Transcription of HMS Royal Oak
1 HMS Royal Oakby Peter RowlandsOn the night of Friday 13thOctober 1939, HMS Royal Oak, a 600foot long 29,000 ton Dreadnoughtbattleship, was sunk by torpedoes from aGerman U boat which had penetrated theBritish Navy s main anchorage at ScapaFlow in Orkney. 833 men lost their livesand the 2nd World War was just sixweeks there were survivors,thanks mainly to the heroic work of theskipper and crew of the tiny tenderDaisy2. No more than 100 feet long andjust 15 feet wide, she managed to rescue386 men from the icy, oil covered watersof Scapa Flow in total darkness in theearly hours of Saturday of the 833 escaped only todie of their wounds and they are buriedin the Naval cemetery at Lyness on thenearby island of Hoy and a remembranceplaque was placed on the wall of StMagnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, thecapital of Orkney.
2 Royal Oak s bell wasadded to this display when it was foundby Navy divers in the 1970 s. Recently acopper plate book has been added whichlists the names of all those who lost theirlives and every Monday a page is turnedin display of photographs and theships nameplate in thick brass letters ison display at the Lyness Museumtogether with one of the battle ensignflags raised on the wreck of the RoyalOak each year by navy divers. The brassletters were removed illegally by anamateur diver in the 1970 s. It appearsthat in 1994 the diver s conscience gotthe better of him and they were handedover to the Navy who mounted them andpresented them to Orkney IslandsCouncil in Royal Oak now lies in 30metres of water, almost upside down withher upturned keel reaching to just 5metres of the surface.
3 A wreck buoymarks her hazard to year Navy divers, survivorsand members of the British Legion goout to the buoy on Friday 13th andconduct a moving ceremony over thewater. Wreaths are laid and navy diversdescend to the wreck to remove the oldflag and raise a new one in remembranceof those who lost their Royal Oak was built in theNaval dockyards at Devonport, Plymouthduring World War 1. She was fitted withan awesome array of firepower startingwith eight 15" guns - the largest gunsever fitted on a British Naval each weighed 100 tons(102 tonnes)and were capable of hurling 17cwt(876kg) shells onto targets up to 18 miles(29km) away.
4 Supporting her mainarmament were 6 and 4 inch side gunstogether with anti aircraft guns and evenfour submarine torpedo tubes althoughthese were later Royal Oak served at Jutlandin World War 1 when her 40,000 horse-power engines could achieve speeds inexcess of 20 knots but by 1939 she haddifficulty keeping up with the moremodern ships built between the wars andwas posted to the north east corner ofScapa Flow to provide anti-aircraft after midnight, GuntherPrien, Commander of German U boat U-47, was lying off the east coast ofOrkney.
5 Leading into the British Navy smain anchorage at Scapa Flow were fournarrow channels between islands whichhad been further restricted by sinkingblockships. Prien chose Kirk Soundwhere, on a fast incoming tide, he wasable to navigate though a gap and intothe calm waters of Scapa Oak was the last battleship to be built at devonport dockyard, PlymouthGunther Prien, commander of U-47 Once inside the Flow Priensurveyed the scene and found only onecapital ship. Fortunately all but the RoyalOak had left just a few days beforefearing possible air attacks.
6 Had they not,Gunther Prien could have drasticallyaltered the course of World War before 1am Prien fired hisfirst salvo of torpedoes which scored aminor hit on the bows of Royal on board thought there must havebeen a small internal explosion and noalarms were raised. Being in the harbourof Scapa Flow, the furthest thought fromtheir minds was that this could have beena torpedo attack. Twenty minutes laterPrien had reloaded and fired his secondsalvo which scored three perfect being fitted with extrathick sides to her hull, Royal Oak listedheavily to starboard as explosions rippedher open, seawater rushed in and balls ofignited cordite raced through the shipincinerating most of the crew.
7 Within tenminutes she turned over and sank, her15" guns adding to the momentum asthey swivelled in their turrets. Theirbarrels hit the seabed first followed bythe flying bridge which was crushed asthe rolling hull came to a rest. A small 50foot Admirals barge, moored alongside,was also dragged down in the skillfully as he had entered,Gunther Prien left Scapa Flow throughKirk Sound again and returned toGermany for a heroes welcome. The warwas just six seeks old and Britain hadsuffered a major loss. Rumours spreadthat she might have been sunk bysabotage but local salvage diver SandyRobertson was hired to dive on the wreckthe day after she sank.
8 The scenes thisyoung 30 year old hard hat diver sawhaunt him to this day. Hundreds of bodieslay around the ship but his job was tofind out why she had sunk. On his firstdiver he found the main torpedo holesand on his second he recovered thepropellors of two electric driven the 1950 s the large bronzepropellors were removed by the Navyand a small amount of plundering wascarried out by amateur divers in the 70 sand 80 s but HMS Royal Oak is anofficial war grave and off limits to 2000 I was granted a specialpermission to work with the Navy divingteam to document the wreck on bothstills and video so have been fortunate tospend many hours on this wreck
9 Whichmust be the largest, most intact navalwreck in shallow water in the northernhemisphere. Having produced an earliervideo to mark the 50th anniversary of hersinking I was familiar with her layoutand detail so was able to complete theproject diving twice a day for two weeksin September followed by a shorter tripon the 61st were no decompression,twenty minutes maximum so time was ofthe essence to capture the wreck on the job in hand, a dive onthe Royal Oak never diminishes the aweyou have as you swim over the growthencrusted hull towards the main railswhere the hull meets the deck.
10 What wasa rolling slope ends abruptly at the railsas the deck slopes back under the shipleaving you hanging over a steep dropinto the cold, dark green water. Visibilityis rarely more than 10 metres so it issome time before you glide down into thegloom before the seabed becomesAn artists impression of how Royal Oak lies on the seabed of Scapa Flow in 100 feet ofwaterIdentical 15 guns from her sister ships Ramilles and Resolution are on display outsidethe Imperial War Museum in LondonSandy Robertson was the first diver to godown and establish the cause of thesinkingvisible.
