Inside Britain's greatest northern naval stronghold, hundreds of sailors went to sleep believing they were safe. Before dawn on 14 October 1939, HMS Royal Oak lay capsized beneath the waters of Scapa Flow.
This book reconstructs how the German submarine U-47, commanded by Günther Prien, penetrated the supposedly secure anchorage, found the ageing British battleship at rest, and delivered one of the most humiliating blows suffered by the Royal Navy during the opening weeks of the Second World War.
From Royal Oak's construction in the dreadnought era and her service at Jutland to the weaknesses in Scapa Flow's eastern approaches, the torpedo attack, the thirteen-minute sinking, rescue efforts, British shock and German propaganda, the complete story reveals how confidence in a stronghold collapsed in a single night.
The consequences reached far beyond the loss of one battleship. The raid forced Britain to transform Scapa Flow's defences, led to the construction of the Churchill Barriers, altered the landscape of Orkney and left Royal Oak beneath the harbour as a protected maritime war grave.
At the centre of the story are the sailors and boy seamen who died, the survivors who carried the memory of the sinking, and the families whose losses could never be repaired.
HMS Royal Oak is a gripping and respectful account of naval warfare, institutional failure, courage, propaganda, remembrance and the fatal difference between a stronghold's reputation and its real protection.
