Jutland to Junkyard By S.C. George
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd 2000 | 150 Pages | ISBN: 1841580015 | PDF | 31 MB
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd 2000 | 150 Pages | ISBN: 1841580015 | PDF | 31 MB
"I was deeply moved and full of gratitude to my brave officers and crew who had carried out their orders so brilliantly. All these magnificent battleships and destroyers had gone, sunk, once the pride of the German nation. The German fleet had gone to its grave." REAR-ADMIRAL LUDWIG VON REUTER ON JUNE 21, 1919, at Scapa Flow in Orkney, one of the most extraordinary events in naval history occurred. To the astonishment of those who witnessed it, the German High Seas Fleet - one of the most powerful in history - began in unison to sink. By late morning, ten battleships, six battlecruisers, eight light cruisers and a host of smaller ships lay on the seabed. Although at the time the Admiralty stated that salving the ships was an impossibility, from 1924 on, the great battlefleet was, ship by ship, raised and scrapped. Jutland to junkyard is the story of this, the greatest salvage operation of all time. It recounts the extraordinary ingenuity, courage and resourcefulness of the salvagers in the face of extreme odds.