Scapa Flow

The Reminiscences of Men and Women Who Served in Scapa Flow in the Two World Wars

Malcolm Brown, Patricia Meehan

• Publisher: Spellmount
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780750992084
  9781862274099
• eBook ISBN:
  9780750992794
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia militar y marítima

Scapa Flow, a vast, natural harbour in the Orkney Islands, served as the Royal Navy's main base during the two world wars, from where ships sailed to the Battle of Jutland in the First and in convoy to northern Russia in the Second. Thousands of men and women saw service in and around this remote anchorage, including soldiers and sailors who crewed the ships and manned the lonely batteries, and Wrens, nurses and civilians who were posted there.

Scapa Flow brings together their memories – the bleak isolation, its implacable winds and glorious sunsets, the camaraderie and good humour – forming a compelling portrait of a unique war station that left its mark on all who served there.

THE FIRST WORLD WAR

SCAPA FLOW

(A Hymn of Hate)

Have you ever heard the story of how Scapa got its name?

If you haven’t then you’re slow, because it’s earned a world–wide fame.

It has caused a lot of howling amongst our tars at sea,

So I’ll tell to you the story as a sailor told it me:

Sure a little bit of wastage fell from out the sky one day,

And it fell into the ocean in a spot up Scotland way.

And when the Sea Lords saw it, sure! it looked so bleak and bare

They said, ‘Suppose we start to build a Naval Base up there.’

So they dotted it with colliers, to provide the tars with work,

With provision boats and oilers, that they dared not dodge or shirk.

Then they sprinkled it with raindrops, with sleet and hail and snow,

And when they had it finished, sure, they called it Scapa Flow.

Now the Navy’s been at Scapa ever since we’ve been at war,

And whenever it is over, they won’t want to see it more.

But for years and years to come, whenever sailors congregate

You may bet your life you may hear them sing that Scapa hymn of hate.

5

Setting up the Base

Nearly a hundred years went by before Scapa Flow was put to the use for which the Maritime Surveyor, Graeme Spence, had recommended it in 1812, as a roadstead for a fleet of line-of-battle ships in time of war; but it was not quite forgotten by the Navy. For one correspondent who remembered a boyhood at Longhope on Hoy in the early years of the century Scapa was always closely linked with the Fleet.

¶ Looking backwards to about 1908 and on to the outbreak of war in 1914, I remember that Scapa Flow was used for gunnery practice and the annual Naval regattas and sports. Those large battleships sailed regularly into these waters and Scapa would be full of ships lying at anchor and at night there would be thousands of sparkling portholes in the darkness.¹

In Kirkwall, according to the local press, such visits of His Majesty’s ships seem to have given a considerable boost to the social whirl.

The Captain and Officers, 2nd Destroyer Flotilla, held an At Home in the Town Hall, Kirkwall, on 29th September 1909. It was one of the best dances ever held in Kirkwall. Those in charge of the At Home, not to be dependent on the local arrangements for lighting the hall, had it lit by electricity. Two destroyers – the Exe and the Jed – were moored alongside the pier and cables laid from them across the Peerie Sea to the Hall. The several electric lamps being at various distances in the hall, were very effective. The whole of the lighting arrangements were carried through without a hitch, and reflect great credit on those in charge.¹

On the smaller islands, however, they were made of sterner stuff. The newspaper’s Flotta correspondent struck a rather waspish note:

The first destroyers have taken things very easy since they first arrived in Orkney waters. At least so it appeared to us. The day after that on which they came was Saturday – a holiday. Sunday, of course, ‘counted off’. Monday, on account of Queen Mary’s birthday, a ‘holiday’. Friday and Saturday last – ‘holidays’. So that, although vessels have been here for ten days they seem to have been idle, or comparatively so, for the greater part of the time. And yet, when the Flotilla comes to leave, we expect to read of the hard work the men put in while in the North – of the rest they are needing after their strenuous labours in ‘Scapper Flo’.¹

But these halcyon days were coming to an end and Flotta was soon to have a very different view of the Fleet.

The British Home Fleet came to its war station in Scapa Flow in the last days of July 1914.

¶ I was an Ordinary Seaman in H.M.S. Hindustan, 3rd Battle Squadron – known as the ‘Wobbly Eight’ as they were bad steering ships. In July 1914 my ship was in Weymouth. On Sunday, 26 July, the newspapers said in heavy print: ‘A great war cloud hanging over Europe’. On Monday we began to think it was more serious. Tuesday evening we heard the 1st Fleet was leaving harbour next morning. Naval patrols were sent ashore to collect up local men on leave. All leave expired at 10 P.M. Next morning, Wednesday, 29 July, hands were called earlier. We hoisted in boats and secured ‘ship for sea’.

At 9 A.M. we left harbour, consisting of the 1st Battle Fleet and cruisers. We steamed at moderate speed, in line ahead. In the Channel we turned east. After dark we increased speed, without navigating lights. Ships were completely darkened. Our ship almost hit a merchant ship and I heard them shout from their bridge: ‘Where’s your bloody lights?’ All next day we were steaming off the north-east coast but not knowing our destination. Ships changed to ‘War Routine’. My job was to help screw fuses in our lyddite shells (our shells weighed a ton each). In the afternoon of Friday, 31 July, land ahead was sighted and within two hours we anchored in Scapa Flow.

