THE GERMAN FLEET

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 136, 10 June 1937, Page 5

THE GERMAN FLEET

SUNK AT SCAPA FLOW

THE LONG TASK OF SALVAGE

TREMENDOUS WORK

Undaunted by chill waters and difficulties hitherto considered insurmount- ■ able, daring British salvagers are now (completing the epic task of raising the scuttled German High Seas Fleet from the depths of Scapa Flow, says a writer ;in the "San Fjfincisco Chronicle." One by one the great hulks, rusty and barnacled by eighteen years on the bottom, are being forced to the surface of the quiet harbour in the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland. Strangely enough, part of the metal from these warships, whose construction at the Kaiser's order is blamed by some historians for the World War, may again figure in European conflict. Thousands of tons of the iron from the broken up vessels have, been purchased by the Germany- of Adolf Hitler for recasting into guns, tanks, and new fighting ships. Some has gone into new British warships as well as into prosaic British industry and buildings. . . The drama of Scapa began on . November 21, 1918, when the German High Seas Fleet, "unbeaten" in the opinion of its commanders, surrendered there in accordance with terms of the Armistice. Though the Germans surrendered to the British, who used Scapa Flow as a base for their Grand Fleet throughout the World War, Allied jealousy prevented the British taking charge of the German vessels, : and they were interned with their own crews still aboard. Seven uneventful months passed after the internment. THE FLEET SCUTTLED. With the bulk of the British fleet out at torpedo practice, only a few drifters guarded the interned warships on June 21, 1919. Suddenly look-outs began to shout at each other. The crew of the Kaiser Friedrich der Grosse, the big German flagship, were noticed leaping into lifeboats. The mighty warship heeled over and sank! Ship after ship followed her plunge beneath the waves. Summoned back by spluttering radio messages from the drifters, the British succeeded in beaching only a.few of the German destroyers. Faced by the knowledge that the Treaty of Versailles, about to be signed, would put their cherished vessels for ever iri.enemy hands, the Germans had opened the sea cocks and scuttled their fleet in a last effort to preserve its honour. So" carefully executed was their plan that 53 of the 74 vessels sank to the bottom of Scapa Flow that summer day. Still bearing scars.from British.shells at Jutland and the Dogger Bank, the .battle Cruiser Seydlitz lay on her side with part of her.hulk above water, The battle cruiser Hindenburg came to rest on the sea bed in only 60 feef of water with her gun* and upper works above the surface even at high tide. So heavy were the scuttled monsters, however, that .for. five years nobody was brave enough to think of salvage, During this time ships in the shallower sections became the prey ol daring Orkney freebooters whc stripped the exposed hulks of everything valuable in the way of brass and copper. THE FIRST DESTROYER. The next phase in the drama cam* in 1924 when a\ friend reminded Mr. E. F. Cox, managing director of Cox , ■ and Danks, a London iron and steel tan, of the great mine of metal rusting away beneath the surface of Scapa Flow. Though he had never raised i ship of any kind, the suggestion aroused Cox's interest, and he visitec the scene. From the Admiralty he ob tamed a contract for salvaging 25 o: the sunken German destroyers. Without delay he invested £40,001 in a floating dock and assembled the most experienced divers and engineer: of England" and Scotland. Work wa: started' in April, 1924, and on Augus 1 the first slime-covered destroyer .wa:

