Savaged by the Nazi Lone Wolf ; Just 41 Days Into Wwii, Britain Was Dealt a Devastating Blow...By a Fanatical U-Boat Captain On a Suicide Mission [Scot Region]
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Summary
WITH its huge guns pointing at the sky, the battleship sat proudly in the water, its night-lights glowing from portholes along the massive hull. The Second World War was only 41 days old. It was the lull before the storm, but all thought it would not be long before HMS Royal Oak took to sea and directed its firepower on the enemy.
Beneath the waves, less than a mile away, Kapitanleutnant Gunther Prien, commander of U-47, was running deep and silent with his eyes on a future that did not envisage the survival of the British warship - or his own vessel. On a moonless night, minutes into the morning of October 14, 1939, his U-Boat slithered like a serpent through sunken barriers into the 'impregnable' anchorage of Scapa Flow in Orkney.See the full content of this document
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Savaged by the Nazi Lone Wolf ; Just 41 Days Into Wwii, Britain Was Dealt a Devastating Blow...By a Fanatical U-Boat Captain On a Suicide Mission [Scot Region]
The German expected it to be his final mission. Loaded with torpedoes and explosives, he was en route to single-handedly attack the British Home Fleet. It was a suicide mission ordered by Commodore, later Admiral, Karl Doenitz - to destroy the Royal Navy fleet and take revenge for the scuppering of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa in June 1919.
But 70 years ago, as Prien approached, he identified only the Royal Oak, which had been left behind when its sister ships embarked on exercises. The submarin...See the full content of this document
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