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.

  The late Admiral W.E. Parry reflected the feeling of many officers and men when he wrote at the time in a private letter:

  It seems incredible from what we knew of the German Naval Officers that they would ever consent to surrender their ships. News filtered through, however, that there had been a meeting at all the naval ports, that the crews had seized the ships, killed various officers, hoisted the Red Flag, and demanded peace at once.

  And a little later, when the surrendered fleet was inspected:

  The strange dream feeling persisted in remaining; it didn’t seem possible that these were the ships we had been looking for for four years, that the rather indistinct grey form I had to keep peering at over the azimuth of the compass, was really the same as the silhouette labelled Königsberg class in my silhouette book.

  Midshipman Keighley of Repulse commented that ‘they won’t go down to posterity with much honour and glory’, and there were many, as tension grew, who could not believe that their enemy could surrender so tamely and said, ‘Now they’ll fire! They’re bound to! They can never stand this.’ But there was no untoward incident.

  Headed by Cardiff, the German ships passed between the lines, looking like whales towed by a minnow. This time there were cheers as the escorting vessels passed the flagship. So great an expanse of sea was covered by the German fleet and the surrounding British warships that the head and rear of the columns were lost to sight in the haze. Slowly the ships moved towards their anchorage off May Island in the Firth of Forth, some miles to the east of the bridge.

  About an hour before noon, Admiral Beatty signalled to the German ships, all of which were flying the German naval flag at their main, ‘The German flag will be hauled down at sunset today, Thursday, and will not be hoisted again without permission.’

  The inspection of the surrendered ships began on 22 November.

  On Saturday 23 November, 20 of the surrendered destroyers escorted by 20 British destroyers steamed into the grey waters of the Flow through Hoxa Sound, between low-lying Flotta to port and Hoxa’s lighthouse on the flat cape to starboard. Beyond Flotta rose Hoy’s three hills. The bleak prospect could do nothing to raise the morale of the dispirited crews. The rest of the surrendered fleet arrived in batches: on Sunday 20 more destroyers escorted as before by 20 British destroyers; on Monday five battlecruisers and ten destroyers escorted by the First Battlecruiser Squadron; on Tuesday five battleships and four light cruisers escorted by five ships of the Second Light Cruiser Squadron; on Wednesday four battleships and three light cruisers escorted by four ships of the First Battlecruiser Squadron and four of the Third Light Cruiser Squadron.

  On 3 December the first two transports, Sierra Ventana and Graf Waldersee, arrived at Scapa Flow to repatriate the surplus members of the German crews. A few days later four more transports arrived in pairs. On 4 December a German battleship, a light cruiser and a destroyer were sent to Scapa Flow to make up the deficiency of surrendered ships, and on 10 January 1919, as there was still one ship short, Baden was sent in place of the battlecruiser Mackensen, making in all 74 vessels interned there. The total care and maintenance party numbered 1,800 men.

  On 13 December the last home-going transports left Scapa Flow. Von Reuter joined this last party, reckoning his time away as leave. He returned to Scapa Flow on 25 January 1919.

  The condition of the ships and the lack of discipline struck all visitors. Midshipman Keighley commented: ‘they were all rather dirty and crowds of men were watching us’. Moltke’s captain was described as a good fellow, but brokenhearted and a complete wreck. The ship’s magazines were full of potatoes and other objects. There was some ‘porridgy stuff’ in the galley, and upon being asked what it was, a German answered shortly, ‘bloody birds’ food’. Several German officers said they were glad to be there as they had feared they would probably be ‘blotted out by the ship’s crew on the way over’. On some ships all orders were taken from the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ delegates. Sometimes the men were respectful to the British, at other times effusive and sycophantic, but more often surly. Moltke’s Workmen’s and Soldiers’ leader was a petty officer who was virtually senior to his captain. In one ship an inspecting officer was kept waiting for 40 minutes, and then, to all his questions merely received the off-hand reply, ‘I really don’t know’ – an answer which was often given to search parties. Before the inspecting officer left, with quiet satisfaction he gave the same answer to the German captain who asked if he could say whether peace negotiations had started.

