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The ignominious end of HMS Caledonia: the thread about how the Navy’s longest ship ended up as scrap metal on the Forth seabed

Q. What was the largest ship in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of WW2?

A. As any respectable naval anorak knows, it was the 47,000t, 860ft long battleship HMS Hood, the “Mighty Hood“, pride of the fleet and largest warship afloat. Right? Or… was it the Bismarck?

HMS Hood, 1924, Allan C. Green photo

No, the largest ship in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of WW2 was the 56,500t, 956-ft long training ship HMS Caledonia; until 1936 the Cunard-White Star liner RMS Majestic, which until 1922 had been the Hamburg-Amerika liner SS Bismarck. Until 1935, the largest ship in the world

HMS Caledonia, 1937, en route from Southampton to Rosyth

The Bismarck was the 3rd and largest of three Hamburg-Amerika liners built immediately prior to WW1; the others were the Vaterland and Imperator. They were ordered to reclaim dominance and German national pride in the Transatlantic liner stakes from the British Cunard and White Star liners. They were to do this by being both the largest and grandest liners afloat. Bismarck was the last of the trio but before she was laid down, the Hamburg-Amerika line found out that the new Cunard liner Aquitania was to be longer than her, so they hastily rejigged the design to add an extra 6 feet on. They needn’t had bothered, they had made been misinformed and Aquitania actually ended up being 50ft shorter than Bismarck.

Majestic (ex-Bismarck, background) with her sisters the Cunard line’s Berengaria on the right (ex-Imperator) and United States Line’s Leviathan (ex-Vaterland) in the foreground

It was too late to change the design however and it was too late for her sister Imperator, which had been given the most embarrassingly awful nose job to lengthen her by the vainglorious addition of a massive bronze eagle figurehead which was meant to make her 1ft longer than Aquitania. Fortunately for her appearance this partially fell off during Atlantic storms within a year, and was removed.

The bronze figurehead on Imperator

Bismarck was launched in June 1914 by a granddaughter of the Iron Chancellor, but this ceremony was jinxed when she fluffed the swinging of the champagne bottle and it only broke on the second attempt: none other than Kaiser Wilhelm II stepped in to give it his best swing. The outbreak of war found her without a purpose, and construction ground to a halt beyond maintenance work. During the war she was stripped of valuable components, wiring and piping and all her brass and copper. The incomplete hulk was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Versailles as reparations for the loss of the White Star liner Britannic (sister of Titanic), which had struck a German mine and sunk in 1916 while serving as a hospital ship. This was the largest ship lost in the war, but although she sank in just 55 minutes, all but 30 souls on board were saved. Her sister Imperator went to Cunard as a replacement for the Lusitania, the ill-fated liner whose sinking had outraged America and helped drag that nation into the war against Germany.

Hospital ship HMHS Britannic during World War I

White Star sent representatives and shipyard engineers from Harland & Wolff in Belfast to Hamburg to supervise completion of their new possession. The whole ship needed re-wiring, and a mysterious fire that damaged her during completion and which the British put down to sabotage by the German workers was probably an electrical fault: this would be a recurrent theme. She completed in March 1922 and White Star officers were sent to supervise her trials by officers and men of Hamburg-Amerika line. This was marred by briefly running aground, but after a week she was accepted and handed over. Her German name was painted out and replaced with Majestic.

Majestic at New York shortly after her acquisition by White Star Line

A White Star crew arrived and sailed her to Southampton, during which time they repainted her funnels into company colours. She arrived exactly 10 years to the day that the Titanic had departed on her ill-fated maiden voyage. Not only the largest in the world, she was arguably the most opulent, designed by the French architect Charles Mewès. Her German builders had trunked the boiler uptakes around the ships sides (rather than through the centre), to allow for huge, uninterrupted interior spaces, and spared no expense on the specification

First class entrance foyer on the Majestic

Despite being a foreigner in a time when ocean liners were a symbol of national prestige, she was made White Star flagship and was the pride of the fleet. Her first official duties were to be inspected by King George V and Queen Mary, before heading for New York. She settled down to a glamorous 1920s career on the Atlantic, but one that was always marred by the occasional spontaneous fire in her electrical system, and growing cracks in her decks (which grew to 100ft long) as a result of the lengthening job.

White Star service poster for Majestic; “The World’s Largest Ship”

The Depression hit the Transatlantic liners hard, already struggling from a downturn in migrating passengers, and in White Star’s case, poor corporate management. The Majestic frequently found herself on “booze cruises” from a very dry and thirsty Prohibition-era USA to help pay her huge running costs. But the cracks grew bigger, the electrical fires got more frequent and the finances grew ever worse. Cunard and White Star line merged in 1934 in a government-sponsored deal. The new company had too many liners and the older ones began to be disposed of; Majestic survived the initial chop, but her card was marked.

With the new company flagship Queen Mary under construction, Cunard-White Star made to dispose of the sister ship Berengaria, which was older and more prone to fires, but the larger Majestic had higher running costs so in 1936 was taken out of service instead.

RMS Queen Mary under construction at John Brown’s yard at Clydebank, c. 1934

She quietly sailed her last voyage in February that year and disappeared from the schedules without any announcement on her future. In May she was bought by Thomas Ward of Inverkeithing for £115k (c. £6.6m in 2023), the scrapyard where many a liner and battleship ended its days.

Announcement of the last sailing of the Majestic, Birmingham Gazette, 14th February 1936

Majestic was taken into dock at Southampton to have her funnels and masts lowered to allow her to sneak beneath the Forth Bridge, but there was a snag – the minor matter of fine legal print of the Treaty of Versailles. Bismarck had been handed over as a prize of war as compensation to White Star, but the terms did not allow the new owner to sell her. Instead, the Royal Navy stepped in and took possession, and “gave” Wards 24 old destroyers of equivalent scrap value in return. Everyone was happy. The lawyers were happy. Cunard-White Star got paid by Wards, Wards got the scrap they had paid for and the Royal Navy got what had been – until 6 months previous – the largest ship in the world, for the price of only a few old rusty relics.

Majestic in the King George V Dry Dock in Southampton having had her funnels and masts shortened

The great liner was now taken in for conversion to an enormous training ship, with capacity for 1500 trainee boys and 500 officer apprentices. Her luxurious fittings – apart from the swimming pool – were stripped out, and the vast interior converted to spartan classrooms. Where once her passengers slept in the most luxurious cabins afloat, the new occupants would sling hammocks from the roof beams in time-honoured Royal Navy tradition. In April 1937 she made her last sea voyage, to Rosyth on the Firth of Forth.

The Majestic passing under the Forth Bridge in April 1937 en route to commissioning as into the Royal Navy

On arrival, she commissioned as HMS Caledonia, named after the Victorian training ship that had once served on the Forth under that name. Her job was to train the boys and young men who would fill the ranks of the expanding Royal Navy in the run up to the inevitable war. By the end of the year there were 1,000 trainees aboard.

The training ship HMS Caledonia on the Forth in 1898, an old battleship built in 1810 as HMS Impregnable.

The new Caledonia only had an expected lifespan of 4 years, she was to plug the gaps until permanent shore facilities could take over; but she didn’t even make this. On the outbreak of war there was a panic that the Luftwaffe would target her for a revenge sinking. This was not without reason and the first air raids over the United Kingdom during the war soon followed over the Forth with the Royal Navy and Rosyth being the target. And so the trainee boys onboard were packed off to safety in the Isle of Man, the officer apprentices were sent ashore at Rosyth, and the great ship was floated out into the Forth and pumped full of water so she would settle on the sea bed at low tide (therefore couldn’t be “sunk”), to await her fate, or another use.

However the proud old ship had other ideas. Just 26 days after war was declared and a full 17 days before the Luftwaffe arrived over the Forth, she set herself on fire and burnt out, settling on to the bed of the Firth. Her shonky electrical system had the last laugh. With the country now at war with Germany, the niceties of previous treaties could be overlooked, and she was sold to Wards of Inverkeithing – again, for mining as a strategic reserve of scrap iron. She was demolished in situ from 1940-43.

