – ‘There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that a submarine has got out of the Flow, only the evidence that so far we have completely failed to locate it. There is one position which has been depth-charged, but has not yet been properly examined by divers.’
‘Do you feel confident you would have had a report of it if a submarine passed out after sinking Royal Oak?’ – ‘No. I think there was a period of about two or three hours after the sinking of Royal Oak when a submarine might have got out without being observed.’
‘Where would you expect her to get out in that case?’ – ‘The Kirk Sound.’
‘Can you give us the time of high water in Kirk Sound and the time of slack water on that night?’ – ‘I think it was 1200 ]note: the witness clearly meant midnight] and slack water about half an hour each side.’
‘From your knowledge of this base, is it your opinion that Cromarty, Rosyth or any other North Sea base can be made more secure than Scapa for the Home Fleet?’ – ‘I should say undoubtedly yes because, in the past, we have always relied on the psychological effect of the varying tides of the Pentlands which, as a matter of fact, are not so big a bogey to those who know [them] as people make out.’
‘What improvements in the defence against submarines and surface craft are to be carried out at an early date?’ – ‘A double anti-submarine net at Hoxa, loop minefields with warning loops at Hoxa and Switha. A blockship is being sunk in Kirk Sound to close the existing gap. These are Admiralty measures. In addition, locally I have instructed the Boom Defence Officer to extend all his booms so as to close the existing gaps except where such gaps are really essential for small craft traffic, and it is proposed to have watches on these gaps at night’ . . .
‘How many service trawlers have you usually had since the war started to patrol the booms?’ – ‘Since the Fleet has taken to using Port A [Loch Ewe] and another port, I have had only four.’
‘What number of yachts and drifters do you consider should be permanently available to make the watch effective on all entrances?’ – ‘Ten.’
‘What patrol vessels were operating on the night of Friday, October 13, and where were they?’ – ‘There were patrol vessels at Hoxa and Hoy booms, no others.’
‘Had there been an air reconnaissance before [the sinking]?’ – ‘Yes, two days before.’
Captain Benn was recalled and asked about the position of the inflammable store where the first explosion was thought to have taken place. He replied: ‘It is the fourth compartment. I think it is about 40 feet from forward.’ After this brief reappearance he was succeeded by Commander
Reginald Nichols, Royal Oak’s senior executive officer.
‘How much of the [anchor] cable gear was broken away by the [first] explosion?’ – ‘All the slips on both port and starboard cables.’
‘Have you any theory as to why exactly the slips parted?’ – ‘I believe that cast iron is likely to part under stress such as caused by an explosion.’
Commander Nichols was then asked about the water-tightness of the ship at the time of the sinking. He replied that the Commander-in-Chief had issued ‘an order or a signal or a memorandum – I can’t remember which – pointing out the desirability of keeping living spaces well ventilated during these long darken-ship nights.’
‘What height above the water would be the lowest line of scuttles that were open?’ – ‘I should say about 10 feet.’
Captain Benn, recalled again, was asked: ‘Can you estimate, even roughly, how many men were not saved who were in the water when the ship sank?’ – ‘No, sir.’
‘Were you satisfied with the general water-tightness of Royal Oak?’ – ‘Personally, I was not.’
‘Will you amplify that?’ – ‘The Ventilation and Watertight Compartments Officer, Lt. Moore, who took a tremendous interest in this part of the ship’s organisation, told me more than once that he feared that the ship would not stand up to one torpedo under the bottom. His reasons so far as I could understand them were that the ship was old, some of the ventilating trunks had no valves in them and fractures in various trunks would flood adjacent compartments. The ship had a few days previously been to sea in bad weather and this had happened – the starboard fresh-water tank was found to have salt-water in it, and, on being emptied, it was found that certain rivets were leaking and an overlap in the ship’s sideplates also leaked. The marines’ messdeck had got water into it through a ventilator which had been carried away . . . and on arrival in harbour it was found that the implement store immediately below this messdeck had about two feet of water in it . . .’
