14th October 1939

[antarmike]

The British battleship HMS Royal Oak is sunk in Scapa Flow harbour by U-47, under the command of Gunther Prien.

 

 

His Majesty's Ship Royal Oak was a Revenge-class battleship of the British Royal Navy. Launched in 1914 and completed in 1916, Royal Oak first saw action at the Battle of Jutland. In peacetime, she served in the Atlantic, Home and Mediterranean fleets, coming under accidental attack on more than one occasion. During a twenty-five year career, attempts to modernise Royal Oak could not address her fundamental lack of speed, and by the start of the Second World War, she was no longer suited to front-line duty.

 

Royal Oak was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland when she was torpedoed and became became the first of the five Royal Navy battleships and battlecruisers sunk in the Second World War. The loss of life was heavy: of Royal Oak's complement of 1,234 men, 833 were killed that night or died later of their wounds. The numerical superiority enjoyed by the British navy and its allies meant that the loss of the obsolete veteran of the First World War made little difference to the naval balance of power, but the effect on wartime morale was considerable. The raid made an immediate celebrity and war hero out of the U-boat commander, Günther Prien, and on his return to Germany he became the first Kriegsmarine officer to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. To the British, the raid demonstrated that the Germans were capable of bringing the naval war to their home waters, and the shock resulted in rapidly-arranged changes to dockland security.