the sinking of the royal oak-2009

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Scapa Flow the Orkney Islands into one Wars this vast deepwater Anchorage was the northern base of the Royal Navy it was supposed to be impregnable but on a cold dark night in October 1939 a single German submarine entered the harbor and fired four torpedoes into HMS Royal Oak her crew had no warning and little chance of escape we were all given to understand that scapa flow is a safe Anchorage why else would the free music for the first time and television with help from the last remaining survivors we tell the full story of the sinking of the Royal Oak one of Britain's worst naval disasters and Hitler's first great propaganda victory of one war to this is scapa flow 140 square miles of natural Harbor in the Orkney Islands for half a century it was the northern base of the Royal Navy an impregnable fortress for the most powerful fleet in the world Scapa Flow the enormous natural anchorage in the middle of the Orkney Islands became the main Anchorage of the British battle fleet in the First World War because it controlled the waters between Scotland and Norway it was the ideal position from which to blockade Germany to stop the Germans using the North Sea to get in or to get out so it put the main British battle fleet right on Germany's economic lifeline and strangled Germany it was chosen because it is a huge natural anchorage it allows the biggest battle street in the world to exercise there you can do drill inside the harbor you can store all your ships it is the most perfect position from which to wage an economic war against Germany sailors hated it some called it the end of the world nobody but nobody liked it reasons cold windy nothing to do they just hated it in September 1939 scapa flow again prepare to enter the frontline as German blitzkrieg over and Poland Britain's first clashes with the enemy what it's see all eyes were on the Royal Navy was in Germany Commodore Donuts commander of German submarines the u-boats planned a bold strike at the very heart of British naval power in September 1939 the German Navy's elite armed is a u-boat force it's a relatively small group officers and men have been heavily trained they have a dynamic aggressive leader of donuts they believe in themselves they believe that they are the cutting edge of the Navy they've got brand-new boats they've got extensive experience and they're absolutely ready for it German aerial reconnaissance showed Royal Navy warships gathered at Scapa Flow donuts knew that if one you bought could get inside the anchorage it could inflict devastating losses and the propaganda value would be huge it's not mainline strategy this is a big publicity stunt it's going to hurt the British it's going to damage their morale it's going to boost the morale the u-boat armed and it's going to make the u-boat armed famous all the way through Germany Donuts also knew how dangerous the mission would be he entrusted it to one of his most talented you booked commanders Capitan light nerd Gunther Prien a cool and professional character he had sunk three British merchant ships and the very first week of the war Scapa Flow notorious to German u-boat commanders it's seven entrances were guarded by anti-submarine Nets patrol vessels searchlights and guns some channels were sealed by block ships old boats deliberately sunk in the narrow passages in the first world war two u-boats had tried to sneak into Scapa Flow both had been lost now it was preens tongue on the 8th of October 1939 Crean and u47 set sail from Kiel in northern meanwhile 600 miles to the northwest the mighty battleship HMS Royal Oak was patrolling the fayol gap between the orphne and Shetland Islands nearly 200 meters long and displacing 29,000 tons this giant was a veteran of the Battle of Jutland the only great naval battle of the First World War I'd serve previously in two destroyers and to see this mutters yeah it did if it frightened the life out of him a bit it's all inspiring really it was impregnable impregnable yeah you felt safe on it hmm you can't imagine it sinking but by 1939 Royal Oak was no longer the force she'd once been Royal Oaks firepower is impressive she has eight 15-inch guns these are some of the best heavy guns in the world they would have sunk anything the Germans could send to see her problem is she can't catch anything the Germans have got because she can only do 21 knots and her defensive systems are designed for a short range surface battle so she's a bit out of date but particularly on the speed from you don't realise a young boys that she was old and slow and not really a lot of good I think Winston Churchill described that class of ship as too old to fight and to slow Iran nor was the Royal Oak a happy ship everybody was agreed there was one of the worst ships around but he does always start from the system from the top you know how they address from one to the other going down the rope down the way you know it wasn't a happy ship it wasn't ship that people will say god glad I was in the oak you know most people's head rolled on my commish they'd never roll along the Nelson the rodeo hood this one