Phantom of Scapa Flow ?
Posted by:
Vin
()
Date: June 07, 2001 08:32AM
<HTML>Hello all,
Iv`e just bought the book- Unexplained Mysteries of World War II,
William B. Breuer. ISBN-0471291072.
The first story i read was - Phantom of Scapa Flow.
Awhile ago i think Fin mentioned \"The Watchmaker\" of Scapa Flow.
This gives a few more names, what do you think? Could it have happened?
I`ll leave the main story out and \" cut to the chase.\"
In London, the admiralty,deeply embarrassed and humiliated by the Royal Oak`s
demise while in its own anchorage, assumed that the U-boat had been guided
to its target by a spy in the Orkneys. MI-5 , the British counter-intelligence service,
was promptly blamed by the admiralty for failing to flush out this Nazi spy.
MI-5 agents descended en masse on the Orkneys to find the elusive spy who
made this German exploit possible. The search failed.
Sixteen months later, in the spring of 1942, a popular American magazine,
the Saturday Evening Post, published an article identifying the Scapa Flow
spy as a former officer in the German Imperial Navy, Captain Alfred Wehring.
According to the Post account, Wehring had been recruited in 1928 by
German intelligence to be its man at Scapa Flow, which, it was believed,
would be a crucial location in any coming war against the British. Wehring
adopted the fictitious name Albert Oertel, posed as a Swiss watchmaker,
and opened a small shop in the village of Kirkwall in the Orkneys.
12 years later, Wehring emerged from deep undercover and signaled to
Captain Karl Doenitz of the U-boat command detailed intelligence about Scapa Flow`s defenses, its unpredictable currents, and its navigation obstacles.
Acting upon this A-1 intelligence from Wehring, Doenitz sent Lieutenant
Prein, guided by Alfred Wehring (Albert Oertel), into Scapa Flow to attack
the Royal Oak. Wehring boarded the U-47 at the mouth of the flow, acted
as pilot-navigator, then returned to the fatherland in triumph after 12 years
of deep undercover in Scotland.
Almost imperceptibly, the \"Phantom of Scapa Flow\" entered the hallowed
halls of espionage lore, Even the top Nazis were impressed by Wehring`s
spy feat. SS General Walther Schellenberg, chief of the SD, pointed to
the Scapa Flow episode as a prime example of the importance of
\"intelligently planned co-operation between (spies in the field) and military
operations.\"
After the war, Major General Vernon G. W. Kell, the MI-5 chief, wrote
that \"the Germans had been supplied with up-to-date information by a spy.\"
In England, with peace coming nearly 6 years after the Royal Oak had
been sunk, controversy continued to swirl around the the event.
The admiralty clung to its strong contention that Wehring (Oertal) had been the culprit. However, a number of British journalists, probing into the affair,
descended on the Orkneys and failed to locate anyone who had ever known
of, much less seen, Alfred Wehring, who for 12 years was said to have been
masquerading in Kirkwall as Albert Oertel, a Swiss watchmaker.
So the question remains: Had there really been a Nazi undercover spy long
embedded in the fabric of life in the Orkneys, a German who performed
one of history`s boldest espionage feats, or had it simply been the
Phantom of Scapa Flow, who had become quite real ?
Regards, Vin.
</HTML>
Iv`e just bought the book- Unexplained Mysteries of World War II,
William B. Breuer. ISBN-0471291072.
The first story i read was - Phantom of Scapa Flow.
Awhile ago i think Fin mentioned \"The Watchmaker\" of Scapa Flow.
This gives a few more names, what do you think? Could it have happened?
I`ll leave the main story out and \" cut to the chase.\"
In London, the admiralty,deeply embarrassed and humiliated by the Royal Oak`s
demise while in its own anchorage, assumed that the U-boat had been guided
to its target by a spy in the Orkneys. MI-5 , the British counter-intelligence service,
was promptly blamed by the admiralty for failing to flush out this Nazi spy.
MI-5 agents descended en masse on the Orkneys to find the elusive spy who
made this German exploit possible. The search failed.
Sixteen months later, in the spring of 1942, a popular American magazine,
the Saturday Evening Post, published an article identifying the Scapa Flow
spy as a former officer in the German Imperial Navy, Captain Alfred Wehring.
According to the Post account, Wehring had been recruited in 1928 by
German intelligence to be its man at Scapa Flow, which, it was believed,
would be a crucial location in any coming war against the British. Wehring
adopted the fictitious name Albert Oertel, posed as a Swiss watchmaker,
and opened a small shop in the village of Kirkwall in the Orkneys.
12 years later, Wehring emerged from deep undercover and signaled to
Captain Karl Doenitz of the U-boat command detailed intelligence about Scapa Flow`s defenses, its unpredictable currents, and its navigation obstacles.
Acting upon this A-1 intelligence from Wehring, Doenitz sent Lieutenant
Prein, guided by Alfred Wehring (Albert Oertel), into Scapa Flow to attack
the Royal Oak. Wehring boarded the U-47 at the mouth of the flow, acted
as pilot-navigator, then returned to the fatherland in triumph after 12 years
of deep undercover in Scotland.
Almost imperceptibly, the \"Phantom of Scapa Flow\" entered the hallowed
halls of espionage lore, Even the top Nazis were impressed by Wehring`s
spy feat. SS General Walther Schellenberg, chief of the SD, pointed to
the Scapa Flow episode as a prime example of the importance of
\"intelligently planned co-operation between (spies in the field) and military
operations.\"
After the war, Major General Vernon G. W. Kell, the MI-5 chief, wrote
that \"the Germans had been supplied with up-to-date information by a spy.\"
In England, with peace coming nearly 6 years after the Royal Oak had
been sunk, controversy continued to swirl around the the event.
The admiralty clung to its strong contention that Wehring (Oertal) had been the culprit. However, a number of British journalists, probing into the affair,
descended on the Orkneys and failed to locate anyone who had ever known
of, much less seen, Alfred Wehring, who for 12 years was said to have been
masquerading in Kirkwall as Albert Oertel, a Swiss watchmaker.
So the question remains: Had there really been a Nazi undercover spy long
embedded in the fabric of life in the Orkneys, a German who performed
one of history`s boldest espionage feats, or had it simply been the
Phantom of Scapa Flow, who had become quite real ?
Regards, Vin.
</HTML>
| Subject | Written By | Posted |
|---|---|---|
Phantom of Scapa Flow ?
|
Vin | 06/07/2001 08:32AM |
|
RE: Phantom of Scapa Flow ?
|
Walter M. | 06/07/2001 09:01AM |
|
RE: Phantom of Scapa Flow ?
|
Anthony Reilly | 06/10/2001 04:00AM |
|
RE: Phantom of Scapa Flow ?
|
The swiss watchmaker | 06/22/2001 10:48PM |