Scuttle and salvage at Scapa Flow

The raising of much of Germany's High Seas Fleet in the Orkneys between 1922 and 1939 following a mass scuttling in June 1919.

On 11th of November 1918, the First World War came to an end when an armistice was declared. Under this the core of Germany’s High Seas Fleet was to be interned in either a neutral or an allied port. As no neutrals could be found to accept the ships, they were required to proceed to Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, home of Britain’s Grand Fleet. Thus, on 21st November, under the guns of Admiral Sir David Beatty’s fleet, a total of nine battleships, five battlecruisers, seven cruisers and 49 destroyers arrived in the Firth of Forth before moving to Scapa Flow. A further two battleships and another cruiser would join sometime later. What ensued next would be the largest mass scuttling and salvage operation in history. 

Scuttled

The fate of these vessels would be decided at the formal peace conference, scheduled to commence in Versailles in January 1919. The conference would last a year and during this time it was debated as to who would get which vessels as reparation for war damages. However, in June 1919, wishing to prevent such a distribution and, as it was seen, preserve the honour of the German Navy, plans were formulated by the senior command on board the interned ships to scuttle them before they could be taken over by other countries. Hence on the morning of 21st June, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, having arranged the plan with his senior officers throughout the fleet, gave the order to scuttle.  

In just five hours nearly all the interned ships sank. Most capsized and ended up inverted on the seabed while a few were prevented from sinking by Royal Navy crews and were beached, namely four cruisers and 14 destroyers. 15 capital ships, five cruisers and 32 destroyers were sunk, and here they stayed until the risk to navigation resulted in their progressive sale for salvaging and scrapping. 

The battlecruisers would later be scuttled in Scapa Flow in 1919. All would eventually be raised for scrap (Credit: Shutterstock)

The salvage operations

Initially work focused on those vessels that had been beached, re-floating them and distributing to allied navies as agreed under the peace treaty. The first seabed salvage was of a destroyer in 1922. For the next 17 years, most wrecks were raised and towed away for breaking by various salvagers.  

The first company to succeed in raising a number of vessels was Cox and Danks, which bought 26 destroyers and six capital ships and a cruiser. Initially, the company used a floating dock which was cut in half and attached either side of a wreck with chains or wires under the sunken hull as a means of lifting the vessel. Later the company used the technique of sealing all holes in the wreck and pumping in compressed air so as to displace water in the hull and allow it to rise to the surface.  

Cox and Danks had mixed success, raising all the destroyers by 1926 but having problems with the larger ships, namely the battleships Kaiser and Prinzregent Luitpold, and the four battlecruisers Moltke, Von der Tann, Seydlitz and Hindenburg, all raised by 1931. The latter two proved particularly difficult to salvage. 

The salvage operations were continued in the 1930s by Alloa Shipbreaking (later becoming Metal Industries) which had previously bought a number of the wrecks from Cox and Danks. This company succeeded in raising a further five battleships – the Bayern, Friedrich der Grosse, Grosser Kurfurst, Kaisern and Konig Albert – and the battlecruiser Derfflinger between 1934 and 1939. 

Post war

After the end of the Second World War, seven wrecks still remained at the bottom of Scapa Flow comprising three battleships and four cruisers. The wrecks were sold off over the subsequent years and last to change hands were battleships Markgraf, Kronprinz Wilhelm and König, which were re-sold many times, finally being bought by Middle Eastern interests in 2019 for £25,000 each though still on the bottom in deep water. 

Minor salvage activities are still carried out on the wrecks to recover small pieces of steel as this can be used in the manufacture of radiation-sensitive devices, such as Geiger counters, as it is not contaminated with radioisotopes having been produced before any chance of nuclear contamination. 

In 2001, the seven wrecks that remain were scheduled under the UK’s Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 whereby divers are allowed to visit them but require a permit to do so.

John Barnes is a journalist and author and former editor of Marine Engineers Review.