First World War At Sea

[Wustenfuchs]

Last man off a torpedoed freighter. (The Captain?)

[R. Evans]

Originally Posted by Wustenfuchs

A squadron of German battleships, with air cover.

That's the picture that comes up when I turn on the computer. Always liked that one. It's one of the few showing both ships and zeppelins.

[R. Evans]

SMS Bayern being scuttled at Scapa Flow.

[MAGNA]

A sad end to a sad tale.

[R. Evans]

Originally Posted by MAGNA

A sad end to a sad tale.

Indeed. I've always wondered whether or not those ships are still there. Were they raised and cut up for scrap? From what I understand, Scapa Flow isn't that deep.

Edit: After some easy research, it seems that most of them were raised and broken up for scrap.

Link:Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Part of the article:

ftermath

Of the 74 German ships in Scapa Flow, 15 of the 16 capital ships, 5 of the 8 cruisers, and 32 of the 50 destroyers were sunk.[3] The remainder either remained afloat, or were towed to shallower waters and beached. The beached ships were later dispersed to the allied navies, but most of the sunken ships were initially left at the bottom of Scapa Flow, the cost of salvaging them being deemed to be not worth the potential returns, owing to the glut of scrap metal left after the end of the war, with plenty of obsolete warships having been broken up.[5] After complaints from locals that the wrecks were a hazard to navigation, a salvage company was formed in 1923, which brought up four of the sunken destroyers.

At about this time, the entrepreneur Ernest Cox became involved. He bought 26 destroyers from the Admiralty for £250, as well as the Seydlitz and Hindenburg.[5] He began operations to re-float the destroyers using an old German dry dock he had purchased and subsequently modified. He was able to lift 24 of his 26 destroyers over the next year and a half, after which he began work on the larger vessels. He developed a new salvage technique whereby divers would patch the holes in the submerged hulls, and then pump air into them so they would rise to the surface, where they could then be towed to the breakers.[5] Using this technique, he re-floated several of the ships. His methods were costly, however, and the final cost of raising the Hindenburg ran to some £30,000. Industrial action and a coal strike in 1926 nearly brought operations to a halt, but Cox instead dug out the coal in the submerged Seydlitz, using it to power his machines until the end of the strike.[5] Salvaging the Seydlitz also proved difficult, as the ship sank again during the first attempt to raise her, wrecking most of the salvage equipment. Undaunted, Cox tried again, ordering that when she was next raised, news cameras would be there to capture him witnessing the moment. The plan nearly backfired when the Seydlitz was accidentally refloated while Cox was holidaying in Switzerland. Cox told the workers to sink her again, then returned to Britain to be present as the Seydlitz was duly re-floated a second time.[5] Cox's company eventually raised 26 destroyers, two battlecruisers and five battleships.[5]

Cox sold his remaining interests to the Alloa Shipbuilding Company, and retired as the 'man who bought a navy'.[5] The company later became Metal Industries, and went on to raise a further five cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships, before the outbreak of the Second World War brought operations to a halt.[6] The remaining wrecks lie in deeper waters, in depths up to 47 meters, and there has been no economic incentive to attempt to raise them since. Minor salvage is still carried out to recover small pieces of steel that can be used in radiation sensitive devices, such as Geiger counters, as the ships sank before nuclear weapons and tests irradiated the world's supply of steel.[6]

The wrecks that remain are scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. Divers are allowed to visit them but need a permit to do so.[7]

[MAGNA]

I don't know what happened to them. It would be interesting to find out. How many were scuttled ?