Scapa Flow

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For other uses, see Scapa Flow (disambiguation).

Scapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland. Surrounded by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy, it is best known as the site of the United Kingdom's chief naval base during the First and Second World Wars.

Already used by warships in the Viking era, the base remained in use by the Royal Navy until 1956. During both World Wars, German U-boats tried to attack British ships in Scapa Flow. Both attempts in World War I failed and U-18 and U-116 were sunk. Early in World War II, U-47 penetrated Scapa Flow on October 14 1939 and caught the battleship HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Bay. U-47's torpedoes blew a 30-foot (9 m) hole in Royal Oak, which quickly sank. Of the 1,400-man crew, 833 were lost. The wreck is now a protected war grave. After the attack Winston Churchill ordered the construction of a series of causeways to block the eastern approaches to Scapa Flow. These "Churchill Barriers" now provide road access from Mainland to Burray and South Ronaldsay.

Three days after the submarine attack, four Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 bombers raided Scapa Flow in one of the first bombing attacks on Britain in the war. They badly damaged the elderly battleship HMS Iron Duke, but one bomber was shot down by an anti-aircraft battery on Hoy.

Although "scarper", a slang word meaning to run away, originally derives from an Italian word scappare, meaning "to escape", it became much more popular after the First World War, when Cockney rhyming slang started to use the rhyme "Scapa Flow" - "go".

The Scotch whisky Scapa, distilled in Kirkwall, is named for this area.

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German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow

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Following the German defeat in the First World War, 74 ships of the Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet were interned in Gutter Sound at Scapa Flow pending a decision on their future in the peace Treaty of Versailles. On June 21, 1919, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, the German officer in command at Scapa Flow, after waiting for the bulk of the British fleet to leave on exercises, gave the order to scuttle the ships to prevent their falling into British hands. Fifty-one ships sank. The nine sailors killed were the last casualties of the First World War.