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Nightmare at Scapa Flow: The Truth about the Sinking of HMS Royal Oak
Sinking the battleship HMS Royal Oak in the Royal Navy's home anchorage, with the loss of more than 800 of her crew, was Germany's first shattering blow against Britain in the 1939-45 war. Within six weeks the long-standing German dream of breaching the defenses of Scapa Flow had been achieved.Germany claimed the sinking for the submarine U-47, commanded by Lt. Gunther Prien. Prien and his crew became instant folk heroes, lauded, interviewed and exploited to extract the maximum glory from their deed. A few months later, Prien's autobiography, Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow, was published and sold an astonishing 750,000 copies. However, there are also Royal Oak survivors who, while accepting that their ship was torpedoed, say Prien and his crew can't ever have seen the inside of Scapa Flow because Prien's story is almost totally at variance with the truth.
Four books and dozens of articles have been written on what is now generally accepted as one of the greatest submarine exploits of all time. Yet nobody has managed to sift fact from falsehood and reconcile the apparently irreconcilable German and British stories. The author has interviewed Royal Oak survivors, members of U-47's 1939 crew, Lt. Prien's widow and members of the firm which published his autobiography.
His quest for the truth led through England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Orkney, Norway, West Berlin, Cologne, Freiburg and even distant Amman. He has patiently investigated every point of controversy until he was able to set down a documented, definitive account of the Royal Oak naval disaster.
Four books and dozens of articles have been written on what is now generally accepted as one of the greatest submarine exploits of all time. Yet nobody has managed to sift fact from falsehood and reconcile the apparently irreconcilable German and British stories. The author has interviewed Royal Oak survivors, members of U-47's 1939 crew, Lt. Prien's widow and members of the firm which published his autobiography.
His quest for the truth led through England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Orkney, Norway, West Berlin, Cologne, Freiburg and even distant Amman. He has patiently investigated every point of controversy until he was able to set down a documented, definitive account of the Royal Oak naval disaster.
194 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 26, 2020
I do like an account of wartime history and the sinking of the Royal Oak in the early days of World War II safe in the impregnable fortress of Scapa Flow is one of the most remarkable tales of derring do. I had picked this book up fairly recently in a discount book store and closer examination revealed that it was a reprint from a 1980 original, the kind of thing I suspect that takes advantage of the limitations on copyright.
However, that also means that the original manuscript was prepared at a time when many survivors of the sinking were still alive and it is hearing through the delicate touch of the author's prose, the experiences of those who endured that fateful Friday 13th October.
This well rendered story does justice to their memories and also to the memories of the 834 servicemen who lost their lives.
Weaver addresses the controversy that naturally arise from conflicting accounts and is fair to the memory of Lt Gunther Prien - who did not long survive his victory over the Royal Oak. The heavily propagandised account of Prien's life story and iconic victory is carefully dissected. Weaver separates out where Prien may have been prone to understandable exaggeration or misinterpretation from the romantic fictionalisation and wish fulfilment that his superiors imposed on his exploits. His victory was a lily that needed no gilding and Weaver suggests that Prien - as far as the Nazi propaganda machine would allow - did not enter into the cult narrative. It is striking that Weaver was able to interview not just Prien's widow, but his commanding officer and last head of state of the Third Reich Admiral Donitz who - as commodore in charge if U-boats - envisaged the whole daring plan.
What is more predictable perhaps, is that Prien success was substantially enabled by a penny pinching British government refusing to make timely expenditure to safeguard the security of a fleet anchorage that had relied too long on its reputed rather than actual invulnerability. Scapa Flow, first world war fortress and graveyard of the interred High Seas Fleet had sheltered foolishly behind incomplete barriers and the assumed protection of its treacherous tides. However, what is more refreshing is the candour of Winston Churchill's statements to the house in an era where lying and deceit were not the everyday habits of political leaders.
The book finishes with a diverting appendix about a late 1920s scandal about an admiral and the public abuse with which he lambasted a bandmaster at a shipboard dance on the Royal Oak in Malta. By a terribly British sequence of events this lead to two court martials and the ruin of three senior naval careers. It reminded somewhat of the more contemporary case of the American Aircraft captain who went over his admiral's head to report a Covid-19 outbreak and ended up losing his command. The naval chain of command is - it seems - the one thing that must never be subverted.
