U-47′s attack on the Battleship Royal Oak in Scapa Flow October 1939
By John Dudek @ The Wargamer
Scapa Flow naval base held great significance to both Great Britain’s Royal Navy and Germany’s new Second World War Kriegsmarine. It was here that Kaiser Wilhelm’s German High Seas Fleet of 74 battleships, cruisers and destroyers were interned immediately following the end of the First World War. As part of the Armistice and the later Versailles Treaty ending the war, Germany had to turn over its entire navy to the victorious Allies and promise to build no new warships as part of the hated document’s “War Guilt Clause.” The shame and unfairness of this clause remained a painful bone in the throat of the German Navy long after the signing of the treaty.