tunnel steamship is no laughing good you know that's all the thing amongst the Royal Oaks crew of more than 1,200 163 boys sailors they were part of an ancient royal navy's tradition in which boys as young as 15 say of their apprenticeships on a fighting ship boys on a battleship pre-war well pretty much kept in their place we spent most of our time clearly and polishing a bit of training on gunnery seamanship but mainly it seemed to be cleaning and polishing and being chased around by instructors getting up very early in the morning scrubbing decks and cleaning bright work and doing the normal ship's routines getting the whole ship clean every day and then most of our time we're taking up with schooling the Royal Navy has had boy sailors since the beginning of time they took young officers and young sailors at the same age they trained them up on the job so by the time their contempt modern school-leaving age these are serious professional operators after her patrol the Royal Oak returned to Scapa floor in the 10th of October supposedly safe within the Anchorage normal duties resumed she was still there three days later when you 47 arrived off the Orkney Islands cream lay off to the east of Orkney on the sea bed of the North Sea at about 90 metres during that time he gave all the crew hot meal and we prepared the submarine for battle when darkness fell you 47 surfaced and sailed for scapa flow Prine was about to make naval history and seal the fate of hundreds of British sings on the evening of the 13th of October 1939 Gunther Prien stood on the conning tower of u47 he was about to undertake one of the most daring submarine raids of World War two his objective was scapa flow just north of the Scottish mainland the base of Britain's mighty home fleet no u-boat had ever penetrated its dark waters Scapa Flow is protected by gun batteries net barriers to stop submarines coming in minefields it's got patrol craft most of the naval personnel would have been under the impression that Scapa Flow was a safe place but German air reconnaissance have revealed a potential weakness and scapa flow defenses there were seven channels into Scapa Flow all of them were defended to some extent but 20 years of peacetime neglect had taken up toll in the intervening 20 years the flow had returned largely to its natural condition it was no longer a man-made fortress it was a natural anchorage and it was relatively easy to get in in 1939 the Germans had identified one particular gap in the defense's Kirk Sound was just six hundred yards across 33 feet deep at high tide and swept by 10 knot currents in addition three block ships obstructed the channel but small passages did remain and there were no other defenses no lookouts no searchlights Prine now made for the hundred and forty foot gap between the northern bloc ship and the shore Prine decided that he could navigate through this very narrow channel in Coke Sound which were taken directly into Scarfo flow he's gonna have to go in very very slowly he's gonna have to pick his way through some difficult avocation he's gonna have to do this on the surface it's a huge risk if he's spotted it's gonna sunken Priyan wants conditions so he can think respond here he doesn't want any extraneous noise so everybody will be very still very calm very tense everybody is absolutely on the edge waiting for something buffeted by the incoming tide the crews struggled to control the u-bolt speed and heading cream not only had to avoid the shoreline but he also had to avoid the to block ships suddenly a juddering crash they were snared by a block ships anchor chain he had to reverse engines at full power which did enable the submarine to break free and he proceeded then on through Kirk Sound then to the horror of the men on the conning tower a light shone on them from sure it was a car headlight it soon tongued away the driver doubtless racing off to raise the alarm but it was too late to turn back Prine sent a simple message to his men below we are in meanwhile onboard Royal Oak it was just an ordinary evening for her crew at 12 o'clock midnight I closed up on a 4-inch gun I know a detailed offering there for aircraft lookout and I remember how cold it wasn't how dark it was and how pleased always have a duffle coat I had to go and watch and midnight and the refrigerator all I was probably closer than anybody else in the ship because I was on one deck above the ship's bottom we'd had a good run ashore me and my friend we turned in as normal I suppose about 10 o'clock or something on the portside remaining on the surface u47 crept through the waters of scapa flow there was no moon the sea was calm captain and lookout scan the horizon but to their horror there was not a ship to be seen in a remarkable stroke of luck for the British the big ships of the home fleet had been ordered to scatter just days before in case of a raids and scapa flow now only the Royal Oak remained Prince hope don't sit home as well as to find the entire home fleet battleships aircraft carriers cruisers the whole panoply of British naval power you know the perfect target you can't miss fish in a barrel preen was increasingly desperate every minute