Forty years ago, on 21 June 1919, the ships of the German High Seas Fleet interned at Scapa Flow, were scuttled by their own crews. Fifteen of sixteen battleships and battle cruisers sank in water deeper than ten fathoms, as well as five of eight light cruisers and 32 of fifty destroyers. Most of the remaining vessels were beached in a sinking condition; only a few destroyers were kept afloat by British guard vessels and destroyers.
This event, although almost forgotten nowadays, made rather a stir at the time, all the more so as it happened two days before Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles under the conditions of which, among other more important things, the interned vessels would have been handed over to the Allies.
The distribution of these ships among the various interested navies might have proved quite a knotty problem. We got small thanks, however, for solving it in this unexpected and drastic way.
For me personally 21 June 1919 was one of the most impressive days of a not uneventful life. I was then an ensign (Leutnant zur See) of three years’ standing. From the fall of 1916 on, I had been one of the three watch officers, and simultaneously gunnery officer, of B-110, a very modern destroyer built in 1915. She had a displacement of about 1,200 tons, was armed with four 105-mm. semi-automatic guns and six 500-mm. torpedo tubes. Two turbines that received their steam from four boilers gave her a maximum speed of 36 knots.
She had been built by Messrs. Blohm and Voss (hence the “B”) at Hamburg around turbines that had been ordered by the Imperial Russian Navy, but had not been delivered owing to the outbreak of war. There were only six boats of this type in the German Navy. Our average destroyers displaced 800–900 tons. They were all termed “torpedo-boats” officially. In this narrative, the expression “destroyer” will be used, however, since it is in general use today.
Four to five destroyers formed a “half-flotilla” which will be termed here “squadron”; two squadrons formed a flotilla. B-110 belonged to the 4th Squadron and to the 2nd Flotilla.
The 4th DD Squadron was among the units to be interned according to the terms of the Armistice, which had been signed by the provisional government of our mutiny-ridden homeland. The internment fleet assembled in Schillig Roads north of Wilhelmshaven, where, two months before, a mutiny of the crews of several battleships had touched off a widespread revolutionary movement. When we put to sea on 19 November, we were under the control of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils which the revolutionists had organized. Our commander was Rear Admiral von Reuter, who had been commanding officer of the battle cruiser Derfflinger in the Battle of Jutland, and later commanded a squadron of light cruisers. Aboard his present flagship, the battleship Friedrich der Grosse, there was a “Supreme Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council,” which made life very difficult for the admiral. The Council’s president had never been aboard ship before. The members wanted us to proceed under the red flag but did not press the point on being told that under that flag they would be treated as pirates by the British. We left under our old ensign, with mixed feelings. There had been heated discussions on whether or not the naval officers should refuse to take their ships into internment. The opinion prevailed that President Wilson’s Fourteen Points would guarantee a tolerable peace, and that nothing should be done to endanger it. We felt ourselves responsible to our people as a whole. Therefore, we felt that the clauses of the Armistice should be carried out.
So far, we had visualized a voyage to a neutral, probably Scandinavian, port. At sea, we were told we had to go first to the Firth of Forth, where the state of disarmament of our vessels would be examined. Although we used a channel supposed to be clear, destroyer V-30 struck a mine and sank with the loss of two men.
On the morning of 21 November, in sunny and misty weather, we were met at first by a British light cruiser, and then by the entire might of the Grand Fleet including a U. S. Battle Squadron and some French ships. It was an imposing and wonderful spectacle to see all these powerful squadrons, ready for action, superbly handled. Soon, our 49 DDs were surrounded by at least 120 British ones. We felt as if we were being sent under the yoke as in ancient times. The fog thickened; we never got a glimpse of the shore during our 24-hour stay in the Firth of Forth. In the afternoon, our vessels were searched thoroughly, and we were ordered to haul our ensigns down, contrary to the rules of internment.
Nobody told us where we would be interned. British destroyers escorted us by squadrons to Scapa Flow. We entered on a bleak morning little realizing what this anchorage formed by rocky and desolate islands held in store for us. The battleships and cruisers anchored to the north and west of the island of Cava; the destroyers were moored, mostly by twos, to buoys between Risa, Fara, and Hoy.
Busy days followed, for the crews had to be reduced to 200 officers and men for battle cruisers, 175 for battleships, sixty for light cruisers, and twenty for destroyers. The others were sent to Germany by steamer. The remaining skeleton crews were sufficient for keeping the ships in order, for raising steam in an emergency, and for steaming at ten knots. We still hoped that the light forces at least would be left to us under the peace treaty, as we had been told in Germany, and that we would be able to take them back home. In any case, we loved our fine boats and wanted to see things through with them.
