By Angus Konstam, Peter Dennis
ISBN-10: 1846033667
ISBN-13: 9781846033667
A strategically very important typical harbor within the Orkney Islands, Scapa circulation served as Britain's major fleet anchorage in the course of global Wars I and II. It held Jellicoe's Grand Fleet from 1914-18, and it used to be from right here that it sailed out to do conflict with the Germans at Jutland in 1916. In 1914 the British all started development a entire shielding community via fortifying the entrances to Scapa circulation after which extending those defenses to hide such a lot of Orkney. those static defenses have been augmented with increase nets, naval patrols and minefields, developing the most important fortified naval base within the world.With the outbreak of the second one global warfare, Scapa stream back proved preferably located to counter the German naval risk and served because the base for Britain's domestic Fleet. regardless of consistent assaults from airplane and U-boats, one in all which controlled to sink the British battleship Royal Oak, the defenses of Scapa stream have been back augmented and more suitable. through 1940, Orkney had turn into an island castle, the most important built-in shielding community of its style in Europe, manned through as many as 50,000 Commonwealth troops.Backed through newly commissioned paintings, naval historian Angus Konstam tells the tale of this strong naval fort, many items of which may nonetheless be visible at the island at the present time.
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Additional info for Scapa Flow: The Defences of Britain's Great Fleet Anchorage 1914-45 (Fortress 85)
Example text
QF pieces which had been installed in the battery after being removed from the aged dreadnought HMS fron Duke. (Author's collection) 58 These aren't the only warships to lie in Scapa Flow. Today the remains of the German High Seas Fleet, which was scuttled in 1919, is one of the most popular wreck diving attractions in the world, and every year these sites are visited by thousands of scuba divers. The wrecks of three battleships - the Konig, Kronprinz Wilhelm and Markgraf - and four cruisers - Brummer, Karlsruhe, Koln (II) and Dresden (II) - are all that remain of the age of the dreadnought.
While these blockships sealed off most of the small, eastern channels into Scapa Flow, in October 1939 U-47 still managed to pick her way past the blockships in Kirk Sound and enter the naval anchorage which lay beyond (Author's collection). While the 6in. gun emplacements on Hoxa Head dating from World War I were built over in 1939, these 4in. emplacements a little to the north were left untouched. They are built in a similar manner to the Ness Battery near Stromness. 3, overlooking Hoy Sound just outside Stromness.
The first picture taken in 1972 shows the author (left) playing on the wreck. The second picture of the author and his father Peter Konstam was taken in 1993, by which time the sand had reached the level of the upper superstructure. The third shows only a few feet of mast remaining above the sand. (Author's collection) 59 the now-silent gun batteries of Hoxa and Stanger heads and the last resting place of the U-116. In fact it is almost impossible to approach Orkney by sea without passing the empty mouths of gun batteries.
Scapa Flow: The Defences of Britain's Great Fleet Anchorage 1914-45 (Fortress 85) by Angus Konstam, Peter Dennis
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