Grand Fleet leaves Scapa Flow

After the alarm at Scapa Flow on 16 and 17 October 1914, Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet, decided to move the fleet’s main forces temporarily from the Orkneys to the west. Orders were issued at once, and over the following days the ships dispersed to new anchorages. The most powerful fleet in the world, whose task was to hold the German High Seas Fleet in check, left its base for fear of German submarines.

Jellicoe later explained that since the U-boats could operate in northern waters, as the sinking of the cruiser Hawke showed, an attempt to attack the fleet at anchor was only a matter of time. Scapa Flow as yet had no anti-submarine barriers at all, and battleships lying at anchor would be an easy target. Loch Ewe on the west coast of Scotland, where the fleet had already taken refuge in September, offered no security either. It was too deep for a barrier to be laid there with the fleet’s own resources.

New anchorages

The choice fell on two places with narrow entrances that were easier to close: Lough Swilly on the north coast of Ireland for most of the fleet, and Loch na Keal on the island of Mull in the Hebrides for the ships for which there was no room in Ireland. Lough Swilly was moreover so shallow that a submarine would have difficulty entering it submerged, and as a defended port it already had its own organisation.

The move required colliers, supply ships and auxiliary vessels bound for Scapa Flow to be redirected. Some of the battleship and battlecruiser squadrons went to Loch na Keal, some to Lough Swilly to coal, while others cruised north-west of the Hebrides, at the same time performing blockade duty. The line of cruiser patrols was moved north of the Shetlands. On 22 October the flagship Iron Duke anchored in Lough Swilly with two battleship squadrons. By the afternoon of the next day the crews had closed the entrance to the lough with a makeshift barrier of steel hawsers stretched between anchored colliers. Jellicoe noted that for the first time since the beginning of the war the fleet had a secure base.

A temporary refuge

The waters around the new anchorages did not prove entirely safe, however. As early as 27 October, during exercises off the north coast of Ireland, the modern battleship Audacious struck a mine and sank. The mine had been laid by the German auxiliary cruiser Berlin. In November the fleet returned to Scapa Flow. The barriers at the base were built slowly, however, owing to delays in the delivery of materials. The first line of barriers in the most important entrance, Hoxa, was completed only on 29 December 1914, and in the other entrances, Switha and Hoy, in January and February 1915.