A long time ago I read both Kenneth Poolman's "Guns of Cape Anne" and C.S.Forrester's "The age of Fighting Sail" and their respective accounts of the iconic 1813 encounter between H.M.S.Shannon and the U.S.S.Chesapeake. Forrester observes the unusually flowery and exaggerated language of Captain Philip Broke's official account of his victory and finds in this some evidence of cathartic release of tension or other uncharacteristic excitability. Poolman simply notes that Broke actually suffered a severe head injury in the victory and was insensible in his cabin for days after the battle, so the task of filling a report fell to his subordinate officers who indulged in uncharacteristically purple prose before pp'ing it in their captain's name. It is that same kind of careful examination of teh provenance of historic evidence that enables Weaver to unpick not just the truth of the Royal Oak's sinking, but resolve the variation between the accounts.
Overall though, Weaver's skilful triangulation of accounts, like the best police investigation, picks out the key consistencies on which the actual chain of events can be constructed. His own appendix detailing the combination of diligence and good fortune in his investigation is itself an impressive account of detective work, not unlike another tale of historical research serendipity in Jonny McNee's unpicking of the story of the Donegal Spitfire. Yes - I do like a bit of historical detective work.
The book written on 1980 ends with one particularly poignant note. One of U-47's crew ended up settling in Scotland and was brought in to the Royal Oak survivors annual memorial dinner. When Weaver was attending the same event he was given a wee word to the wise by the Royal Oaks that they hoped he wouldn't be nasty to Herbert or embarrass him in anyway as "he's a very good friend of ours." Writing this review some forty years after the book was written and eighty years after the sinking itself, it is salutary to see how those who lived through the war understood its imperative for peace and understanding far better than the current cult populist jingoism fetishising wartime rhetoric with positively Orwellian doublethink.
However, that also means that the original manuscript was prepared at a time when many survivors of the sinking were still alive and it is hearing through the delicate touch of the author's prose, the experiences of those who endured that fateful Friday 13th October.
This well rendered story does justice to their memories and also to the memories of the 834 servicemen who lost their lives.
Weaver addresses the controversy that naturally arise from conflicting accounts and is fair to the memory of Lt Gunther Prien - who did not long survive his victory over the Royal Oak. The heavily propagandised account of Prien's life story and iconic victory is carefully dissected. Weaver separates out where Prien may have been prone to understandable exaggeration or misinterpretation from the romantic fictionalisation and wish fulfilment that his superiors imposed on his exploits. His victory was a lily that needed no gilding and Weaver suggests that Prien - as far as the Nazi propaganda machine would allow - did not enter into the cult narrative. It is striking that Weaver was able to interview not just Prien's widow, but his commanding officer and last head of state of the Third Reich Admiral Donitz who - as commodore in charge if U-boats - envisaged the whole daring plan.
What is more predictable perhaps, is that Prien success was substantially enabled by a penny pinching British government refusing to make timely expenditure to safeguard the security of a fleet anchorage that had relied too long on its reputed rather than actual invulnerability. Scapa Flow, first world war fortress and graveyard of the interred High Seas Fleet had sheltered foolishly behind incomplete barriers and the assumed protection of its treacherous tides. However, what is more refreshing is the candour of Winston Churchill's statements to the house in an era where lying and deceit were not the everyday habits of political leaders.
The book finishes with a diverting appendix about a late 1920s scandal about an admiral and the public abuse with which he lambasted a bandmaster at a shipboard dance on the Royal Oak in Malta. By a terribly British sequence of events this lead to two court martials and the ruin of three senior naval careers. It reminded somewhat of the more contemporary case of the American Aircraft captain who went over his admiral's head to report a Covid-19 outbreak and ended up losing his command. The naval chain of command is - it seems - the one thing that must never be subverted.
A long time ago I read both Kenneth Poolman's "Guns of Cape Anne" and C.S.Forrester's "The age of Fighting Sail" and their respective accounts of the iconic 1813 encounter between H.M.S.Shannon and the U.S.S.Chesapeake. Forrester observes the unusually flowery and exaggerated language of Captain Philip Broke's official account of his victory and finds in this some evidence of cathartic release of tension or other uncharacteristic excitability. Poolman simply notes that Broke actually suffered a severe head injury in the victory and was insensible in his cabin for days after the battle, so the task of filling a report fell to his subordinate officers who indulged in uncharacteristically purple prose before pp'ing it in their captain's name. It is that same kind of careful examination of teh provenance of historic evidence that enables Weaver to unpick not just the truth of the Royal Oak's sinking, but resolve the variation between the accounts.
Overall though, Weaver's skilful triangulation of accounts, like the best police investigation, picks out the key consistencies on which the actual chain of events can be constructed. His own appendix detailing the combination of diligence and good fortune in his investigation is itself an impressive account of detective work, not unlike another tale of historical research serendipity in Jonny McNee's unpicking of the story of the Donegal Spitfire. Yes - I do like a bit of historical detective work.