There was only one officer for every DD, apart from senior and engineer officers of flotillas. Consequently, I found myself commanding officer of 5-772, moored alongside 5-770 where the senior officer of the flotilla had his quarters. He spoke excellent English, which came in handy, although the crews of the British guard vessels were supposed not to talk with us. But Scapa was “dry,” we had some spirits on board, and soon we bartered victuals and soap for alcohol and souvenirs.
The British did not furnish our rations. These had to be brought from Wilhelmshaven, and they were very meager, for Germany was half-starved and revolution-ridden, and the Soldiers’ Council there did not like us. At first, we eked out our provisions with the emergency rations carried in all vessels, later we caught fish and seagulls. Rations, some supplies, and mails were carried by small German steamers or, off and on, by one of the few light cruisers or destroyers still in service. At first, we got our mails directly from these vessels. Later, they had to be sent from Scapa to London to be censored there, and back to Scapa. This took from six to eight weeks.
Next to food, keeping warm was one of our foremost problems. After a few days, it became painfully evident that the fuel supplied by the British would in no way be sufficient for heating all our boats. The British had small, coal-burning stoves on board their vessels. We had steam-heating only, which necessitated keeping a boiler in operation.After some deliberation and some haggling, the crews of all four boats moved to the B-110/112 group, leaving B-109/111 at the next buoy empty. The oil we received for the whole squadron sufficed to keep one boiler alight from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. At that time, steam and electric current were switched off, and it "as time to go to bed, for the “tin cans” cooled down very quickly. In the morning, everybody would wait expectantly until steam hissed again in the crackling tubes of our rather primitive heating installation.
For the officers, the main task was to keep the men in good discipline and tolerable spirits. This was not easy with bad food, in winter darkness, with slow mail service, and in view of the unsatisfactory news about and from Germany. Permission to go ashore would have helped and was applied for many times, but was not granted, although the islands around us were not inhabited. We were not even permitted to visit our friends in the other German vessels. For seven months, eighty people formed a small, almost self-contained community with few outside contacts besides British papers, generally four days old, our much older mail, and a German naval surgeon making his rounds by drifter.
Of course, for keeping discipline, we could call in our “hosts” at any time, but this was something we planned to do only as the very last resort. We did not want to give the British any pretext whatsoever for putting guards on board our vessels and in that way enable them to supervise us more closely.
Some regular work and some kind of routine seemed a good way to keep order. Working hours were set from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., or to noon on Saturdays. There was no work on Sundays. At first, under the influence of the revolution, there was no possibility of divine service. However, one of the officers used to read pieces from good literature on Sunday mornings to those who attended voluntarily. Later, a naval padre was sent to Scapa Flow, and was soon in increasing demand. It took him a long time to get around the Fleet.
During working hours, the crews were fully occupied with keeping engines and boilers in order and with overhauling all gear on deck and on the bridge, and—last but not least— with keeping a comparatively decent coat of paint on our vessels. When the working parties had returned from the empty group, our whalers had to be hoisted in and kept so until 8:30 next morning. During this time souvenir hunters visited the empty group, probably from the guard drifters. They might have caused serious harm by removing parts we could not replace. After some negotiations we were allowed to leave a guard of one officer and three men overnight on the empty group. They had to be there shortly before 3 p.m. and could not return before 9 a.m.
This was my duty every fourth night, and it proved far more valuable than I had expected, because it gave me an opportunity to discuss a great variety of subjects with my men, something I had hardly ever done before. I learned much about their interests, their opinions, their views on life, on politics, on religion, on the Navy, on officers, petty officers, and their friends. As individuals, they were very decent, but these individuals were not immune to mass influences. From their officers, they expected justice, clear orders, and human understanding without fraternization.
During the dark season, the afternoons were utilized for lessons and lectures of various kinds. English lessons were predominant; small wonder under the circumstances. There were also courses in elementary mathematics, geography, history, Spanish, and literature. Attendance was voluntary and changed greatly, in accordance with whims which nobody could explain. Lack of steadfastness was typical for Scapa Flow, particularly in the youngest members of the crews (twenty years and less). The older ones (between twenty and thirty) stood the strain much better.
Our only musical instruments were a very bad gramophone and a guitar, which was a help in singing folk songs and chanteys. On the few fine spring evenings we would do this on deck. There, we also played a number of games, specially invented for our situation. Playing at tag or at hide-and-seek on the upper decks (including bridges and funnels) of two destroyers can be quite a lot of fun.
