A large natural anchorage called Scapa Flow lies right in the middle of the seven islands of Orkney in Scotland. And although the area is mainly deserted today, it has a long history in naval warfare.
The body of water, comprising about 120 square miles, served as a sheltered harbor with easy access to the North and Atlantic Oceans. And its strategic use goes back to 1198 when infamous Viking Earl Harald incurred the wrath of the kings of Scotland and Norway by putting together a large force to resist a rival’s claim to half his earldom.
However, Scapa Flow’s glory days were in the 20th century, as the natural harbor served as the main base for the Royal Navy’s battle fleet during the two World Wars.
Still, not many people know that another navy lies at the bottom of the ocean surrounding Scapa Flow: part of Imperial Germany’s High Seas Fleet.
Scuttled by its own starved and neglected crews in 1919, the operation became the most significant act of self-destruction in naval history…
source
Actually, this is VERY well known within the UK and Germany…..only Americans have no clue about history. Everyone else, no no…they know WW1 History.
These boats are some of the most valuable steel in the world. They were protected from all nuclear tests and blasts. So they have no background radiation. Their steel is being taken and used in ,ilitsry and medical equipment where extreme sensitivity to radation is required. Atm the German high fleet is worth more then the Germans paid for it from 1850 to 1918..
Nice Pearl Harbor and other WWII footage … completely irrelevant to the story of the WWI German fleet scuttling. Are you too lazy to get the right footage?
Dived on wrecks of the remaining ships back in 1982 abd also the site of one of the gun turrets from the Bayern.
Excellent video sir.
WOW!
Germany's naval buildup was a huge mistake (as Bismarck warned them). Other than the U-boats and a handful of cruisers, they did little (other than help bring about the UK / French alliance and use up valuable resources.
The thumbnail looks like cn-type 100 lmfao
I am from orkney and this event is a big part of our island's history, and we all learn of it at school. One story from the salvage I really liked was about the wife of one of the chief salvage crews.she would climb up the superstructure of one of the sunken ships every day and do her knitting 😆.
There was also a group of schools children out on a day trip from the town of Stromness veiwing the fleet when they sank! They thought this was a show just for them..
It would of been interesting to have included how they sunk them. Think a lot of people would have liked to know that information as it was very clever considering they had no munitions.
Alternatively, this could have been about the kriegsmarine and operation viking. 🤣
The shame is that the Germans did not fire one final salvo at the UK ships there with them before scuttling!
An inspiring tale . Live free or die .
so you sank them
Why is this video refering to Admiral de Reuyter, who was dutch, when the Admiral who commanded the High Seas Fleet, and ordered its scuttling, was Admiral Reinhard Scheer??.
A lot of these ships have become sources of pre-atomic steel for use in equipment that require non-irradiated components due to their sensitivity.
The German navy is scrap.
With almost anyone else at the helm of the Axis powers, they would have won ww2.
Britain didn't want them so they played the Germans so that nobody got them.
How history would be different had we treated the post=WWI Germans with just a little bit more decency, and respect? No Hitler? No Nazi party. No WWII? We used "The Marshall Plan" after WWII and Germany is now a strong, prosperous nation, and our ally. We did much the same with Japan. Look at them now? Look at Vietnam? Look, I was a serving US Navy officer so I am not a "peace-nik". I have been in harms way, by choice. But dam. Treat your beaten foe decently and just maybe they will not be your "foe' any longer?
You sould make a documentary about the deadly incident with Finn-Baltic in 1990 right outside of Hanko, Finland!
3:43, Colonel Klink.
Took big stainless steel balls to scuttle those ships,, yes they lost. But I'm sure the English treated those sailor's as war prisoners long before the Germans scuttled any ships,, & bet they had intentions of taking those battle ships!!
Makes you wonder of all the harsh treatment the English gave the Germans after ww1,,,that the next generation held a major grudge in ww2 , they came back with NWO type payback?? Lmfao I mean those bastards we're every damn place in ww2
"They ain't getting our ship's" .
I can understand that.
Germany was railroaded into accepting total responsibility for WWI. The Allies had no business claiming this fleet. Go Admiral Ludwig Van Reuter! Respect to you, sir. Well done!
At least it saved their dignity, compared to most surviving WW2 vessels, some of whom were used for nuclear experiments
It’s sad that German surface fleet will never be as large as it was in WW1 again.
Sorry ass crappie boats. Is that the best America can do ?
There is a folk song by Kris Drever called Scapa Flow 1919 that tells this story.
I remember hearing something about the metal from these ships is used in the manufacture of Geiger counters and other sensitive equipment as it’s from the pre atomic age and not contaminated with background radiation.
Wilhelm II abdicated on 9 November, and the armistice took effect 11 November. Therefore, the governmental collapse after the armistice could not have caused the abdication. The reverse is far more likely.
That one time the British made the German Navy ragequit.
I came across the account of the salvage of any of the ships many years ago, in the ,'Shipping Wonders of the world', publication. Quite an amazing story.
Now the ships supply invaluable metal for atomic research.
Good film of Great War battleships is very rare. Casual viewers would have no clue, astute viewers such as yourself are rightly critical when the producers includes WW2 stuff. I would rather the producer shows still pictures than bogus film or film of convoy tankers/ cargo ships being torpedoed.
I though the channel "dark seas" is a professional one and the videos and informations are true. But if a video about the german fleet in scapa flow from 1918 contains pics from the german pocktballtleship "Admiral Graf Spee" from 1939 its allowd to ask about the reason. To make the video longer? To make it more spectacular? To impress the people? Or maybe because of unsuspectingness? Who knows……
Talk about going out on your own terms.
What a waste. What a stupidity?
Do you have a Instagram or somthing
I really thought it was common knowledge by now, I think most people are aware of this heroic action by the German sailors after the war was over.
Impressive how well this was carried out, I wouldn't give over my most valuable assets either.
I'm surprised they didn't recover the ones at 45 meters
Aww, that battleship just wants a belly rub!
What is the name of the music at the beginning of the video ?
Why did they not hang the German admiral ? He should have been tried then hung.
VERY WELL DONE.
PRECISE, SUCCINT AND YET VERY INFORMATIVE
Some clips here are of ww2! Checkout the pocketbattleship at 7:58 and Kreigsmarine uniforms at 8:49–8:54