The book written on 1980 ends with one particularly poignant note. One of U-47's crew ended up settling in Scotland and was brought in to the Royal Oak survivors annual memorial dinner. When Weaver was attending the same event he was given a wee word to the wise by the Royal Oaks that they hoped he wouldn't be nasty to Herbert or embarrass him in anyway as "he's a very good friend of ours." Writing this review some forty years after the book was written and eighty years after the sinking itself, it is salutary to see how those who lived through the war understood its imperative for peace and understanding far better than the current cult populist jingoism fetishising wartime rhetoric with positively Orwellian doublethink.
December 9, 2019
An odd little book - something of an exercise in understanding how, out of the fog of war, several very different accounts of a single event can arise. In this case the sinking of a somewhat clapped-out old battleship, HMS Royal Oak, within what was meant to be the British navy's safe harbour at Scapa Flow, at the very north of the British Isles early on in the war.
A German submarine slipped through the inadequate defenses and sunk the boat in the dead of night, with many hundreds of lives lost. The submarine commander however reported a very different sequence of events and circumstances to those offered by the survivors. Propaganda, embarrassment and pride all had a part of play, and really the controversy is perhaps not as significant as it is made out. The author makes a good job of explaining how the inconsistencies arose, but a good deal is conjecture rather than cast-iron proof.
The actual truth of it all is perhaps not so important, but what comes out of this story is the lack of preparedness of the British navy and its enduring arrogance. The raid itself was daring, but also relatively futile other than the propaganda blow dealt.
A German submarine slipped through the inadequate defenses and sunk the boat in the dead of night, with many hundreds of lives lost. The submarine commander however reported a very different sequence of events and circumstances to those offered by the survivors. Propaganda, embarrassment and pride all had a part of play, and really the controversy is perhaps not as significant as it is made out. The author makes a good job of explaining how the inconsistencies arose, but a good deal is conjecture rather than cast-iron proof.
The actual truth of it all is perhaps not so important, but what comes out of this story is the lack of preparedness of the British navy and its enduring arrogance. The raid itself was daring, but also relatively futile other than the propaganda blow dealt.
April 5, 2026
Having a family member who served in the Royal Navy during WWII and had been at Scapa Flow, I picked up this ex-library book published in 1980 in the hopes of finding a bit more out about the place. That wasn't totally achieved, as it focuses on the sinking of the Royal Oak, a WWI battleship, and the conflicting reports of the German U-boat commander compared to the survivors' testimony. The author does a good job of digging into this and explaining the discrepancies. As I had been previously told, the Admiralty were fairly incompetent, and their penny-pinching resulted in the disaster, due to their reluctance to spend money to plug the gaps (literal) where a U-boat could get into the supposedly safe harbour.
The most interesting part of the book is the accounts of survivors of their experiences of the sinking and how they survived. Altogether an interesting read of a WWII tragedy and I would rate it at 3 stars.
The most interesting part of the book is the accounts of survivors of their experiences of the sinking and how they survived. Altogether an interesting read of a WWII tragedy and I would rate it at 3 stars.
December 17, 2019
I felt conned by this book. It was positioned as the revelation of truth behind a great controversy. In effect it was a balancing of fact against German propaganda of the time. It felt a little like “I’ve done all this research so I’d better publish.” The level of detail, especially about the post-event enquiry, became tedious to the extreme. We know how Gunther Prien got in and out of Scapa flow - how does tons of detail from the enquiry exploring how they ‘thought’ he may have accessed and exited really have value for the reader?
There are other excellent publications about that fateful night that are much more readable. All I got from this book was “so, the Nazi Party tarted up the whole story to create an Aryan hero.” That is how propaganda works.
There are other excellent publications about that fateful night that are much more readable. All I got from this book was “so, the Nazi Party tarted up the whole story to create an Aryan hero.” That is how propaganda works.
August 19, 2025
Accessible and informative, very clearly illustrated how account inconsistencies introduced by the nazi propaganda machine gave rise to conspiracy theories that remain whispered in Orkney to this day.
July 14, 2012
Originally published back in the 80's, this book is an attempt to tease apart the British, German and modern perspectives on the sinking of the Royal Oak, and try to establish what is fact and what is fiction. He does a good job at debunking some of the stories, but there are parts where the story seems rather rushed. His research is sound, but many of the footnotes are not needed (especially the ones where he has the English text which is in the paragraph translated back into its original German). It's nice to have the extra information there, but a lot of it would be better saved as end notes to improve the flow of the book.
August 5, 2016
After visiting the Orkney Islands, it was fascinating to read more history about a beautiful, diverse, remote, fascinating and historically significant place.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews