The Grand Scuttle

Author: Dan Van der Vat
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780340275801
Category : Arms race
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
At Scapa Flow, Orkney, on 21 June 1919, the world's second most powerful navy deliberately sank itself. Four hundred thousand tons of shipping went to the bottom of Scapa Flow on that fateful day in the greatest act of self-immolation ever committed. However, few people are aware that rear-Admiral Ludwig von reuter was the only man in history to sink his own navy because of a misleading report in a British newspaper, that the Royal Navy guessed his intention but could do nothing to thwart it, and that the sinking caused the last casualties and last prisoners of the First World War. Fewer still know that the fragments of the Kaiser's great fleet are now on the moon. This is the story of the Grand Scuttle. Dan van der Vat has made use of previously unused German archive material, eye-witness accounts and the recollections of survivors as well as many contemporary photographs that capture the spectacle of the finest ships of the time being deliberately sunk by their own crews.

Scapa 1919

Author: Innes McCartney
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472828968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
The German High Seas Fleet was one of the most powerful naval forces in the world, and had fought the pride of the Royal Navy to a stalemate at the battle of Jutland in 1916. After the armistice was signed, ending fighting in World War I, it surrendered to the British and was interned in Scapa Flow pending the outcome of the Treaty of Versailles. In June 1919, the entire fleet attempted to sink itself in the Flow to prevent it being broken up as war prizes. Of the 74 ships present, 52 sunk and 22 were prevented from doing so by circumstance and British intervention. Marine archaeologist and historian Dr Innes McCartney reveals for the first time what became of the warships that were scuttled, examining the circumstances behind the loss of each ship and reconciling what was known at the time to what the archaeology is telling us today. This fascinating study reveals a fleet lost for nearly a century beneath the waves.

The Grand Scuttle

Author: Dan Van der Vat
Publisher: Birlinn
ISBN: 0857905139
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Book Description
At Scapa Flow on 21 June 1919, there occurred an event unique in naval history. The German High Seas Fleet, one of the most formidable ever built was deliberately sent to the bottom of the sea at the British Grand Fleet's principal anchorage at Orkney by its own officers and men.The Grand Scuttle became a folk legend in both Germany and Britain. However, few people are aware that Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter became the only man in history to sink his own navy because of a misleading report in a British newspaper; that the Royal Navy guessed his intention but could do nothing to thwart it; that the sinking produced the last casualties and the last prisoners of the war; and that fragments of the Kaiser's fleet are probably on the moon.This is the remarkable story of the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow. It contains previously unused German archive material, eye-witness accounts and the recollections of survivors, as well as many contemporary photos which capture the awesome spectacle of the finest ships of the time being deliberately sunk by their own crew.

The Last Days of the High Seas Fleet

Author: Nicholas Jellicoe
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 9781526754585
Category : Scapa Flow Scuttling, Scotland, 1919
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Analyzes the fleet mutiny in the last months of the War that precipitated a social revolution in Germany and the eventual collapse of the will to fight. The Armistice terms imposed the humiliation of virtual surrender on the High Seas Fleet, and the conditions under which it was interned are described in detail. Meanwhile the victorious Allies wrangled over the fate of the ships, an issue that threatened the whole peace process.

Scapa and a Camera

Author: C. W. Burrows
Publisher: Periscope Publishing Limited
ISBN: 9781904381433
Category : Navy-yards and naval stations
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
Features photos of the Royal Navy at Scapa showing the day-to-day aspects of base life as well as its fleet. This book contains images which depict the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet.

Berlin Childhood Around 1900

Author: Walter Benjamin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674022225
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
Not an autobiography in the customary sense, Benjamin's recollection of his childhood in an upper-middle-class Jewish home in Berlin's West End at the turn of the century is translated into English for the first time in book form.

Sea Dog Bamse

Author: Angus Whitson
Publisher: Birlinn
ISBN: 0857900455
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Book Description
This is the remarkable story of one of the Second World War's most unusual animal heroes - a 14-stone St Bernard dog who became global mascot for the Royal Norwegian Forces and a symbol of freedom and inspiration for Allied troops throughout Europe. From a happy and carefree puppyhood spent as a family pet in the Norwegian fishing town of Honningsvag, the gentle giant Bamse followed his master at the outbreak of the war to become a registered crew member of the mine-sweeper Thorodd. Often donning his own steel helmet as he took his place in the Thorodd's bow gun turret, Bamse cut an impressive figure and made a huge contribution to the morale of the crew, and he gallantly saved the lives of two of them. After Norway fell to the Germans in 1940, the Thorodd operated from Dundee and Montrose, where Bamse became a well-known and much-loved figure, shepherding the Thorodd's crew-members back to the boat at pub closing time, travelling on the local buses, breaking up fights and even taking part in football matches. Mourned both by locals and Norwegians when he died in 1944, Bamse's memory has been kept alive both in Norway, where he is still regarded as a national hero, and in Montrose, where a larger-than-life statue of him was unveiled in 2006 by HRH Prince Andrew. Written from extensive source material and eyewitness accounts, Sea Dog Bamse is a fitting tribute to the extraordinary life of an extraordinary dog.

War at Sea

Author: James P. Delgado
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197609236
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 504

Book Description
From an author who has spent four decades in the quest for lost ships, this lavishly illustrated history of naval warfare presents the latest archaeology of sunken warships. It provides a unique perspective on the evolution of naval conflicts, strategies, and technologies, while vividly conjuring up the dangerous life of war at sea.

Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea

Author: Daniel V. Gallery
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612511813
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
In June 1944, U.S. Navy Task Group 22.3, a "hunter-killer" force commanded by Daniel Gallery to track down German submarines, boarded and captured U-505 off the coast of Africa. It was the first time that an enemy ship of war had been captured on the high seas by U.S. Navy sailors since 1815, when the USS Peacock seized HMS Nautilus as part of the War of 1812. The extraordinary feat is described in gripping narrative by Gallery himself, who chronicles the long and arduous battle against the German U-boat under the most hazardous conditions. Once they succeeded in capturing and towing their prize seventeen-hundred miles across the Atlantic Ocean, U-505 proved to be of inestimable value, yielding secrets to radio codes among other things. U-505 is now on exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

Scapa

Author: James Miller
Publisher: Birlinn
ISBN: 0857905627
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Book Description
Scapa Flow was one of the world's great naval bases and the scene of many of the major events of twentieth-century naval history. During both World Wars, the Royal Navy made Scapa the home for its capital ships, and thousands of servicemen and women were posted to Orkney. From here the Grand Fleet sailed for Jutland in 1916, from here the escorts for the Russian convoys set off, and it was in this beautiful, bleak anchorage that the German High Seas fleet committed the greatest act of suicide ever seen at sea – 'The Grand Scuttle' – before being later raised and scrapped in the most astonishing feat of maritime salvage in history. It was also in Scapa that the last photographs of Kitchener were taken as he boarded HMS Hampshire, shortly before she was sunk by mine off Marwick Head. Scapa is also the grave of many who fought for their country in both World Wars. In its silent waters lie the wrecks of the battleship Vanguard, blown apart by an explosion in 1917, and the Royal Oak, sunk by U-47 in a spectacular raid at the beginning of World War II . Here the first Luftwaffe raids on Britain occured, here too Italian prisoners-of-war built both the spectacular Churchill causeways and the exquisite chapel on the island of Lamb Holm. In this book, illustrated with over 130 archive photographs, James Miller traces the story of this remarkable place, weaving together history, eyewitness accounts and personal experience to capture the life and spirit of Scapa Flow when it was home to thousands of service personnel and the most powerful fleet in the world.