HMS Royal Oak (08)
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The HMS Royal Oak was a British battleship and the eleventh ship of the Royal Navy to be named . She belonged to the Revenge class (sometimes referred to as the Royal Sovereign class) and was launched on November 17, 1914 at the Devonport Naval Shipyard in Devon ; on October 14, 1939, she was sunk in Scapa Flow by U 47 .
history
First World War
She knew the First World War their service mainly in the Grand Fleet with homeport Scapa Flow . On May 31, 1916, she took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak under Captain C. MacLachlan and returned unscathed.
Interwar period
Between the two world wars, the Royal Oak , like all of its sister ships, was modernized through renovations. So-called torpedo bulges were attached to the side of the hull on all ships of the class . This widening of the hull served to increase the sinking safety in underwater hits and had a slightly different shape on the Royal Oak than on the sister ships. In 1937 the ship was used as a backdrop for the British film Our fighting Navy (director: Herbert Wilcox) and played the fictional South American rebel ship El Mirante .
Sinking
On the night of October 13-14, 1939, the German submarine U 47 entered the port of Scapa Flow under the command of Günther Prien . Precise photos of a reconnaissance aircraft, the pilot of which Siegfried Knemeyer received his first Iron Cross , were available to the Germans. At 12:27 a.m. Prien wrote in the logbook: We are in port !!! Prien attacked the Royal Oak at her anchorage at 00:58 with three torpedoes; a fourth got stuck in its pipe. Two of the three torpedoes did not explode because their magneto failed. The cause could have been the disturbances in the geomagnetic field occurring in north-western Europe at this time (see also: Torpedo crisis ). A torpedo struck at 01:06 a.m. and woke parts of the crew. At first it was assumed that there had been an explosion on the front part of the ship, where flammable or explosive materials such as B. Kerosene were stored. U 47 has not yet been discovered and was able to make a second attempt using torpedoes with an impact fuse . These worked, and the Royal Oak received two torpedo hits at 1:16 a.m. The ship listed and disappeared 13 minutes later under the water surface. 833 men of the crew died. A third torpedo hit a ship lying behind it from the direction of fire, partially covered by the Royal Oak . According to official British information, it was the aircraft mother ship Pegasus . However, Prien said he recognized the battle cruiser Repulse . Since the Repulse was not in Scapa Flow at the time, it is possible that it was the old battleship Iron Duke , which was stationed in Scapa Flow and resembled the Repulse .
The wreck today
The wreck lies at the position 58 ° 55 ' N , 2 ° 59' W at a depth of 30 m on the port side with the keel up. The deck is at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the ocean floor. The hull is largely intact and rises to a depth of 5 m, so that the wreck and a large oil spill can be seen from the surface of the water in good weather. The superstructures were severely damaged when they hit the seabed. The Royal Oak is protected by the " Protection of Military Remains Act " of 1986 as a "Controlled Site". This means that there is an absolute ban on diving within 300 m of the wreck site. Exceptions have only been granted in rare cases to check the condition of the wreck.
On February 27, 2016, during a routine examination of the seabed, a torpedo was found which was initially assumed to be one of the torpedoes of the U 47, which at the time did not hit its target and sank to the ground at the end of the run. On April 6, 2016, the explosive device in the torpedo was destroyed with a controlled detonation. The remains of the torpedo have been recovered and are to be exhibited. After recovery, however, it turned out that it was not a German torpedo.
Environmental impact of the Royal Oak
The plans dating from the 1950s to lift the wreck in order to relieve shipping and the environment were dropped in the face of public protests against it. In the late 1990s, the wreck was seen to be losing far more oil to the surface than it had been in all of the decades before. The oil washed ashore and threatened the environment, so the British Ministry of Defense was forced to act. A thorough survey of the wreck was carried out so that the recovery of the oil could be initiated. Since it is an official naval war grave, none of the usual procedures, such as lifting or cutting, could be carried out. There was also the risk that a faulty approach could result in a large amount of oil leaking out at once and causing an environmental disaster. Gradually, however, procedures were found to remove most of the estimated up to 3,000 tons of fuel that the Royal Oak had refueled at the time of the sinking (exact details have been lost with the ship) by 2010.
For this purpose, an umbrella-like metal body was first hung over the exit points, which caught the rising oil. Later, a small hole was carefully drilled in one of the accessible tanks ( bunkers ) to pump out the oil that had risen from the interior of the ship into this fuel container. However, the warship was designed so that most of the tanks are inside the ship, which made further recovery of the fuel very difficult. In addition, it was only possible to work safely on the wreck during the summer months, which dragged on the process. 2006 foreign bunkers were finally emptied and began after a thorough sonar image measurement of the wreck in the following summer in order to pass through additional holes on the inner tank. In 2010 about 1,600 tons of fuel were recovered and the wreck was no longer considered to be environmentally hazardous. The wreck and naval war grave will now be left alone. Only occasional visits to collect the ascended oil from the sealed wells are made.
literature
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970. JF Lehmann, Munich 1970.
- Alexandre Korganoff: Prien versus Scapa Flow. Facts, secrets, legends. 3. Edition. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-87943-497-2 .
- Rod Macdonald: Dive Scapa Flow. 2nd revised edition. Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh et al. 2000, ISBN 1-84018-334-9 .
- Alan Raven, John Roberts: The British Battleships of World War 2. Volume 1. Bernard & Graefe, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7637-5191-2 .
Web links
- Paul Harris: A sacrifice never forgotten: Battleship wreck torpedoed by German U-Boat during one of the blackest days of the Second World War is remembered in poignant mission ahead of Remembrance Day . In: Daily Mail . November 8, 2013. (English)
Footnotes
- ↑ Alexandre Korganoff: Prien against Scapa Flow. 3. Edition. 1989, pp. 222-226. ISBN 978-3-879-43497-8 .
- ↑ a b Sonar images of the Royal Oak
- ↑ Scapa Flow torpedo to be destroyed today. The Orcadian, April 6, 2016, accessed August 16, 2016 (English, with video).
- ↑ Torpedo explosives detonated in Scapa Flow. The Orcadian, April 6, 2016, accessed August 16, 2016 (English, with video).
- ↑ Gerald S. Snyder: The Royal Oak Disaster. Presidio Press, San Rafael CA et al. 1978, ISBN 0-89141-063-5 .
- ^ A b John Arlidge: New battle engulfs Royal Oak e. The Guardian , February 18, 2001, accessed June 17, 2016 .
- ↑ Mark Rowe: Navy tackles oil leak from battleship was grave. The Independent , January 31, 1999, accessed June 17, 2016 .
- ↑ (MJ Information No: 19715): 'Royal Oak' Oil Removal Continues. Maritime Journal, August 1, 2004, accessed June 17, 2016 .
- ^ Royal Oak Oil Removal Programs . In: briggsmarine.com . April 28, 2011. Official notification from the salvage company. (English)