  Admiral Parry found that Karlsruhe was ‘filthy and couldn’t have been cleaned for weeks’; eight of her 12 boilers were in such bad condition that they could not have stood much steaming. As for Bayern, she was completely controlled by six lower deck ratings.

  Emden’s ladder was down, but no officer was present to receive the search party. Captain Becker, still wearing the black Iron Cross with its silver edges, had been in command for only a few weeks, and he doubtless regretted even that short period, for the members of the Soviet in his ship answered their superiors without removing the cigarettes from their mouths and saluted British officers while ignoring their own. (There were, of course, two ships named Emden, the other being the notorious raider which was finally hunted down by the Australian light cruiser Sydney off the Cocos Islands.)

  Discontent in Friedrich der Grosse erupted into drunkenness, rioting and violence in which the Red Guards participated, so much so that von Reuter had to request the return of mutineers and other bad characters. Some time about the middle of June the worst of the crews were returned to Germany, and by the 17th of the month, when the last steamer left for Germany with the final batch of repatriated men, 2,200 malcontents had been withdrawn from Scapa Flow. About this time Admiral von Reuter transferred to Emden with British permission because, it was said, he could no longer bear the appalling clatter of mutinous sailors roller-skating on the iron deck of Friedrich der Grosse.

  4

  Scuttled!

  THE GERMAN FLEET’S ANCHORAGE in Scapa Flow was in the Bring Deeps, that part of the Flow lying roughly between the island of Hoy and the smaller islands of Graemsay and Fara. Von Reuter was depressed by his first sight of it:

  Nothing but mountainous, rocky islands, the naked rock showing through the heather – farm houses of local grey stone with barracks and hangars relieving the sameness, but the general impression one of ugliness.

  The absence of trees adds to the low, bleak aspect of the islands and, because of particularly violent winds, trees can grow only in sheltered valleys. On some 24 days of the year winds of gale force usually blow from the Atlantic and, less frequently, but more violently, from the north-east. Tremendous rollers crash against cliffs and send spray hundreds of feet into the air. Ordinary gales occur at any time.

  Cloudy skies and scanty sunshine must have aggravated the depression of the German crews, and even in still weather shipping is often endangered by dense white sea fogs.

  Violence was in the air, and it was no stranger to the Orkneys. Vikings had used them as a convenient base for raids down the east and west coasts of Scotland, and in the last half of the ninth century King Harald Finehair of Norway had chased his enemies right across the North Sea, seized the Orkneys and established there a strong earldom. In September 1066 Harald Hardrada had assembled a fleet there before sailing south to meet his fate fighting against the English King Harold at the battle of Stamford Bridge. Traces of Viking occupation are in the flat stones they used for their dry-stone walls, in a boat burial found by excavation, and in topographical names. It is possible that the blood of Black Danes runs in the veins of those broadheaded, dark people of the Orkneys today. In the early days of World War I there were several scares, all unfounded, that enemy submarines had penetrated Scapa Flow. In November 1914 a German submarine was destroyed in the outer approaches and, in 1918, after the mutiny in the German fleet, submarine U18 was manned entirely by German officers in a last desperate attempt to avenge their
dishonour; it was rammed off Mainland and rendered in a sinking condition by the armed trawler Dorothy Gray, the first auxiliary vessel to sink a submarine, before it sank it was rammed again by Garry, a destroyer which hurried to the scene in response to a signal from Dorothy Gray.

  Now the lines of surrendered ships extended from the Barrel of Butter Buoy round by the north end of the small island of Cava, and then between Fara and Hoy. Some, but not all, of the enemy ships were within sight of the British ships. Technically the ships were interned and not surrendered, for the peace treaty was yet to be signed, and British crews could not therefore be placed aboard.