As was to be expected the winter was not cold, thanks to the Gulf Stream. We had some severe gales, however, and a few awkward moments when the lines between the two destroyers parted, and the ships started crashing against each other. Fortunately, the mooring chains to the buoy held.
During our internment, peace talks at Versailles were begun. As winter gave way to spring the talks indicated terms far more severe than we had expected in view of the Fourteen Points. Early in May, 1919, British papers gave the full text of the Treaty. What concerned us most in our situation was the fact that not a single one of the interned vessels was to return to Germany. They were all to be handed over as soon as the Treaty was signed.
We thought it possible that the British would try to occupy the ships shortly before that date to prevent any attempts at sabotage, although they were still German property. In all the destroyers, countermeasures were prepared at once against an attempt of that kind. We had neither weapons nor explosives. Scuttling our vessels by means of sea cocks would take some time, how much, nobody could say. The estimates varied between half an hour and several hours. All the bulkheads were carried through to the upper deck without any doors between compartments. The sea cocks could be worked from the upper deck and from below. We disconnected the upper deck valve handles and kept a watch on deck and men ready to go down to the boiler and engine rooms in order to open the sea cocks at a given signal. In addition, we prepared other measures to ensure rapid flooding.
All the men in the destroyers took part in these preparations, and not a single one betrayed our readiness to scuttle, although this would have been easy because a guard drifter came alongside regularly to bring the doctor, mail from the flagship or from home, and, probably, to keep an eye on us. A small tanker and a water barge made their rounds too. The guard destroyer, moored to a buoy near our empty group, kept aloof except on the anniversary of the Battle of Jutland. That day we adorned bridges and funnels with signal flags. The British destroyermen did not like it, and we had to strike the flags.
Our superior officers did not like this demonstration either. Their policy was to avoid any incidents that might give an excuse to our hosts to change the present state of affairs and thus endanger the so-far unchallenged German sovereignty over the interned vessels.
The greatest danger came from the crews of some of the larger ships, particularly Friedrich der Grosse, the flagship. Here, the Supreme Soldiers’ Council incited the men to disobedience. Eventually Admiral von Reuter was compelled to ask the British to restore order. When a destroyer appeared alongside with an armed detachment on deck, the Soldiers’ Council gave in, its most virulent members were sent home, and the others were replaced by sensible men. In Germany, the Government had abolished the Councils, but not for the interned Fleet.
Admiral von Reuter now moved with his small staff to the light cruiser Emden, where he had been invited by the entire crew and where he was treated as befitted his position.
At about the time when the peace terms were published, our mails were censored far more sharply. Moreover, our radio installations were taken away. (Incidentally, I am still in possession of the receipt for the radio receiver of B-112 given by a lieutenant whom I later met several times, last as a rear admiral, retired, in my office at Bonn.) It goes without saying that the British, after stopping all our sources of information (apart from the papers that were, as a rule, four days old) were responsible for keeping our admiral informed about the main developments. That they failed to do so played an important part in subsequent events.
As the time for signing the Treaty approached, Admiral von Reuter’s situation became increasingly difficult. It was more a dictated than a negotiated treaty, and the newly elected President of the German Republic, as well as leading members of the Government and the Diet, had made strong declarations that they would never sign it as it then stood. If they did not sign, there would be a state of war again. In this case Admiral von Reuter had to prevent the interned fleet from falling into the hands of the Allies. This could only be done by scuttling. With the large number of men aboard most ships, scuttling was bound to lead to considerable loss of life. To prevent such loss by reducing the crews, Admiral von Reuter relinquished the idea of continuing to keep our vessels ready for steaming under their own power. He used the unrest incited by communist ringleaders in some battleships in April as a pretext to ask for about half of the 5,000 men aboard the interned fleet to be sent home. The British and the German Government agreed. Two transports were sent from home and left Scapa again on 15 and 17 June with about 2,700 men. This eased the situation greatly.
On the following day, Admiral von Reuter sent written orders to all the commanding officers to make every preparation for scuttling their vessels when he gave the order by signal. Sending these documents round by the Admiral’s barge would have been too conspicuous. The British mail drifter was much safer and did not disappoint us.