and scapa flow increased the risk of being spotted and there would be nowhere to hide preen took a gamble and ton you 47 around heading northeast suddenly a huge dark shape emerged before them they had found HMS Royal Oak the Royal Oak was a tanker she was stationary and an easy target for an enemy submarine wall oak was a sitting duck from the bow Prien fired four torpedoes round about one o'clock in the morning was when the first torpedo hit there's a ginormous explosion ship virtually left out of the water what the Dickens was that it wasn't a bang but it was just enough to shudder my mind flash I thought we'd blown up I heard a pipe take old magazine temperatures which sounded a bit worrying you know they wouldn't they know what the temperatures are and I saw the gunnery officer go by and he looked very worried the ship like the Royal Oak has four major magazines which are packed full of cordite charges they're going to be enough charges on that ship to fire each gun a hundred and fifty times because core eight is highly explosive checking the magazine temperatures will tell you whether you've got a problem if the temperature starts to climb there's something wrong and you've got to do something a new 47 Priene was cussing his luck he had fired four torpedoes at a range of 3,500 yards one had failed to launch two missed and one had just clipped the bow of Royal Oak going into the Second World War the German Navy thinks they have the world's best torpedoes but then tested them properly and they're not accurate and they don't hold their depth very well so a lot of them are missing in this period of the war preen is actually relatively lucky to get so many of his torpedoes to hit the target during this attack Prine tongue hew 47 around he fired his stern torpedo tube another miss now he headed for CAC sound and safety surely all hell was about to break loose searchlights destroyers and if they were discovered the terror of depth charges but instead nothing on board the Royal Oak there was no inkling that there were even under attack people were sort of waking and sitting up and saying oh it's alright it's an anchor chain has been moved or something you know and in fact the anchor chain did go out with a damn big rush I volunteered the fact I thought it was a torpedo I got a clip around here all told the speak when I was spoken to another help but it'd be a torpedo or escape a float they came some chaps running along the gangway running forward and Fred says what's got what's the matter and they said we think there's trouble in the paint shop it's alright so we got back in their hammocks and turned over and went back to well we thought were going back to sleep to their astonishment the man of you 47 had still not been detected the opportunity was too good to miss they returned to try again the bow torpedo tubes were reloaded this time Preem came in closer to 3,000 yards he fired three torpedoes at 1:16 a.m. they slammed into the Royal Oak in quick succession what what what she immediately started to lift her starboard the bang was a thing that wasn't words the theory track the old ships you sat next to me he shot by me he said lofty come on you better get out something's happened and by this time the ship had started to heal to start the three torpedoes had torn massive holes and mid ships below the waterline on the starboard side those near the point of impact were killed instantly as men scrambled out of the hammocks the cordite magazines ignited flames swept through the ship with horrifying results and so fast i rapidly jumped out of my hammock then and went to put some trousers on been and damp areas you can imagine the huge orange flame flashed through the door within seconds earlier I would have been right in it stripping the flesh off may you know the facts of like a living thing you start say well who's here where are my friends you know and there were chaps who were so wounded you you you were almost frightened to look at them it's the burning the flash would really be unpleasant as the ship began to list the electricity failed the hundreds of May and still below deck were plunged into darkness then the down lights went out and we couldn't see a thing it was pitch dark I went to go through a door but it was all pleated round and one of the older chaps got them cleared so we got through the door and I went through this dark passage between the officer's quarters and till I found a ladder going up and I could see the stars going through the black out curtains and think thank God I can get to the deck you know all the lights went then one didn't know what the hell was happening but I knew where I was there was a porthole and argue I was much those days I got through the porthole by the time I got through it I was standing on the ships I'd show you how quickly it went I was just semi vest and pants up the ladder onto the six-inch gun battery go forward open ladder and there was a chap at the bottom of this ladder never known or it was I swear blind he was pushing people up this mother I mean I don't think my feet touch the rungs only a third of Royal Oaks crew had managed to reach the deck I was trying to get the table off of me tough coat when we cut my fingers were pretty cold and because it's in good time there was a hell of a job by the time I got the table off the water was pretty close to where I was standing as she continued to roll to starboard men climbed over the guardrail onto the ship's side the keel was coming up barnacle laden kill couldn't see it in the dark how far do you run down how far we were to leap out to avoid hitting it and so taking one's life in one's hand isn't worth it that's what I did I rushed on the side and left as far as I could short you go down the movement was people jumping over people running over also I've seen people pushing somebody else over the side next thing I remember was just sliding over the side seemed an awful long time to get through the water and then there were bodies or people all around trying to get order whatever they could find that was floating on the top now dived in inside to swim away from the ship on although I couldn't say off which Fela coming over and I went like out I've got a gold medal he knew them fix for speed I was doing and when she finally turned over she displaced the youth great wave it just took hold of me and humbling me over over and over the water was freezing many men had terrible buns and the sea was covered in fuel oil choking and blaming them or up was smell was all fear I didn't realize I was I was covered in it because the till peas added ruptured the fuel times the sea was great thick covering a boil on it horrible just smothered in it you know so thick oh there's a tremendous Oh Lily about her and at once data while Osuna I decided to my boner suit off thinking and that was more practical in then swimming with it all which was a mistake and I then as I had undone some of the bottoms I've got a bit of oil in my mouth I don't think I swallowed any didn't do anything like that in fact ten to one it helped people to keep afloat the factory are that your laugh ID of your own life in just 13 minutes the Royal Oak had capsized hundreds were dead trapped within a hole hundreds more now faced a fight for survival in the dark freezing waters of scoffs whoa it was freezin very cold Sam can't stay afloat I felt lonely I was on my own all your today was screaming and yelling nobody wanted to drown at 1:30 a.m. on the 14th of October 1939 the waters of Scapa floor were a scene of indescribable horror a German submarine u47 a tenth of this Royal Navy Anchorage undetected and left carnage HMS Royal Oak the mighty veteran battleship lay upside down a side had been torn open by three torpedoes more than 300 British sailors and Marines struggled for survival in the icy waters while 800 were trapped inside a fire ravaged hull internally the battleship must be like hell on earth and you would have had men struggling not being able to see all the heat from the core dye flames panic uncertainty with one idea in mind to get out and off the ship still dual alarm sounded the Royal Oak had lost electrical power within minutes of being hit there was no time to even launch the stress players as the ship rolled over men plunged into the freezing water it was so cold I've been told it is colder then than it is in your fridge so we might give you some some idea what it was like well it was pretty total really I mean I wanted to survive I wanted to get ashore wanted I wanted to switch oh I thought that was my only way out in just half an hour the Royal had sunk to the seabed many found themselves alone in the darkness unsure of the bearings I felt lonely us on my own I struck out for what I thought was ashore I picked up a bit of rubbish piece of wood I think and I come to that was pitch dark and yet there were boats all around waiting to pick you up there were no Carly floats of all the paraphernalia that was on a battleship to save people's lives or to go down with the ship on the boat decks of those battleships they have a catamaran which is like a wooden structure and purely by chance or having to bump into it and I clambered on it and it was a cut by the blows on it and that was here on me not I was just so fortunate in every way and was swimming along all on the top very quiet I was a splatting alongside me there's another lad established who he was we didn't say a lot because bit tiring bit cold and we've been swimming full I dunno alum and he's just suddenly said all bollocks to this and disappeared I found it very frightening we didn't have life belts at that time they're still darker very cold by now and I'm probably a bit frightened I found a chap hanging on to a spa which he got from somewhere and I won very popular either you know he didn't want anybody else to share his far he must have been exhausted God he suddenly just slipped away and I didn't see him again you Daisie to a former fishing boat and now Royal Oaks tender had been moved alongside and narrowly escaped the Royal Oak rolled over and sank her crew sprang into action it's very dark and very very cold and I swam in the water there for about hour and a half I think and ever ever hoping getting too close to the Daisy which it was miles away at the time I heard a voice say here's another one now that was somebody on the Daisy to the lino I never saw the Daisy - Daisy - saw me and somebody was leaning over side and put down a dick Neal and lifted me on board I was getting colder and more tired and just as I got to about the end of each other I heard a voice say there's another one and somebody grabbed me pulled me in a boat I took me to the Daisy toad the dc2 took us over to the Pegasus and we were straight around her I was in age from HMS Pegasus a seaplane carrier was some 2,000 yards off they watched us off with paraffin chapter all our gear in the fire but gave us a blanket one chap got out of his Mick and said to me hop in and I hopped you know I went to sleep straightaway absolutely flat out of Royal Oaks crew of 1219 833 had been killed of the 163 boys sailors 126 well into the afternoon British destroyers were depth charging phantom u-boats within Scapa Flow but hue 47 had long made her escape battling the fierce tides of Chuck sound to reach the safety of the open sea soon Priyan and his crew were back in Germany to receive a hero's welcome it was a spectacular achievement to sneak into the lair of the Royal Navy sink a major warship and escaped scot-free Hitler was delighted he sent his private plane to bring the crew of u47 to Berlin where they were greeted by rapturous crowds for preen there were countless press appearances when prey on a new 47 returned to base the whole machine of Nazi propaganda kicks into gear Hitler turns up medals are bestowed cinema film is taken and broadcast accounts are written published he's the man of the moment in 1939 Nazi Germany is desperate for Heroes because they're just launched on a war which most people don't think they can win so anybody who does anything out of the ordinary is going to be turned into a celebrity pre-owned is an early example of that in Britain the night's events were slowly pieced together from survivors accounts and the German press thousands face the terrible grief of lost husbands fathers and sons and at the Admiralty the search for answers began in Germany Gunter Priene of u47 was hailed as the bull of scapa flow he had scored a stunning victory against Britain in their own backyard the British public too soon had about the loss of Royal Oak and 833 of her crew the Royal Oak is relatively unusual in being announced as a disaster the very next day on the main national broadcast media BBC because it happens within South Shore and there'll be no way of suppressing the news the Navy had learned in the first world war that if people see what's happened it's no good trying to suppress bad news it's not the end of the world it has happened it has been seen and it's probably best to get it out in the open and get done with it meanwhile the Admiralty needed to know why scapa flow defenses had failed so dramatically the Board of Inquiry found a staggering 11 potential routes an enemy submarine could take into scapa flow past existing anti-submarine Nets or through unguarded channels only partially obstructed by block ships experts unanimously identified Kirk Sound as the most likely route for a u-boat the board of inquiry which is essential after the loss of a major warship that there has to be an inquiry it's composed of senior officers they have all the evidence they produce a measured balanced and I think very fair assessment of what happened and why but it's overtaken by events when the report is submitted Churchill who's the First Lord of the Admiralty doesn't really have time to process it and write his own version his short minute for publication so he has to say well here it is sadly there's a war on I'm rather busy and it would be better they spent my time winning the war the Board found that local officers had known and warned of the risks to scapa flow but it had not been a high enough priority in the build-up to war only after war was declared that the Admiralty order new defensive measures ironically two ships sent to be used as block ships were sunk on route by u-boats the third block ship to be sunk in the exact passage used by you 47 arrived just hours after royal the Sun there was only one casualty from the Board of Inquiry Admiral Sir Wilfrid French officer commanding Orkneys and Shetland's had held his job for less than a week before war was declared he'd asked for 15 patrol vessels to make scapa flow safe at the time of Royal Oaks sinking he had just two he had even offered to navigate a submarine through Keck Sound himself to prove it could be done but he became the scapegoat for the whole affair he was placed on the retired list effectively sacked Scarpa floor was fortified with new nets lookouts guns and patrol ships at huge cost the eastern entrances were sealed forever with concrete causeways they were named the Chuck Hill barriers after the First Lord of the Admiralty amongst the morning there was particular grief for the loss of so many boy sailors the largest in a single event and Royal Navy history for the Royal Navy there was little time for grief or soul-searching world war two was entering its most dangerous phase and the Navy was determined to play its part but all concerned the mortar was get on with a job but you're just in a bit of shock to South