Royal Oak — Prien in Scapa Flow
, 31, has commanded the Type VII-B submarine U-47 (770 tons, five torpedo tubes) since December 1938. When war breaks out he is on patrol in the North Atlantic. On 1 October 1939, Admiral , chief of the German U-boat arm (BdU), summons him to Wilhelmshaven and lays out an audacious plan: penetrate the anchorage at Scapa Flow — the main base of the British Home Fleet, in the Orkneys — and attack a capital ship there.
Scapa Flow is protected by floating booms, minefields, coastal batteries and patrolling destroyers. But German intelligence (Luftwaffe aerial reconnaissance and naval scouting) has identified a weakness: Kirk Sound, a narrow passage to the east, is blocked only by three cargo ships scuttled in 1914-1918 — and erosion has probably left a passage navigable at high tide for a surfaced submarine.
Prien studies the problem for four weeks. On 8 October he sails from Wilhelmshaven. On the evening of 13 October U-47 is off the Orkneys. The sea is calm, the sky clear, the aurora borealis is out — maximum visibility, which Prien dislikes. He decides to go in.
At 23:31, U-47 passes Kirk Sound on the surface at seven knots, brushing past an overhanging electric cable. At 00:27 on 14 October he is inside Scapa Flow. The anchorage is almost empty — the Home Fleet is at sea. But at 1,200 metres: the silhouette of a Revenge-class battleship. It is HMS Royal Oak (29,000 tons, commissioned 1916).
How should he attack the Royal Oak?
Prien follows B. At 01:04, first salvo: three torpedoes fired. Only one detonates (against the anchor chain, with minimal damage). No reaction aboard the Royal Oak — the crew assumes an internal chemical explosion. Prien reloads in twenty minutes. At 01:22, second salvo: three torpedoes. Three hits along the starboard side of the Royal Oak — magazine, main boiler room. The battleship capsizes in thirteen minutes. 833 British sailors die, including 134 boy seamen aged 14 to 17. U-47 withdraws through Kirk Sound at 02:15 and returns to Wilhelmshaven on the 17th. Prien is received in triumph by Hitler at the Chancellery; he is the first Kriegsmarine officer to receive the Ritterkreuz. He becomes "Der Stier von Scapa Flow" — a symbol of Nazi heroism. U-47 vanishes with all hands in March 1941 in the North Atlantic (the cause has never been established). The loss of the Royal Oak reveals to the British command the disastrous state of Scapa Flow's defences. Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty since 3 September, orders the building of the Churchill Barriers (completed 1944) to seal the eastern passages once and for all.
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