Extract from my eBook " XXI U-BOAT (ELECTROBOOT) PART ONE - The Story of the World’s First True Submarine Capable of Operating Primarily Submerged."

Swayed by the Admiralty’s own admission about the sinking of the Royal Oak at Scapa Flow in a possible submarine attack and the resultant list of massive British casualties, a delighted Nazi leadership celebrated a major German victory.
The choreographer of the celebrations was none other than propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels himself for, “Scapa Flow’ had a special meaning for the German people.
Redemption for the humiliation of Nineteen-nineteen seemed to be at hand.

The incident dated back to June 21, Nineteen-nineteen, when under the terms of the Armistice, the remnants of the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) fleet comprising seventy-four, cruisers, battleships and destroyers were forcibly interned at Scapa Flow.
Skeleton crews of the former Imperial German Navy manned these now incarcerated warships awaiting an uncertain fate at the hands of the victorious Allied powers.
Rumour had it that these warships would be apportioned amongst the victors to be re-christened under their flag as trophies of war.
At every port of call, these once proud ships would be a mute testimony to the defeat of Imperial Germany and a source of recompense for the winning powers.
But the victorious British at Scapa Flow, underestimated the spirit of the sullen German crews manning these ships. The rank and file of the former officers and sailors were ‘Kaiser Loyalist’ and loath to allow the Allies their prize.

In a carefully choreographed plan under the tutelage of the former flotilla commander Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter the crews succeeded in scuttling fifty-two of the seventy-four interned warships on the morning of June 21, Nineteen-nineteen, to prevent them from falling in the hands of the hated Allies.
Devised months ago the plan was executed to perfection with no prior warning or hint to their British captors.
The interned crews had stealthily welded the water tight doors inside their ships in an open position and also practiced jamming the valves and sea cocks to allow unrestricted access to the sea.
At a prearranged signal from the interned flotilla commander the valves and cocks were opened simultaneously to allow flooding.
The orders were executed soundlessly.
There were no shouts or signs of sudden activity that would have given away the game to the British.
As the waters rose steadily, the crews judged the critical flooding levels inside their ships to perfection and quietly abandoned their charges to board dinghies and lighters alongside, allowing their vessels to either capsize or settle upright onto the sandy bottom of the anchorage.

Fifteen of the sixteen battle cruisers including the Derfflinger, Hindenburg, Moltke, Seydlitz, and Vonn der Tann, and the battleships; Kaiser, Prinz-regent Luitpold, Kaiserin, Friedrich der Grosse, König Albert, König, Grosser Kurfürst, Kronprinz Wilhelm, Markgraf and Bayern, five of the eight cruisers including the Brummer, Bremse, Dresden, Koln and Karlsruhe and thirty-two of the fifty destroyers, met their futile end at Scapa Flow in this manner.
The action took their captors totally by surprise. The British fleet had sailed out of Scapa Flow that morning on a routine training exercise. Those left behind to guard the Germans received no warning.
The British lookouts could only gaze in disbelief as the outlines of anchored warships in the German flotilla wavered and keeled over or settled below in silent procession.
It was a scene out of a science fiction flick as ship after ship toppled over or got drawn under presumably by the hand of some extra-terrestrial force.
It took some time for the lookouts to gather their wits and raise the alarm. By the time the British Fleet re-appeared a majority of the interned flotilla comprising of fifty-two German vessels - cruisers, battleships, and destroyers, had disappeared beneath the cold waters of the loch, to rest on the sandy bottom of Scapa Flow.

The incident so vexed the British that on January 10, nineteen-twenty; they signed a ‘Protocol’ to the Treaty of Versailles, imposing stiff penalties on the Germans for the destruction of the interned fleet. They now demanded five additional light cruisers; the Konigsberg, Pillau, Graudenz, Regensburg, and Strassburg; as repatriations, as also a supply of tugs, dredgers, floating docks and cranes from within Germany, equalling a displacement of four hundred thousand tons. A stiff penalty for a defeated nation, whose economy shattered by five years of conflict and weighed under the humongous burden of compensations, levies, liquidations and reparations, now stood to lose the principal apparatuses of its sea borne trade.
The protocol, also stated that the Imperial German naval officers and sailors, who participated in the ‘scuttling incident’, would be detained as offenders for crimes committed after the cessation of hostilities, and would not be repatriated as normal prisoners of war; but their fates would be decided outside the surrender terms of the armistice!
The sinking of the Royal Oak with a huge toll of British lives in the waters littered with the remains of the Imperial German Fleet, was therefore seen by the Germans as ‘redemption’, for the ignominy suffered by them during the years, nineteen-nineteen and nineteen-twenty.

Meanwhile, the U-47, her ‘tonnage’ pennants flying sailed into Wilhelmshaven harbour on October 17, nineteen thirty-nine, to a hero’s welcome. Every member of her crew was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class with the exception of
Prien; who being a previous recipient was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class.
As Commander he was also bestowed the singular honour of reporting personally to the Führer about the U-47’s daring exploit.


A chastened Admiralty, who had by now pieced together that the mayhem inside the anchorage was caused by torpedoes fired by a Type VII Unterseeboote namely, the U-47, was forced to evacuate the ‘Home Fleet’ from Scapa Flow, in a hurry.
Once touted as the most powerful congregation of warships anywhere in Western Europe, North America or Asia, the British ‘Home Fleet’, was moved to a temporary location at Loch Ewe, on the west coast of Scotland, till the Scapa Flow anchorage was deemed secure enough. Totalling seven instead of eight battleships, minus the Royal Oak, that now included the Nelson, Rodney, Royal Sovereign, Ramillies, Hood, Renown and Repulse, seven cruisers; Aurora, Norfolk, Belfast, Edinburg, Newcastle, Sheffield, and Calcutta, two aircraft carriers; Ark Royal and Furious, and seventeen new Tribal class and F class destroyers; the fleet would not return to Scapa Flow, until March, nineteen forty, with little time to spare for the beginning of ‘Operation Weserubung’ - the German invasion of Denmark and Norway on April 9, nineteen forty.

The move was to prove tactically advantageous for Germany during the campaign, as the anchorage, though strategically poised on the northern tip of Scotland, played a diminished role during the operations in the North Sea; a fact that was not lost upon the British as well as the Nazi leadership.
Dönitz’s adroit move in using the smaller ocean going Type VIIB Unterseeboot inside the anchorage armed with trackless G7e electric torpedoes had yielded rich dividends.

The Royal Navy was forced to also revise its defensive tactics against U-Boats, on recovering pieces of the G7e’s battery, wiring as well as torpedo parts from the bottom of Scapa Flow, as the understanding of the Kriegsmarine possessing a working electric-battery torpedo, sunk in!
As a fitting epitaph, to the Scapa Flow incident; the Loch Ewe anchorage was to become a marshalling point for surrendered Unterseeboote, on capitulation of Nazi Germany in nineteen forty-five.

As their Fatherland ceded, Dönitz’s vaunted Type XXI Elektroboote, which by then were Germany’s most advanced designs, out at sea on their ‘first and last’ patrols, were ordered to return forthwith to the Loch Ewe anchorage, along with a few Type VII and IX’s, to tamely surrender to the Royal Navy, as a few hundred miles away in Flensburg, their Unterseebootwaffe chief and newly anointed personal successor to Adolf Hitler, Reich President, Karl Dönitz, quietly prepared to walk into British captivity along with Reich Minister of Armaments and War production, Albert Speer, to end the cycle of retribution at Scapa Flow, forever!