num_pages: 320
description: Scapa Flow is known worldwide. In two world wars it was the northern base which sheltered shops of the British Navy and Allied fleets from both storm and enemy attack, with sometimes well over a hundred vessels lying at anchor. In This Great Harbour Scapa Flow, W.S. Hewison details the development of the harbor from an anchorage known by mariners since the time of the Vikings and perhaps even before them, to its strategic importance in two World Wars The Grand Fleet sailed from Scapa in 1916 to do battle at Jutland. Five days later, Lord Kitchene, went to his death from here in the cruiser Hampshire, sunk by mines off Orkney's west coast. There was tragedy again in 1939 when the German submarine U-47 slipped through the incomplete defense to sink the battleship Royal Oak at her moorings with the loss of 800 men. And between the wars the world's greatest feat of salvage, the raising of the scuttled German fleet was carried out in its waters. This book also tells about the impact of these wars on the native island community who found themselves swamped by an invasion of service men and women, and how they saw war at first hand through having in their midst this great harbor.
language: English
title: This Great Harbour: Scapa Flow
titlecomplete: This Great Harbour: Scapa Flow
genres: History
ratings_count: 13
places: Scapa Flow, Orkney, Scotland
publisher: Birlinn