Sinking of the British Battleship Royal Oak

On October 14th 1939, the German submarine U-47 penetrated the harbor defenses of the British main base for their home fleet at Scapa Flow in the Orkney islands. After searching in vain for some time for a suitable target, U-47 came upon the British battleship Royal Oak. U-47, commanded by Captain Gunther Prien, fired four torpedoes. This produced one hit, two misses and a malfunction. On board the Royal Oak, the crew was not clear what had happened and the first thoughts were that there had been an internal explosion. Many crew members simply went on with what they were doing at the time. U-47 fired another torpedo from her stern tubes which also missed. In the meantime the forward tubes were reloaded. This time a spread of three torpedoes produced three hits and Royal Oak capsized and sank. 833 of her crew of over 1,200 were killed.

The daring and spectacular nature of the attack was a substantial propaganda coup for the Germans. The substantial loss of life and the fact that many of the bodies could not be recovered from the ship have made the site of the sinking a memorial for the British people and the Royal Navy perhaps comparable to the USS Arizona memorial for Americans.

However, the military impact of the sinking beyond the immediate loss of life was very small. Royal Oak was one of the Revenge class of battleships built in 1913-1914. Despite refits and upgrades during the interwar years, in 1939 Royal Oak could manage a top speed of only 20 knots which was not enough to keep up with the rest of the fleet. This had been demonstrated earlier in the month when Royal Oak had participated in a search for the German battle cruiser Gneisenau which had entered the North Sea as a diversion and cover for the successful breakout of the commerce raiding German pocket battleships Deutschland and Graf Spee.

Royal Oak had returned to Scapa Flow with its shortcomings exposed and some minor but not inconsequential damage from its efforts to operate at top speed in rough seas. The reason U-47 had to search for targets was that the main units of the British fleet had been dispersed to other ports for fear of a German air attack. A decision had been made that Royal Oak could be risked so that its antiaircraft armament could be added to the Scapa Flow defenses. Royal Oak might have served usefully later in the war supporting amphibious landings with its heavy guns. However, for the immediate aftermath of its sinking, an objective and admittedly cold-hearted assessment is that the sinking had little impact on the military balance. Winston Churchill then First Lord of the Admiralty said as much when he announced the sinking on October 17th.

On the other hand, the loss of life which would have been tragic in any event had that tragedy compounded by the Royal Navy’s employment of boy seamen between the ages of 15 and 17. Over 100 of these boys under 18 were among those killed on board the Royal Oak. Although the navy publicly defended the practice, boys under 18 never again served aboard active warships except in exceptional circumstances. There are many informative internet sites on the sinking so I won’t link to one of them. I’ll just say that typing “royal oak sunk” into a good search engine will bring up a number of good choices for digging deeper into these events.

Britain and France Declare War; SS Athenia Torpedoed & Sunk

On September 3, 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany. Australia, New Zealand and India did the same. It is worth noting what a wonderful thing the British Empire was for Britain even at this date. These countries had a rapidly evolving “dominion status” within the empire. Their foreign policies were independent as of 1931 or perhaps a few years earlier although there were still some who argued about this. Still, these countries for the most part wanted the benefits of being allied with what they still thought of as a great power and the head of the greatest empire in the world. Canada and South Africa also declared war within a week. Ireland remained neutral.

12 hours after the declaration of war, the German U-boat U-30 torpedoed the British passenger liner SS Athenia. Athenia became the first British ship to be sunk in World War II with a loss of 118 lives including 28 Americans. What looked like a German leap into unrestricted submarine warfare was actually a mistake. Hitler was still hoping for ultimate reconciliation with the British provided he was recognized as master of continental Europe. Accordingly, he had placed substantial restrictions on German submarine attacks in accordance with international law which remained very burdensome to a country wishing to wage an effective submarine campaign against merchant shipping. The attack on the Athenia was a clear violation of Hitler’s orders.

An account of the whole affair can be found here . An account more oriented to the perspective and challenges of the German U-boat commanders can be found here .