Alarm at Scapa Flow

The British chronicle of the events of the war recorded under 17 October 1914 an attempt by German submarines to break into Scapa Flow, the main base of the Grand Fleet in the Orkney Islands. In reality no U-boat entered the base at that time. The British nevertheless lived through two days of alarm, which decided the fate of the fleet for the following weeks.

The nervousness had its grounds. On 15 October the German U-9 sank the cruiser Hawke off the coast of Scotland. The next day, 16 October, in the afternoon, destroyers patrolling the eastern entrance to the Pentland Firth, the strait separating Orkney from Scotland, reported that they had been attacked by a submarine. A torpedo missed the destroyers Nymphe and Alarm, and Nymphe tried to ram the attacker. It was most probably U-9 itself, which managed to escape.

A periscope in the harbour

At 4.18 p.m. the same day one of the coastal batteries reported that a submarine was right at the Switha entrance to Scapa Flow. The base did not yet have any anti-submarine defences. The battleships were ordered to raise steam at once, and destroyers, trawlers, tugs and boats began to circle the anchorage. During the night all the large ships, except two repair ships, put to sea. The flagship of Admiral John Jellicoe, the battleship Iron Duke, joined two battle squadrons west of Orkney.

In the base itself the hunt continued. At noon on 17 October Vice-Admiral Stanley Colville, who was directing the search, reported that the submarine was most probably in Scapa Flow but could not be located. Sailors from several destroyers and the gunboat Leda claimed to have seen a periscope, and many shots were fired at supposed targets. There were even reports of a torpedo fired at one of the pursuing ships. It later turned out that it had been fired by accident by one of the British destroyers.

A false alarm

Jellicoe admitted after the war that it was never established with certainty whether a submarine had really been in Scapa Flow at the time, although many officers were convinced of it. Today we know it was a false alarm, like the one on 1 September, when because of a supposed periscope the fleet moved for a time to Loch Ewe in western Scotland. The first U-boat that really tried to force its way into Scapa Flow was U-18 in November 1914.

The false alarm nevertheless had serious consequences. Jellicoe concluded that until the base was secured with obstructions, keeping battleships and battlecruisers there would be tempting fate, and he decided to move the fleet elsewhere.