Saturday and Sunday were busy days. We cleaned ship. We painted out our white recognition bands around the funnels. At twelve o’clock on Sunday, when we were about to go to dinner, a signal came from the Flagship that we were to dismantle two twelve-pounder guns from our ship and take them ashore with a supply of ammunition, fifty Marines and a number of seamen. At 1.00 P.M. they were away, with food and one blanket each. Our Commander was in charge. These guns weighed twelve hundredweight each and had to be got up the side of a hill and mounted for firing across the harbour entrance.

My job that Sunday was to go aboard the Fleet’s repair ship, H.M.S. Assistance, and help to bore holes in metal plates for the guns’ mounting. On Monday, 3 August, my job was to help in beaching what boats we could do without (less fire risk if in action). I even remember a decent piano being ditched. We steamed out of harbour next morning so were at sea as war was declared. Returned to harbour next morning, took in coal, then straight out. Tents and soldiers were near our guns on the hill. A few days later we came across some German trawlers, brought the crews aboard with their belongings, and the fish, and sunk the trawlers.

One job worth noting, we had the job of chipping our polished enamel paint off the ship inboard, to prevent danger of poison if it got in wounds.²

* * *

¶ On 4 August, our Captain, A. C. Scott, R.N., cleared lower deck and informed us he had some important news: ‘As from midnight tonight we are at war with Germany. Should it be our fortune to meet the enemy, I shall use the ship until she ceases to float. Then it will be every man for himself and God for us all! Coal ship.’

At daybreak we sailed, the whole Grand Fleet in company. For ten days we steamed to and fro, sinking everything that floated, amongst which were a number of German fishing boats and trawlers. The crews were taken prisoner, who on being captured said they didn’t know of hostilities. But some boats had fresh meat aboard. On our first cruise we took forty-nine prisoners.³

The Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet when it sailed into Scapa in the summer of 1914 was the veteran Admiral Sir George Callaghan. His period of command was due to end in December of that year, but with war on the horizon the Admiralty decided to retire him at once and install his already nominated successor. This was Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, the thoughtful, supremely professional sailor who had always been intended by that energetic First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher,² to be ‘Admiralissimo when Armageddon comes’. On 2 August Jellicoe travelled north from London by the railway line which was to make his name its special possession. He was met at Wick by the light cruiser Boadicea and ferried across to the Flow. At 8.30 A.M., on 4 August – a matter of hours before the official proclamation of war – he took over command from Callaghan and raised his flag in the battleship Iron Duke. In his letter of appointment, which he had carried with him in a sealed envelope and which he finally opened on Admiralty instruction in the early morning of that memorable 4 August, he read that his title was to be the new one of ‘Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet’.

So the Grand Fleet, the greatest Fleet that Britain has ever assembled, came into being. Its enemy, based across the North Sea at Wilhelmshaven, was the High Seas Fleet of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany. In the contest that was to follow, the Grand Fleet, heir to a reputation that had been undisputed since Trafalgar, was the champion; the newly created High Seas Fleet was the challenger.

The fleet based on Scapa Flow during the Great War existed for three main purposes: to maintain Britain’s mastery of the seas and protect her coasts and shipping; to hasten Germany’s defeat by an effective blockade; and to bring the High Seas Fleet to decisive action. It was the third purpose, inevitably, that kindled the enthusiasm of the Royal Navy and of the British public. What the whole nation wanted, and expected, was a second Trafalgar – aresounding assurance that nothing had changed, that the spirit of Nelson lived on, that Britannia was still the ruler of the waves.

In the first months of war the Grand Fleet moved massively to and fro in the North Sea like an army marching and counter-marching outside the camp of an enemy. But the Germans replied with a weapon which baffled and enraged their British opponents – inaction. The British, it is true, scored a dramatic success with a surprise attack into the Heligoland Bight in August in which three German cruisers were sunk within shooting distance of their own shores. But this victory produced almost the opposite effect from what was expected. Far from provoking the High Seas Fleet to come out and avenge the injury, it persuaded it to retire into harbour and pull down the shutters. The Kaiser ordered Admiral Pohl to avoid any further loss of ships. Admiral von Tirpitz protested at this ‘muzzling policy’ but the muzzling continued. As Churchill put it, ‘Apart from movement by individual submarines and minelayers, not a dog stirred from August till November’. In September, Jellicoe’s whole Fleet swept boldly towards the Heligoland Bight in the hope of repeating its August success but not a single enemy ship was sighted. Sir David Beatty, the energetic and popular Vice-Admiral whose battle-cruisers³ had covered themselves with glory in the previous month, expressed the general mood when he commented bitterly: ‘I fear the rascals will never come out. It rea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Map showing Scapa Flow
• Extracts from A Memorial to the Lords Commissioners of Admiralty
• Introduction
• Approach to Scapa Flow
• The First World War
• The Second World War
• Sunset
• List of Contributors