in a way really but beat when you're young you you soon bounce back and and in not very long again you're back on another ship doing it all over again you know it you know this always the chance you're going to cop it there but you just you there you've got to be in it and you just get on with it and put up with it I suppose really thinking back you were dreadfully upset that you might sir died but you're thankful that it wasn't you we were back in Scapa within a month and I wasn't at all bothered by the end of November we were back in scapa flow we were given time to think too much about things he joined another ship in yet another one not worries to contend with daily find in a hammock billet and all those to him they did give us all disconnected feeling you know where do I belong that's all of him and most of all in my case it was the warmth and comfort of the ship the one mist I mean he is not elaborate way of life but it was comfortable we had our chums there you know we are little jokes in games and thing Gunther Prien credited with sinking 31 ships did not survive the war the odds were against him as they where for all German u-boat men 15 months after the sinking of Royal Oak you 47 was attacking a convoy in the North Atlantic when she was depth charged and sunk by HMS Wolverine Prine left behind a memoir of his famous raid entitled my way to Scapa Flow it was reprinted in Britain after the war incredibly to the man who had been there Prine described torpedoing two battleships and then evading destroyers and depth charge attacks as he made his escape there were so many discrepancies with the known facts that sunk included preen could never have been in scapa flow a flood of conspiracy theories soon followed some claim the Royal Oak had been sabotaged by enemy agents one persistent rumor involved a watchmaker from catwalk the watchmaker spy of kirkwall Albert or tell rolled out in a rubber dinghy across Scapa Flow to Kirk Sound where goon supreme of u47 took him on board the submarine to help him navigate into Scarpa flow and point out the battleship ball Oak to him it was utter nonsense the watch major was really a fabrication put about by an out-of-work American journalist however it became anything but a fairy story in his much that mi5 mi6 became very interested and they did everything to try and Winkle this so-called watchmaker out as for preens so-called memoir it was ghost written by a hack who embellished the truth to create a boy's own adventure story designed to inspire young Nazis to emulate the u-boat hero of the 833 men who perished on the royal oak only 26 bodies were ever found they were brought here to the Orkney island of hoy this is the road leading to the raw naval cemetery on the island of hoy which is about 25 miles from where the battleship actually sank many of the cortege were role naval personnel from the Royal Oak they were dressed in boiler suits and pimples because they had nothing else to wear simply because they had lost their uniforms the day was cold but sunny the bodies were put into body bags and each would have been lowered into what was a mass grave author David ton --is interest in the Royal Oak was spurred by the death of his favorite uncle lieutenant Ralph Lennox Woodrow Clark one of 24 ship's officers lost that night I was a nine-year-old boy living in Plymouth I had just returned home from school and I found my mother crying in the kitchen of our home and I asked her mommy why are you crying and she turned to me and said that she had just heard on the BBC home service that the Royal Oaks had been sunk believed by enemy action and 15 survivors had been landed we will never forget what happened out there that night never today the wreck of HMS Royal Oak is an official war grave just a hundred feet beneath the surface of scapa flow the sinking of the Royal Oak stands out particularly for the number of boys sailors who lost their lives the largest in a single event and Royal Navy history the Parliament of the day wanted to have the law changed so that boys under the age of 17 should never be allowed to serve on a warship in wartime Churchill try to overrule but thank goodness today the Navy will not accept any young boy on a warship okay what were you living every year in a unique ceremony Royal Naval divers hoist to fight ensign above the wreck of the Royal Oak in commemoration of the 833 sailors Marines and boys who lost their lives at cold October night I look at the neighbors Anaka put a face to all the night come on mates then I can hear their voices little mousy I know Cyril can see well I don't good that's good bad Sarah you lost everything you lost your friends you down in experience it didn't want it again you remember when prideful are the Tigers paw you don't think of them after I broke the surface and the ship was upside down all you could hear was screaming and yelling a real screaming you know and some silly buggers and you rolled out the barrel and I've never liked assumptions

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Length: 46min 19sec (2779 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 19 2014

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