The Allies had fixed the date for signing the Treaty as noon, 21 June 1919. At Scapa, this day broke calm and clear, with the mild sun and soft colors typical of fine, midsummer weather in a latitude of about 59 degrees North. Our men cleaned ship in a leisurely fashion. A small steamer full of sight-seeing school children passed close to our stern. Then, for the first time in seven months, the British Battle Squadron guarding us (there was always one squadron “on watch”) left its anchorage and went to sea, accompanied by the destroyer-flotilla “on watch.” This looked very suspicious, for they might have been joined by other squadrons and flotillas outside to come rushing in through the various entrances, ready for action, to board our vessels. Actually, the signing of the Treaty had been postponed by two days, and the British admiral went to sea for exercises which had been postponed owing to bad weather. Nobody thought of informing the German admiral, however, thus leaving him under the impression that hostilities would be resumed from the side of the Allies at noon. There were still two hours, and, in the meantime, Saturday routine went on as usual. The water tender came alongside. I had a talk with her skipper, whom I knew quite well by that time. Among other news, he told me about the postponement of the signing. When she had sheered off again, I crossed over to B-110 to tell our senior officer that we had two more days of grace. We were still discussing this new development when we saw a commotion aboard the battle cruiser Seydlitz, the nearest big ship. There, people were actually running on deck, something which had never happened before at Scapa. With glasses, we could make out the signal for scuttling the Fleet. Unfortunately, there was no wind so that it did not blow out. As a consequence, it took too much time to get through the long line of DDs.
Now people begun to run on our own vessels too. We opened the sea cocks and the condensers, and our strongest stoker smashed previously selected and marked pipes and tubes with a sledgehammer. New ensigns and command pennants were hoisted. The whalers were launched. The men from the empty boats returned and reported all measures for scuttling taken. After a quarter of an hour, B-112 had already a slight list to port. There was time, however, to change into clean underwear and the best uniform, and to finish packing that which had been prepared beforehand. We put our baggage into the whalers. The list of B-112 increased markedly. I went once more into all compartments and was greeted by gurgling water in all of them. I got the last men and their things out of the living quarters and into a whaler. In passing the galley, everybody grabbed a sizzling hamburger or two. The quarterdeck of B-112 was now so deep in the water that one could step easily into the whaler. When we had all found a seat (two men were on a life raft because there was no room for them), our senior officer gave a short talk thanking our men for their good work, telling them that we did this for our country, and ending with three cheers. Then we cast off and shaped a course for the island of Fara, less than a half mile away.
The signal had been given at 1120 and was received by us some minutes later. We went into our whalers a few minutes after 1200. At 1216 Friedrich der Grosse took her final plunge as the first vessel of the interned fleet to go down. Her three officers had made the preparations without telling their unreliable crew anything else but that it would be necessary to dry out and clean the ship completely before handing her over. Thereupon, the men had willingly lent a hand to open all the watertight doors and hatches. At night, the officers had prepared the rather complicated opening of the five submerged torpedo tubes. Not all the ships had the specialists to do that, and this made quite a difference.
Our whalers made slow progress, mine particularly. Owing to the baggage, we could man four oars only, and I had taken the raft in tow. A slight breeze had sprung up from the northwest and helped, and so did one of the guard drifters by rushing after us and firing at us with a mixed collection of hand weapons. Fortunately their aim was bad, and they were as dangerous to a coast guard man on Fara as to us. He threatened with a counter-offensive, and the drifter sheered off and tried to compel the Senior Officer DDs to climb again aboard his destroyer S-138. When he declined politely, but firmly, they rushed off to try their luck elsewhere.
This interlude enabled us to gain the rocky shore of Fara. The coast guard at first ordered us off because there were already quite a number of men from other destroyers. However, we persuaded him to stay on top of the cliffs and to allow us to remain ashore close to the water. This agreement worked, and when our trigger-happy drifter appeared again, he shooed her off.
We sat down on the rocks and took stock of our position. We could see all the battle cruisers, the 4th Battle Squadron (Kaiser class) and almost all the destroyers. Some of the light cruisers and most ships of the 3rd Battle Squadron (Konig and Bayern class) were more or less hidden by the island of Cava. The 6th DD Flotilla was far down in Guttersound by the island of Fara.
It was a marvelous sight. All over the vast bay ships were in various stages of sinking, the destroyers in the foreground, the battle cruisers in the middle distance, and behind them battleships and light cruisers. Everywhere cutters, whalers, and rafts were being manned or were already pulling or drifting away, and British guard destroyers and drifters were hurrying to and fro, giving the general alarm with their sirens. In the intervals, sounds of firing were to be heard.
Our first interest was directed to our own group, of course. We were relieved to see that they were deeper in the water than most DDs. B-112 had a heavy list; at about 1300, she rolled over onto B-110. We distinctly heard the rending noises when bridge and funnels broke off. In a swirl of white water she went to the bottom as the first of the destroyers. B-110 soon followed suit, and then so many went down that we lost count. At 1400, all five ships of the 4th Battle Squadron had gone, as well as the battle cruisers Moltke and Seydlitz. Von der Tann soon followed, Derfflinger sank shortly before 1500. By that time, the number of masts behind Cava had decreased considerably. Of the battle cruisers, only Hindenburg was still afloat, with a slight list and not much deeper in the water.
British destroyers had come rushing in and tried to save some of the vessels still afloat by towing them into shallow water. A drifter approached Fara and told us to get ready to be towed away. When we were about to reembark, one of my sailors came up to me to return an atlas which I had lent him a few days previously. Under the circumstances I had not much use for it. Therefore, my last impression of Fara is Meyer’s Hand-Atlas, bound in red cloth, lying on top of a big boulder.
On our way to the British supply ship Sandhurst, we could see the attempts of towing our remaining destroyers ashore. One or the other sank in spite of all endeavors, but some were already aground. On the Sandhurst, we met men from almost all the DD squadrons; a few were wounded. The British fired on them to compel them to return aboard and help in closing the sea cocks or in unmooring from the buoys. Later, we found out that one officer (the commanding officer of the battleship Markgraf), one warrant officer, four petty officers, and three enlisted men had been killed, nine in all, some aboard their vessels, others aboard the whalers. None had been armed or had resisted in any way. Most had shown the white flag, according to Admiral von Reuter’s orders.
At about 1700, we were towed across the wide bay to the British battleships, which had anchored in their usual place. We passed some of our destroyers still afloat. In the distance, the battleship Baden seemed to be under tow, the light cruiser Nürnberg was aground in shallow water near Cava, the masts of the Emden were still visible, and in the foreground, a swarm of small vessels busied themselves around the Hindenburg, trying to tow her away. She had a list of about thirty degrees. Our eyes were glued to her when we passed at a distance of about a mile. Suddenly, she fell deeper with a kind of lurch, the British vessels cast off hurriedly and rushed wildly off in all directions, and the giant hull disappeared under the surface, righting herself at the same time. When she came to rest, the masts and the upper part of the funnels still showed.
This impressive event was the end of the scuttling proper. Fifteen of sixteen battleships and battle cruisers were sunk; only the Baden was beached in a waterlogged condition. Later, she was raised and used as a target ship. Of the eight light cruisers, five were sunk, while the Emden, Frankfurt, and Nürnberg were beached in a sinking condition. Thirty-two of the fifty DDs were sunk, fourteen were beached, and four were kept afloat in a partly flooded condition.
As to the personnel, we were treated as prisoners of war. The British battle squadron took us to Invergordon (I made the trip in the Royal Oak), and from there we were transferred by train to prisoner camps south of Liverpool. Here, we learned that the peace treaty had been signed on 23 June, and that in retaliation for the scuttling of the interned fleet, the last modern warships Germany still possessed were either to be handed over or to be scrapped.
There was some talk of a court-martial against all the German officers or against Admiral von Reuter alone, but nothing came of it. As far as we could make out, the legal situation was never really cleared up. Obviously, the Admiral had acted in good faith and could not be made responsible for not having been informed about the situation. At Invergordon, in a dramatic scene on the quarterdeck of the Revenge, the British admiral, in a lengthy address, accused him of treachery. Admiral von Reuter answered in a few dignified sentences, taking the whole responsibility upon himself and adding that, in his opinion, every British sailor would have acted in a similar way.
The only difference between “normal” prisoners of war and the prisoners of Scapa Flow was that we were kept a few months longer in captivity. We were back home at the beginning of February, 1920, somewhat poorer in worldly possessions but far richer in experience.
Incomplete Information
Contributed by Captain F. Massey, USN
A group of enlisted men from the USS Noname were returning to their ship late one evening from what had apparently been a successful liberty ashore.
En route to the ship, conversation touched on a number of subjects and finally came to an item of shipboard routine which involved the method employed in the Noname for making known the departure and arrival of the commanding officer. As is standard practice, the captain’s departure and arrival were announced over the loudspeakers of the 1 MC circuit by the words: “NONAME” “NONAME.”
Commenting on this procedure, one bluejacket was heard to remark: “Now they always tell us when the old man leaves the ship—they always tell us when the old man returns to the ship—but dammit, they never tell us how he makes out.”
(The Naval Institute will pay $5.00 for each anecdote accepted for publication in the Proceedings.)