This Great Harbour Scapa Flow

by W.S. Hewison

Scapa Flow is known worldwide. In two world wars it was the northern base which sheltered shops of the Royal Navy and Allied fleets from both storm and enemy attack, with sometimes well over a hundred vessels lying at anchor. Massive defense guns, searchlights, booms and minefields were built up between 1914 and 1918, and then demolished, only to be built up again twenty-five years later when the harbor's security was again threatened. This time there was the additional danger from the sky, and an antiaircraft 'umbrella' of over eighty guns was deployed to ward off the Luftwaffe bombers.

In This Great Harbour Scapa Flow, W.S Hewison tells how this was achieved as the anchorage known by mariners since the time of the Vikings and perhaps even before them, with its key position athwart the northern sea routes came into the ken of the Admiralty's strategic thinking.

The Grand Fleet sailed from Scapa in 1916 to do battle at Jutland. Five days later, Lord Kitchener, 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 U47 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.

Genres: War, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, History

390 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars rounded up. This book is a detailed look at the anchorage in the Orkneys that served Britain during two world wars. It talks about the people who had the fortitude to live in a less-than-hospitable climate, suffering from storms and wartime bombings. Scapa Flow is probably best known for the sinking of the ROYAL OAK by U-Boat early in WWII, and the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet at the end of the Great War.

The book can be somewhat slow going, but is a good picture of what life was like in a small but vital part of wartime Britain.

[Jerry Mount · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a solid narrative history of a remote region of the UK which became a very important military area during both World Wars. It's a well researched and footnoted narrative. It mostly concerns military matters, so acronyms and unit numbers are plentiful. There are very complete glossaries and indexes at the back, and these are needed to properly understand much of the text. If the reader (like me) is not familiar with the Scapa Flow & Orkney areas, it is necessary to keep a good regional map handy during the reading to make sense of all the locations identified. This book would be a good addition to a library that includes books on the UK Royal Navy in WW1 & WW2, including the Battle of Jutland, the Battle of the Atlantic, German U-Boats, Convoys, and the Battle Against the Bismarck.