  A German caretaker crew on a battleship and on a battlecruiser consisted of about 200 officers and men. Destroyers were lashed together in pairs and threes. Each ‘bundle’ had a company of from 12 to 20 men. All fittings of value, such as scientific instruments, had been removed from the ships before their departure from Germany, together with considerable quantities of their metal work. The Germans were not, of course, allowed either arms or ammunition. After internment at Scapa Flow, maintenance parties were not allowed ashore, and four drifters maintained a 24-hour patrol of the anchorage. Each drifter carried an armed party and a 12-pounder gun. The Germans had to organise their own food supply as no one else would supply them with provisions.

  As time passed, indiscipline increased among the crews, and many of the officers became despondent. ‘I am detaining you’, one British commander said to a German captain whose ship he had inspected, ‘No doubt you have things to do.’ ‘There is nothing for me to do now but think,’ was the reply, ‘and my thoughts are not pleasant.’ Life for the Germans was extremely boring. Men constantly reported sick, and many were mutinous.

  The naval conditions of the peace terms had been signed in June 1918, but there was considerable wrangling among the Allies about the final disposal of the surrendered ships. Great Britain wanted to have them destroyed, but France and the other Allies, desirous of reducing Britain’s marked superiority in naval strength, wished to have them shared out and added to their respective fleets. Von Reuter settled the matter for them.

  As early as 1 June he had secretly made preparations for the fleet to be scuttled, ‘a move which would take place,’ he notified the German commanders under him, ‘if the English try to take us by force, or if a special order comes from me’, and he gave the code words he would use to signify that all torpedo tubes, valves and other apertures were to be opened, and left open in such a way that they could not readily be closed again, and that ships were then to be scuttled immediately.

  On 20 June 1919 Emden had been seen to fly signals at her peak which had apparently been answered by the rest of the interned fleet.

  The upper flag was a white ball on a blue pennant, the lower one a yellow and blue pennant. This seemingly aroused no suspicions that anything unusual was afoot, though later there were those who said that the British had deliberately ignored what was going on.

  On the morning of 21 June the British First Battle Squadron and its escorting destroyers left Scapa Flow on an exercise. One British destroyer remained on duty in Scapa Flow. Two others were there undergoing repairs; there were also a few drifters and trawlers and one depot ship. Bernard F. Gribble, the marine artist, was aboard Sochosin, an Admiralty trawler, making official drawings of the German ships; he noticed that all vessels were still flying the two code flags. But neither he, nor the lieutenant commanding Sochosin whose attention he drew to the unusual happening, knew that when von Reuter was informed of the departure of the British First Battle Squadron, he had ordered the pre-arranged code signal to be hoisted: Schiffe sofort versenken (Sink all ships immediately). Even had they seen it and been able to translate it correctly it is doubtful if it would have aroused suspicion, for it merely read: Paragraph 11. Bestätigen. (Paragraph 11. Confirm.)

  It needed little more effort to sink a ship than to pull a plug from a bath. All that was necessary was the turning of a valve wheel, a procedure occupying no more than a few seconds. Most of the other apertures, such as ventilators, scuttles, hatches and bulkheads were already open. But the Germans did more than merely leave them open. They did their best to ensure that they could not be closed again. They could drain every compartment of their battleships by means of two 24-inch pipes, one along each side of the double bottom. A valve enabled each compartment to be flooded or emptied, and this valve had a control rod which passed to the armoured deck and worked through a universal joint situated at the bottom. When the ships were scuttled, the universal joints were disconnected so that it became impossible to pump compartments dry separately. When salvage work finally began it was therefore impossible to stabilise a ship by isolating its various compartments.

  At 11.45 hrs Mr Gribble saw German sailors aboard Friedrich der Grosse throwing baggage into boats. The same thing was happening on Frankfurt. Boats were being lowered, and men were scrambling into them. Sochosin’s skipper headed for the nearest ship, which happened to be Frankfurt, and ordered his men to be ready with rifles and cutlasses. He shouted an order to the Germans in boats to return immediately to their ships.

  ‘We have no oars,’ shouted the sailors who had thrown them away. A British sailor immediately threw several into the sea for them. Two German officers in the boats were impudent and demanded to be taken aboard, but the boats which came alongside were kept off at gunpoint.