The wreck of the Caledonia being scrapped, 3rd May 1943. Imperial War Museum Collection, A 9776

In July 1943, what remained of the hull was patched up and floated around the corner to Inverkeithing, for beaching and final break-up by Wards. This was completed in 1944, her name transferred to a shore station at Oban.

The remains of Majestic being scrapped at Inverkeithing in 1943-44. IWM A 25218

After the war, the name was relocated back to Rosyth, where it was a shore training establishment until 1985. It was rehabilitated again at Rosyth in 1996, where it remains to this day, the Navy’s HQ in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The HMS Caledonia which was once the liner RMS Majestic remains the longest ship to have ever commissioned into the Royal Navy, a full 24ft longer than the modern Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers. With her loss in 1939, the battleship HMS Hood would regain her crown as the largest ship in the Navy. In a sardonic twist of fate, Hood would be sunk in May 1941 by a German ship named Bismarck – with great loss of life.

German naval photo of the sinking of HMS Hood. Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1998-035-05 / Lagemann / CC-BY-SA 3.0

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A day of firsts; the thread about the start of the air war over Britain above the Firth of Forth

This thread was originally written and published in July 2023.

On September 3rd 1939, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, drawing the country into what would become the Second World War. This early period of the war is sometimes called the “Phoney War”, on account of the relatively limited military activity between France, Germany and Britain on the Western Front. However on Monday 16th October 1939, the air war over Britain commenced over the Firth of Forth as German bombers made their first air raid on the country of the war and the RAF squadrons defending Edinburgh went immediately to war.

Pilots of 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron in England during the Battle of Britain in 1940, posing for a propaganda photo with a new Spitfire aircraft paid for by public subscriptions in Persia. © IWM HU 88793

603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron – an auxiliary squadron defending its home city from RAF Turnhouse – claimed the first German aircraft to be shot down by an RAF fighter over British territory in WW2 on that very day. At about 14:45, Red Section under Flt. Lt. “Patsy” Gifford fatally damaged a Ju-88 bomber near Cockenzie. The German aircraft, from squadron KG30, crashed into the Forth 4 miles offshore. The Cockenzie fishing boat Dayspring, skippered by John Dickson, rescued the crew. They admitted that they were reluctant at first to do so, but they were sailors foremost and overcame their misgivings to help those in peril on the sea.

Flt. Lt. Pat “Patsy” Gifford on landing at Turnhouse after shooting down the Ju-88. His Spitfire was called “Stickleback”. He was back up in the air within minutes after refuelling and reloading.

Rear gunner OGefr. Kramer had been killed before the plane crashed and was never found, but pilot OLt. Hans Storp and crewmen Hugo Rohnke and Hans Georg Heilscher were saved and sent to the military hospital at Edinburgh Castle, the first German military prisoners in Britain of WW2. The grateful Storp gave his gold ring to John Dickson in thanks for his life.

Left to Right, Storp, Rohnke, Helischer in Edinburgh Castle.

Earlier that morning, at 09:30, the “Chain Home” radar station at Drone Hill in Berwick shire had identified two enemy aircraft approaching over the North Sea. At 10:21, Flt. Lt. George Pinkerton of 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron became the first RAF fighter pilot to attack a German aircraft over Britain when his Spitfire engaged and damaged a He-111 bomber over the Isle of May. This aircraft – one of two from squadron KG26 – had been on a reconnaissance flight to photograph the naval dockyard at Rosyth and was chased east out to sea where it evaded its pursuers, returning safely home. 602 Squadron had been redeployed eastwards to defend Edinburgh and the Forth and had been based out of RAF Drem in East Lothian for just 3 days.

George Pinkerton, later Group Captain, OBE, DFC.

A confused game of cat and mouse now commenced between the RAF and Luftwaffe all along the East Coast of Scotland for much of the morning and early afternoon as attempts were made to intercept sporadic German incursions. The radar sets failed to work properly and broke down, phantom raiders were reported by the public and the ground controllers got their calculations back to front and sent the defending fighters in the wrong directions.

