7 minute read
Under attack
Words by JOHN MILES
How the U-boat campaign essentially began and ended in Scotland
ABOVE:
Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands RIGHT: U-47, which sunk HMS Royal Oak at Scapa Flow, approaches the German battleship Scharnhorst The Second World War German U-boat campaign posed a major peril to the Allies. Great Britain, being an island nation, was the one most threatened. Since most supplies needed to keep the United Kingdom functioning had to be shipped in, U-boats sinking that transport was a serious concern.
Scapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland. Its waters are sheltered by six islands, and it has played an important role in travel, commerce, and conflict throughout the centuries.
Vikings anchored their longships in Scapa Flow more than a thousand years ago and it became the UK’s chief naval base during the First and Second World Wars, until its closure in 1956. The British naval base at Scapa Flow was established in 1914 as its location was almost directly in the path of German naval traffic coming out of the North Sea. After the First World War Armistice was signed, it was the place where the German High Seas Fleet was interred while the Allies debated what to do with it. Once the German Fleet Admiral learned that the victorious Allies had decided to take
© COLIN KELDIE/VISIT SCOTLAND/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES
over his entire eet and divide it amongst themselves, he decided to act. Reportedly, he scuttled, or deliberately sank, his ships in Scapa Flow harbour.
With the corpses of their once mighty eet at the bottom of Scapa Flow, it became a very melancholy location for German sailors.
Accordingly, when the Second World War erupted almost 20 years after the First World War ended, the Kriegsmarine was eager to attack Scapa Flow to rescue their professional pride. Karl Dönitz became a Rear Admiral and Commander of German Submarines. He was constantly asserting the need for hundreds of U-boats to achieve decisive success against England.
Dönitz quickly realised that if he was going to convince Hitler to dedicate the funds and manpower to increase the U-boat arm, a spectacular success was needed. Therefore, he determined to attack the Royal Navy anchorage at Scapa Flow and win a victory for his command.
Luftwaffe aerial photos of Scapa Flow showed that antisubmarine booms and sunken ships were blocking the bay’s seven entrances. A U-boat scouting the inlets reported intense rip tides. Navigation, even in daylight, would be problematic at best.
In the northernmost of the Flow’s three eastern inlets, there were three sunken blockships. Dönitz estimated that there was an 18-yard gap in the northeast entrance, between the sunken blockships. Therefore, the three hulks were laying just far enough apart that Dönitz believed a U-boat might zigzag through, providing that the water was still just after a high tide. Dönitz selected Günther Prien commanding U-47
LEFT: The remains of a blockship, which was deliberately sunk in the channels of Scapa Flow to minimise German access RIGHT: The Ard Neackie lime kilns at Loch Eriboll INSET: A German submarine crew bring their U-boat to the assembly point at Loch Eriboll, from where it was towed to a destruction point as part of Operation Deadlight in 1946 for the task. The tides on the night of the 13–14 October were projected to be the highest for 1939. And there would be no moon, so that was the date chosen for the attack.
U-47 approached Orkney during the evening of 14 October and then surfaced. At 10pm the Orkney navigation lights came on for 30 minutes, which allowed Prien to x his position precisely.
Prien decided to carry out his bold attack on the surface. Prien approached and initially selected the wrong channel but recognised his mistake in time. He was able to sail between the centre and northern blockships. U-47 ran aground and only by reversing its props at maximum revolutions did she free herself.
Prien spotted the battleship HMS Royal Oak and red two salvoes of torpedoes. All three of the second salvo struck amidships and detonated. The explosions blew a hole in the armoured deck and ignited a powder magazine. The ensuing reball passed rapidly through the ship’s internal spaces. Royal Oak disappeared beneath the surface at 1.30am. As many as 835 sailors went down with the ship or died later of wounds.
U-47 returned to Germany receiving instant fame. Winston Churchill would call it “a remarkable exploit of professional skill and daring.” Prien and the U-47 sailed on 10 war patrols in total that also sank 30 commercial ships. U-47 attacked an Allied convoy on 7 March 1941. Prien’s attack prompted multiple depthcharge barrages from two Royal Navy destroyers escorting the convoy and the U-47 was lost.
As the war in Europe came to an end, the fates of the surviving U-boats needed to be determined. After all the U-boats in European waters had surrendered, the Allies needed to do something with them.
After the Great War, Scapa Flow was chosen as the collection point for the surrendered German Navy and since the German eet had scuttled itself there, the British did not want to risk that happening again.
Eventually, Loch Eriboll was chosen. Loch Eriboll is a Sutherland sea loch on Scotland’s northern coast, 150km north of Inverness. The 10-mile-long sea loch, close to Cape Wrath, was the only Scottish rendezvous point for surrendered U-boats.
Between 10 and 25 May 1945, the loch became the scene of the largest surrender of German Second World War submarines at one location. The commanders of 33 U-boats sailed into the loch to give up their vessels. The U-boats were disarmed soon after arrival and torpedoes, explosive shells and any weaponry were tipped into the loch. After all the U-boats had entered the loch to surrender, they had to be disposed of.
Operation Deadlight was the code name for the operation to scuttle German U-boats surrendered to the Allies. The last U-boats were sunk on 11 February 1946 off the northwest coast of Scotland.
Scapa Flow is now used as a civilian anchorage. Because of the scuttled First World War German Fleet and HMS Royal Oak lying there, it is a world-renowned Scuba diving location.
Even though U-47 departed Scapa Flow more than 80 years ago, its presence still resonates. In 2002, part of a torpedo fired during the attack resurfaced. The warhead had detached but the missile contained compressed air necessitating its destruction.
In 2016 Royal Navy bomb disposal experts were sent to the same area to detonate a Second World War torpedo that was thought to have been fired at HMS Royal Oak by U-47. Most recently, in June 2019, another torpedo was found on the seabed during a survey of Scapa Flow.
The Kriegsmarine U-boat threat to Allied shipping during the Second World War had been significant. The U-boat arm sunk 6,000 ships totalling 21 million tons. While thousands of British sailors hailing from Scotland played their part in blunting the U-boats’ menace, the facts of Scotland’s geographic impact on the start and finish of the U-boat war should be remembered as well. S