  A drifter which had an equally early view of the scuttling was Trust-on which was transferring stores received from Germany to Emden. They were just casting off after finishing their work when a crowd of German ratings rushed from amidships begging to be taken off as the ship was sinking. Emden was already settling by the stern when von Reuter forced a way through the ratings and their officers. The officers wore Number One uniforms and were carrying suitcases and parcels. Von Reuter ordered the skipper of the drifter to take him and his crew aboard the British flagship, and received a curt refusal. Trust-on headed at full speed to Victorious, a workshop and dockyard ship which lay at the southern end of the Sound. When Trust-on reached her, Rear-Admiral Prendergast was reading a signal from the guardship Westcott that Friedrich der Grosse was sinking and that, contrary to orders, all German ships were wearing ensigns and battle-flags. He lost no time in despatching a signal to Vice-Admiral Fremantle of the First Battle Squadron who ordered the recall of the battleships and almost all the destroyers based on Scapa Flow. He then took a small party in his pinnace and managed to board one of the destroyers. But it was already sinking, so he took off the crew and put them under an armed guard in Victorious as prisoners-of-war.

  Meanwhile other crews equipped with lifebelts took to their boats, while the more daring members leapt overboard. Before assistance could arrive, most of the ships were entirely under the water, and others had only their mastheads visible on which flew the white ensign. Tugs, drifters and trawlers co-operated in efforts to save the vessels still afloat. The local Admiralty Port Officers managed to beach 11 destroyers. The crew of the depot ship Sandhurst kept four afloat and beached seven more. Baden which had taken no part in the affair and two light cruisers were beached at Swanbister Bay, and one light cruiser was beached off Cava.

  A party of children enjoying a pleasure trip in the steamer Flying Kestrel had something to talk about for the rest of their lives. As they steamed between the lines of ships on their way home they saw the ships beginning to sink. Flying Kestrel put ashore her passengers at Stromness, then returned to assist with the beaching operations.

  Admiral Sir Henry McCall, then First Lieutenant in Westcott, the guard ship, left the following account of the scuttling:

  At the time, Westcott was at immediate notice for steam at a buoy in Gutter Sound where there was a view of the greater part of the interned fleet. The Battle Squadron with its attendant cruisers and destroyers had gone into Pentland Firth for gunnery practice. Westcott was the only British ship in harbour apart from the depot ship and one destroyer which was boiler-cleaning alongside a
couple of fleet trawlers. The officers were all gathered in the ward room having a gin before lunch when a sub-lieutenant officer of the watch on the quarter deck shouted through the ward room hatch, ‘There’s a German destroyer sinking.’ Lieutenant-Commander Peploe, the skipper, answered, ‘Don’t talk such tripe.’ But they all hurried on deck and saw that every German ship had hoisted its flag and that ladders were being got out and boats lowered. A signal was at once sent to the Vice-Admiral who was at sea.

  Peploe decided to leave a bellicose petty officer behind in a skiff with orders to beach as many destroyers as possible by parting their cables, thus allowing them to drift ashore. About eight were dealt with before the rest settled. Peploe attempted to adopt the same procedure with Hindenburg, whose caretaker crew was pouring down the gangway into a couple of launches as Westcott drew alongside. The Germans ignored orders to go back, so Peploe spattered the sides of Hindenburg with a machine-gun just before the gangway as the last men tumbled into the boats. The Germans then threw up their hands shouting Kamerad, but their boats drifted away as there was no one to keep them to the gangway. Peploe ordered his whaler to be lowered and Hindenburg to be boarded so that her stopcocks could be closed.

  Lunch could only have just begun in the ward room at the time of scuttling. In cabins outside there was every sign of belongings having been seized in haste, evidence that the order to scuttle had come as a surprise. All lights were out in the engine-room, and as this was probably caused by the ship sinking and letting in water, the boarders hurriedly regained the upper deck. One of them later told the reporter of the Orcadian, a Kirkwall newspaper: