View of minefield control remains from North

Description View of minefield control remains from North

Catalogue Number SC 642665

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of D 21508 CN

Scope and Content Control position, World War I mining station, Roan Head, Flotta, Orkney Islands In both World Wars the main entrances into Scapa Flow were protected by a series of blockships and anti-submarine boom nets which were strung from shore to shore and were covered from landward by coast batteries. The four eastern channels into the Flow were especially vulnerable to seaborne attack, and after Kirk or Holm Sound had been penetrated by a German U-boat which sank HMS Royal Oak in October 1939, Churchill authorised the building of permanent barriers which bear his name. Begun in 1940, the Churchill Barriers broke the surfaces of the channels in 1943 and were finally opened as causeways for civilian use in 1945 at the end of the war. The waters immediately outside these blockships, booms and barriers were also protected by underwater detector loops or cables and by submerged minefields controlled from shore-based mining stations. These concrete pillars are all that remain standing of a World War I mining station on Roan Head, Flotta. Originally housed within one of a number of huts, they mark the site of the control table or plotting position within the station. It was from the neighbouring mining station at Quoyness on Flotta that a German submarine, which had persistently tried to breach the defences of Scapa Flow, was blown up in a controlled minefield in October 1918, the first and only submarine to be destroyed in this manner in World War I. At the heart of the Orkney archipelago, Scapa Flow was the main fleet anchorage for the Royal Navy during both World Wars. Its vital importance led to the creation of one of the most concentrated defence networks in Britain. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/642665

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap