View from South West

Description View from South West

Date 29/5/1996

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 642589

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of C 73187 CN

Scope and Content World War I blockship, East Weddel Sound, Burray-Glims Holm, 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. This view shows the broken-up remains of one of the surviving World War I blockships in East Weddel Sound. It is the rear or aft section of the Reginald, a 930-ton schooner which was built in 1878 and was one of a number sunk in 1915 in an effort to block this and other channels against enemy craft. Old and redundant ships were selected for this purpose, filled with ballast, towed and sunk in positions where they would form a line across the waterways. The effects of strong tidal currents and inter-war efforts to remove or adjust them (on behalf of the local fishing communities) had greatly reduced their effectiveness by the outbreak of World War II in 1939, as was demonstrated by the U-boat attack on the Royal Oak. In the foreground are the remains of concrete blocks and one of the types of wooden floats used with anti-submarine boom nets. 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/642589

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap