page_title: Scapa Flow
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: Scapa Flow / History / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: English: The King Pays 4-day Visit To the Home Fleet. 18 To 21 March 1943, at Scapa Flow, the King, Wearing the Uniform of An Admiral of the Fleet, Paid a 4-day Visit To the Home Fleet. The King inspecting some of the ship's company on the battleship HMS HOWE.
context_page_description: Scapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. Its sheltered waters have played an important role in travel, trade and conflict throughout the centuries. Vikings anchored their longships in Scapa Flow more than a thousand years ago. It was the United Kingdom's chief naval base during the First and Second World Wars, but the facility was closed in 1956.
  Scapa Flow has a shallow sandy bottom not deeper than 60 metres and most of it is about 30 m deep; it is one of the great natural harbours and anchorages of the world, with sufficient space to hold a number of navies. The harbour has an area of 324.5 square kilometres and contains just under 1 billion cubic metres of water.
  Since the scuttling of the German fleet after World War I, its wrecks and their marine habitats form an internationally acclaimed diving location.
  Scapa Flow hosts an oil port, the Flotta Oil Terminal. In good weather, its roadstead allows ship-to-ship transfers of crude oil product. The world's first ship-to-ship transfer of liquefied natural gas took place in Scapa Flow in 2007.
context_section_description: Primarily because of its great distance from German airfields, Scapa Flow was again selected as the main British naval base during the Second World War.
  The strong defences built during the First World War had fallen into disrepair. Defence against air attack was inadequate and blockships sunk to stop U-boats from penetrating had largely collapsed. While there were anti-submarine nets in place over the three main entrances, they were made only of single-stranded looped wire; there was also a severe lack of the patrolling destroyers and other anti-submarine craft that had previously been available. Efforts began belatedly to repair peacetime neglect, but were not completed in time to prevent a successful penetration by enemy forces.
  On 14 October 1939, under the command of Günther Prien, U-47 penetrated Scapa Flow and sank the First World War-era battleship HMS Royal Oak anchored in Scapa Bay. After firing its first torpedo, the submarine turned to make its escape; but, upon realising that there was no immediate threat from surface vessels, it returned for another attack. The second torpedo blew a 30-foot (9.1 m) hole in the Royal Oak, which flooded and quickly capsized. Of the 1,400-man crew, 833 were lost. The wreck is now a protected war grave. John Gunther in December 1939 called the attack "the single most extraordinary feat of the war so far".
  Three days after the submarine attack, four Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 bombers of Kampfgeschwader 1/30 led by group commander Hauptmann Fritz Doench raided Scapa Flow on 17 October in one of the first bombing attacks on Britain during the war. The attack badly damaged an old base ship, the decommissioned battleship HMS Iron Duke, which was then beached at Ore Bay by a tug. One man died and 25 were injured. One of the bombers was shot down by No 1 gun of 226 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery on Hoy. Three of the crew died, while the radio operator Fritz Ambrosius was badly burned but managed to parachute down.
  New blockships were sunk, booms and mines were placed over the main entrances, coast defence and anti-aircraft batteries were installed at crucial points, and Winston Churchill ordered the construction of a series of causeways to block the eastern approaches to Scapa Flow; they were built by Italian prisoners of war held in Orkney, who also built the Italian Chapel. These "Churchill Barriers" now provide road access from Mainland to Burray and South Ronaldsay, but block maritime traffic. An air base, RAF Grimsetter (which later became HMS Robin), was built and commissioned in 1940.
caption: King George VI visiting the Home Fleet based at Scapa Flow, March 1943
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