Dive Scapa Flow has been THE definitive guide to diving the fabled
wrecks of Scapa Flow, one of the world's greatest wreck diving
locations. This completely re-written and updated centenary edition is
produced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the scuttle of the 74
warships of the interned German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow on 21st
June 1919 - the greatest act of maritime suicide the world has ever
seen. The dark depths of Scapa Flow conceal the remains of several of
the Kaiser's WWI High Seas Fleet. Three massive 575 feet long 26,000-ton
König-class battleships await exploration - huge underwater mountains
where divers can see the last 12-inch big guns to have fired at British
warships at the Battle of Jutland in 1916; or drift along rows of
5.9-inch secondary battery casemate guns and see massive masts and
heavily armoured spotting tops. Four 5,000-ton, 500 foot long, kleiner
kreuzers, Brummer, Cöln, Dresden and Karlsruhe lie on their beam ends
open for inspection with parts that remained on the seabed of many other
High Seas Fleet vessels as they themselves were lifted to the surface
during the greatest feat of underwater salvage that has ever taken
place. Add in a U-boat, a boom defence vessel, an Icelandic trawler, a
number of drifters, WWII vessels, many 'blockships' intentionally sunk
to block the smaller channels into Scapa Flow during WWI and WWII and it
becomes apparent what Scapa Flow offers divers. Scapa Flow's war graves,
HMS Royal Oak, torpedoed at the beginning of WWII and HMS Vanguard,
which blew up in a catastrophic magazine explosion in 1917 and HMS
Hampshire, which struck a German mine and sunk on 5th June 1916
north-west of Orkney carrying Lord Kitchener and his staff on a secret
diplomatic mission to Russia, are off limits to divers today - but their
stories are recounted to preserve the memory of those that perished.