brought to the surface. As the workers proceeded with the destroyers, which weighed from 750 to 1300 tons each, they became so expert that the S-55 was finally raised from 40 feet of water in a fortnight. ' Most of the destroyers were raised by sinking sections of the floating dock alongside them, passing hawsers underneath and hauling up with the aid of tide and winches. At one point three destroyers were found piled one on top of the other. Gradually all 25 were beached, patched up, and towed 250 »miles to British shipyards fdr breaking up. With his last destroyer raised on April 30, 1926, Cox turned his attention to the giant battleship- and battle cruisers which had once been the pride of the German fleet. He turned first to'the Hindenburg whose 28,000 tons seemed a tempting prize lying so near the surface. •This appearance proved very deceiving. After several months' work with four floating docks and the expenditure of £30,000, the battle cruiser was raised only to develop such an alarming list that Cox was forced to allow her to sink again. At this point Cox decided to use compresed air on the battle cruiser Moltke, which lay upside down and totally submerged. Meanwhile work was suspended on the big Hindenburg. SUCCESS WITH THE MOLTKE. Tall cylindrical air locks were fastened ' y divers to the bottom of the Moltke, and holes cut into her hull. Air was pumped into compartment after compartment. Workmen labouring under the heavy air pressure patiently repaired holes, shut valves, end closed hatches. Finally in June, 1927, the 23,500-to., vessel lurched to the surface from 80 feet of water. Worth £60,000 as scrap, she was towed to the Firth of Forth and broken up. Encouraged by this succeso, Cox returned to Scapa and began work on the battered Seydlitz lying on her side. As the demand for metal was great at the moment, Cox thought it profitable to place a crane on the leaning wreck and rip away 1800 tons of armour plate from the exposed side. This was a mistake. When the vessel was raised, loss of the metal, which had been shipped to the United States, unbalanced her and she turned completely over. The same weight in sacked gravel had to be placed on her before she could be refloated and the 25,000-ton ship towed to the Firth. This was in November, 1928. Work then proceeded.apace. Whales at times threatened to entangle the lines1 to divers working on the submerged hulks. Explosions of gas in the course of burning away obstructions caused several fatal injuries. One blast knocked Thomas McKenzie, Cox's chief salvage officer, unconscious, and he remembered nothing until aroused in .a Kirkwall hospital. Cox himself was disabled for a time by a timber falling across his legs, but the daring undertaking continued. The battleship Kaiser was raised in March. 1929, and the cruiser Bremse in November of the same year, THE HINDENBURG AGAIN. In March, 1930, Cox resumed work on the great Hindenburg. To help finance the operation a 560-ton gun turret was cut away and sold. Salvagers placed 800. patches, one with an area of 750 square feet, on the hull.' Despite a 600-ton block of concrete placed to prevent just such an event, she repeated the heeling over and had to be allowed to sink again in June, 1330. Undismayed, the salvors encased the stern in still more concrete and a few weeks later, in July, the 28,000-ton vessel, the largest ever raised up to that time, was floated. So tremendous had been the difficulties that Cox had little more than honour for s great achievement. "I had spent £40,000 when she oeat me and very nearly broke my heart," he said. "I did not give up, and went on spending. Then came a day when I had spent £75,000 and in two,minutes I was to know whether I was ever to see it again. When she stopped listing and I knew she was up to stay, I was as elated as a schoolboy." Cox next raised the Yon der Tann, a cruiser fa-nous- in World War history for the sinking of the British cruiser Indefatigable at Jutland. Two trials were necessary to bring the Yon der Tann to the curface and an. explosion

injured several workers She was finally floated in December, 1930. A few months later the Prinz Regent Luitpold also after two trials, was raised from water 100 feet deep. RETIREMENT OF COX. Keeping as souvenirs the bells of most of the salvaged ships, Cox retired from the undertaking in 1933. During almost a decade of terrific effort at Scapa Flow, he had raised 32 ships at a cost of approximately £500,000. Metal prices, however, were only half as great towards the end of his operations as at first and he reported a net loss of £10,000 to £15,000. Encouraged by improving prices, however, Metal Industries, Ltd., of Glasgow, the firm to which Cox sold his equipment, resumed the work with McKenzie in charge. The dauntless Scot proceeded to try for the biggest ships lying at greater depths than those raised by Cox. In April, 1934, he began work on th? 28,000-ton Bayern in 125 feet of water. Air locks as long as factory chimneys were bolted to the hull. After one false try, the ship was finally raised in September.

Still taller air locks were required for the next ship, the battleship Konig Albert, which lay in still deeper water with her stern 126 feet and her bow 138 feet beneath the surface. Eight giant air locks were placed on th? hulk and on April 29, 1936, the ship left Scapa Flow, still bottom up, for Rosyth Dockyard in the Firth of Forth.

A, second great ship, the 25,000-ton battleship Kaiserin, also was raised last year by the same compressed air system. Ten great ships, enough to occupy the salvors for five or six years, remain at the bottom of Scapa Flow They afe the Derfflinger, Karlsruhe. Koeln, Markgraf, Brummer, Dresden, Konig, Kronprinz Wilhelm, Grosser Kurfurst, and the Kaiser Friedrich der Grosse—the flagship which led her sisters to the bottom 18 years ago. (Recently the Kaiser Friedrich der Grosse was raised).