602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron mechanics prepare a Spitfire for flight at RAF Drem under the watchful eye of the pilot. Notice the non-regulation mess room chair being used as a stepladder. © IWM HU 106303

That afternoon the weather was good – clear skies with only broken cloud. At 14:20, the Royal Observer Corps, trained ground spotters whose job was to identify and report enemy aircraft over land, confirmed the presence of Ju-88 bombers in East Lothian. These were 12 aircraft commanded by Haupt. Helmuth Pohle of squadron KG30 and had been sent on a mission to attack the Royal Navy at Rosyth, based on the reports from the morning reconnaissance flight that George Pinkerton and 602 Squadron had intercepted. Once again, those Spitfires were scrambled to meet the raiders. At 14:27, the anti aircraft battery at Dalmeny reported the bombers flying up the Forth. The attackers had been forbidden to attack the Dockyard itself for fear of civilian casualties, so aimed for the ships anchored in the Firth. While the gunners frantically phoned for permission to open fire, the bombs began to fall.

The German bombs begin to fall over the Forth Bridge from The Illustrated London News, 28th October 1939

The first wave of attackers targeted the cruiser HMS Southampton. At 14:35, the 500kg bombs fell around the ship but missed; however two of her boats that had been anchored alongside, including the Admiral’s personal barge, were sunk. At 14:38 – three minutes after the start of the attack – the orders for the defenders to open fire were given and every anti-aircraft gun on land and on ships that could be brought to bare opened up. At the same time, the next wave of attackers, those led by OLt. Hans Storp, arrived. They approached from the south over Threipmuir Reservoir and commenced their bombing run.

Atmospheric but sensationalised reporting of the attack on HMS Southampton (with HMS Edinburgh behind her) from The Illustrated London News, 28th October 1939

By now, both 602 (City of Glasgow) and 603 (City of Edinburgh) squadrons were in the air. Yellow Section of 603 attacked Storp and put his port engine out of action. The plane limped towards East Lothian out to sea, in a futile attempt to escape, which was where Red Section under Patsy Gifford brought it down. The victorious 603 were now ordered to return to Turnhouse to re-arm and re-fuel, leaving the defence in the hands of 602 Squadron. Blue Section, under George Pinkerton, spotted the aircraft of Helmuth Pohle over Inverkeithing and gave chase through the broken cloud. Pinkerton and his wing-man Archie McKellar attacked, killing two of the German machine’s crew and incapacitating both its engines. It headed for the sea near Crail and ditched three miles off of Fife Ness. The time was somewhere between 14:45 and 14:55, the Observer Corps putting the crash at the latter time, but McKellar and Pinkerton are credited with gaining the “first kill” before Patsy Gifford in some chronologies.

Archie McKellar, from Cuthbert Orde – Pilots of Fighter Command, book, 1942

The events of October 16th had not yet concluded however. About 25 minutes after Pohle’s machine crashed, another Ju-88 bomber appeared over the outer reaches of the Forth. It had escaped interception up to this point as the ground observers had initially thought it to be a friendly Bristol Blenheim (an easy mistake, as the two were somewhat similar and the Ju-88 was a brand new aircraft and almost totally unseen by British eyes this early in the war). It found the destroyer HMS Mohawk off of the fishing village of Elie & Earlsferry and attacked; dropping its bombs and firing its machine guns at the ship.

HMS Mohawk under attack, from The Illustrated London News, 28th October 1939

By the time it was chased off by one of 602 Squadron’s Spitfires, 13 men including First Lieutenant E. J. Shea had been killed. Her captain, Commander Richard Jolly, was fatally wounded but refused to abandon his post and brought his ship safely back to Rosyth before dying a few hours later. In total 16 men from the Mohawk would lose their lives that day.

“Commander R. F. Jolly in uniform”, by Hubert Andrew Freeth. © IWM ART LD 157

The last of the raiders that day appeared in ones and twos across the Lothians around 16:00 and were chased across the Forth, RAF Turnhouse, Edinburgh, Leith and Portobello by the Spitfires of 603 Squadron, but to no avail. Minor injuries were caused across the city from broken glass as bullets fired in the sky came down to earth and painter Joe McLuskie, working on a house in Abercorn Terrace, Portobello, was hit in the stomach and had to undergo emergency surgery in Leith Hospital. The raid had also claimed its first animal victim of the air war over Britain when Lady, a spaniel belonging to Mrs Mercer of Alma Street in Inverkeithing, was struck by shrapnel from falling “friendly” anti-aircraft shells and had to be put down as a result. The noise of the bombs and guns had panicked the animal and it had run off into the street.

Off of Crail, a fishing boat hauled four ditched German airmen from the sea. Crewmen Kurt Seydel and August Schleicher were already dead, Kurt Naake was mortally wounded and would not survive, leaving pilot Helmuth Pohle – nursing a broken jaw – as the sole survivor. He was sent to the naval hospital in Port Edgar. The bodies of Seydel and Schleicher lay in state at St. Phillip’s Church in Portobello, their coffins draped in Swastika flags, and were buried with military honours observed by a respectful turnout of locals at Portobello Cemetery. The proceedings were led by Henry Steel, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and many men from both 602 and 603 Squadrons were in attendance with the pipe band of 603 providing a musical lament. The pair were re-interred in a German military cemetery in England after the war.

The funeral cortège of Seydel and Schleicher proceeds along Brunstane Road

Both Patsy Gifford and George Pinkerton would receive the Distinguished Flying Cross award for their efforts that day. Gifford, a reservist who was in peacetime a lawyer and town councillor from Castle Douglas, was sent to command 3 Squadron RAF in November 1939. He was shot down and killed over Belgium in May 1940.

Commemorative plaque dedicated to Pat Douglas in 2010. Photo by Paul Goodwin, from IWM collection 69507

Gifford and Pinkerton both have claims to their “first”. However neither claimed either the first British or first RAF aerial victories of the war. On September 26th 1939, Lt. Cdr. Bruce S. McEwen of 803 Squadron Fleet Air Arm and flying from HMS Ark Royal (therefore a Royal Navy aviator and not in the RAF) shot down a German Do-18 flying boat over the North Sea off Norway, the first British aerial victory of the way. The below photo was taken by the destroyer HMS Somali when they rescued its crew.

German Do-18 aircraft as the crew scramble into the liferaft before being rescued by HMS Somali.

Another Do-18 would become the first German aircraft brought down by an RAF aircraft flying from the British mainland, was claimed by a Lockheed Hudson patrol aircraft of 224 Squadron Coastal Command out of RAF Leuchars on 8th October. The Hudson, actually a modified American airliner and intended to be a bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, proved to have a surprising capability as a long range fighter in the early part of the war.

A damaged Lockheed Hudson of 224 Squadron on its return to Wick from a sortie over Norway. © IWM CH 46

And two weeks after 602 Squadron’s Pinkerton and McKellar brought Helmuth Pohle’s war to a premature end off of Crail, Archie McKellar shot down an He-111 bomber of squadron KG26, flown by Uffz. Kurt Lehmkuhl over East Lothian. This was the first RAF victory that brought down a plane over land, the machine making a crash landing in the Lammermuir hills near Humbie.

Heinkel He-111 of KG26, flown by Lehmkuhl, after it crashed near HumbieHeinkel He-111 of KG26, flown by Lehmkuhl, after it crashed near Humbie

Another He-111 was shot down by 602 Squadron out of RAF Drem on February 9th 1940, with Squadron Leader Douglas Farquar bringing it down in a field just outside North Berwick.

He-111 “1H + EN” crashed in a field outside North Berwick

This was the first chance for British intelligence to get a close up look of such a machine in a flyable condition and it was therefore partially dismantled and towed away for onwards transport to the Boffins down south. The plane was put back together, repaired, and commissioned into the RAF as part of the “Rafwaffe” of captured machines. Here it is seen going down Dirleton Avenue in North Berwick to the bemusement of onlookers.

The North Berwick Heinkel being towed down Dirleton Avenue

Remarkably, there’s a colour cine film of it going down Musselburgh High Street, exciting much local interest, on its way to RAF Turnhouse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwhXwLhWDEc

Hans Storp’s Ju-88 would suffer the misfortune of being the first pilot and aircraft to be shot down twice in the war, when in December 1939 a re-enactment of his last flight took place for the propaganda film “Squadron 992“. An RAF Bristol Blenheim (which the observers had confused with the German Ju-88 back in October) stood in for the German machine on this occasion. The Cockenzie fisherman John Dickson, his crew, and their boat the Dayspring reprised their roles from that day and played themselves for the cameras.

The crew of the Dayspring “rescuing” the German airmen. Still from Squadron 992

You can watch the film Squadron 992 on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XycuXAtLyo4

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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Last voyage of the battlecruiser “Moltke”: the thread about how a German warship almost destroyed the Forth Bridge

On a recent (2022) trip to Orkney we visited the excellent and newly refurbished Scapa Flow museum and I bought a fascinating book on the subject of the internment, scuttling and salvage of the German Hocheseeflotte – the Imperial German Navy’s “High Seas Fleet” , after WW1. (The author, Dan Van Der Vat, is very readable, being a journalist by trade.) So naturally I’ve managed to find an exciting and little known of local history angle to this.

The SMS Moltke (Seiner Majestät Schiff, His Majesty’s Ship) was a 25,000 ton battlecruiser of the Imperial German Navy. She was 612 feet long, 96.5 feet wide, could make 25.5 knots on the 51,000 horsepower produced by her engines and was armed with ten 11 inch guns in five turrets. Battlecruisers were the pride of contemporary fleets, as well armed as the main battleships but able to reach the sort of speeds usually reserved for smaller ships. Big, well armed and fast, Moltke was every bit the equal for her Royal Navy equivalents.

Moltke in New York, 1912

At the end of the war the Hocheseeflotte was still largely materially intact, but organisation and discipline was another matter. It was forced under the terms of Armistice by the Allies into a humiliating internment under the watchful eye of the Royal Navy. It had been hoped by the Germans that the fleet would be dispersed to neutral ports but instead it ended up imprisoned in the bleak confines of Scapa Flow, the principal wartime anchorage of the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet. Its remaining ships arrived at Scapa after a rendezvous with the Grand Fleet in the Firth of Forth, from where it was escorted into a miserable internment.

The German Fleet at Anchor off Inchkeith, Firth of Forth: After the Surrender, IWM ART 1926

The German ships were disarmed and made incapable of war or even escape, but legally they remained the property of the German state. They were supplied by German provision ships sent by the German government from German ports. Although their crews were not officially prisoners, they were not allowed to leave the confines of their ships and no British personnel were allowed aboard apart from small official delegations pertaining to the administrative niceties of exile. As the signing of the Treaty of Versailles approached, the German Admiral in charge at Scapa – Ludwig Von Reuter – found himself in an impossible position.

Vizeadmiral Hans Hermann Ludwig von Reuter

Von Reuter was caught between the national honour of the Prussian officer class; his mutinous and non-compliant crews; British belligerence and overwhelming Allied political pressure. His fear, not without reasonable, was that the British would try and seize the German fleet on the signing of the treaty. He gathered around him a select circle of loyal officers and right under the nose of the watchful Royal Navy and his own suspicious and resentful sailors, managed to organise a mass scuttling of almost his entire fleet.

The battleship Bayern sinking in Scapa Flow, the same image as used on the cover of Dan Van Der Vat’s book.

On 21st June 1919 the conspirators managed to scuttle fifteen of the sixteen battleships and battlecruisers, five of the eight fleet cruisers and thirty-two of the fifty destroyers at Scapa. The cream of the German Navy was turned into the half a million tons of scrap metal on the seabed in a matter of hours. Publicly the British were furious (the Royal Navy doubly so as it had been totally humiliated), but Von Reuter had actually done everyone involved a favour and simplified negotiations over the fate of the fleet – If the German Navy lay at the bottom of Scapa Flow then nobody could have it: not the British, the Germans, the French, the Americans or even the Italians.

Seydlitz on her side in Scapa Flow

Scapa Flow was now littered with over fifty German wrecks in various states of submersion, posing quite the navigation hazard – as demonstrated ably by the government whaler Ramna which got stuck fast on top of the capsized hull of the Moltke. The world soon moved on from the scuttling as shattered countries sought to begin rebuilding themselves post war.

The Admiralty whaler Ramna, high and dry on the Moltke’s partially submerged hull

Enterprising locals (often unofficially) stripped what they could access above waterline for scrap until an enterprising Shetland shipowner and councillor – J. W. Roberston – proved that you could salvage wrecks from underwater and brought a number of torpedo boats ashore for their scrap value. Enter now stage left the enterprising, irrepressible and energetic figure of Ernest Frank Guelph Cox. Cox was a self made engineer and metal dealer from the Midlands who had the vision to believe he could access and salvage the five hundred thousand tons of best German steel located at the bottom of Scapa Flow. Now that the price of scrap metal had started to rise after the immediate postwar slump, his backers believed that it would now be financially worthwhile.

Ernest F. Cox, from the book Cox’s Navy by Tony Booth

Cox’s business partner in his firm – Cox & Danks – was his cousin, the capital behind the operation. Together they bought the rights to salvage the Hocheseeflotte from the Admiralty and set to work at Scapa in the mid 1920s. Cox had the foresight to hire Tom McKenzie, a Glaswegian naval salvage diver who would pretty much write the book on naval salvage diving.

Tom McKenzie

Although all involved were practical, skilled and experienced men, they were starting from almost nothing and had to largely invent, improvise and improve all the required techniques for marine salvage on this scale. Overcoming setback after setback, they were driven along by Cox’s indefatigable determination and Danks’ deep pockets. They made rapid progress and the first torpedo boat – V70 – was raised after less than 2 months work in 1924. Moving on to the next boat and then the next one after that, they honed their techniques and were soon raising ships at a rapid rate. Within two years, all twenty six torpedo boats that Cox had the rights to take had been raised.

Salvaging a destroyer

Cox now turned his attention to the big ships on the bottom, the battleships and battlecruisers. In May 1926 he started on the SMS Hindenburg, but even though she reached the surface the operation proved a disaster and she had to be quickly resunk. The precarious situation of the salvagers at Scapa was saved by the discovery of huge stocks of coal in the bunkers of SMS Seydlitz; it was found these could be accessed and “mined” from the surface and this free source of fuel tided the operations over. Cox now set his sights on the Moltke. The basic technique was relatively simple. Divers were sent down to plug the holes in the hull and it was pumped full of compressed air, displacing the water aboard. As it leaked and bubbled out through the holes that had been missed, these two were plugged. Eventually air could be pumped in quicker than it escaped and slowly the hull would start to float.

Salvage at Scapa. Cox’s men, aboard the deck of a partially raised destroyer, man the pumps filling the hull with compressed air.

I say relatively, in practice it was tremendously difficult and verging on the impossible. They were working at – or beyond – the limits of contemporary diving skills and technology. Conditions were harsh and the environment of Scapa Flow was unforgiving as any British sailor ever sent there would attest, but Cox’ determination and McKenzie’s skill drove them forwards. The Germans had efficiently and effectively wrecked the watertight integrity of the ships’ inner bulkheads so before they could be raised in a controlled manner, divers had to go in and restore it by welding and plugging any gaps they could find. To make this possible, airlocks – like huge submarine chimneys – were built down into each compartment. From these, divers could access the innards and get to work under intense air pressure, working upside down on ships encased in marine slime, often in complete darkness.

These jaunty cylinders breaching the surface of Scapa Flow are the air lock towers, reaching down to the sunken ship below

Cox was a bit of a showman, always on site and always hands on. His men respected him and the press loved him. He made sure the latter were around whenever anything interesting was happening. The Scotsman filed almost weekly progress reports on the salvage of the Moltke.

• October 21, 1926. Compressed air pumping operations commence on the hull of the Moltke.
• December 10, 1926. Moltke is rising unevenly and the divers are forced to sink her in case she is caught by the winter gales.
• Feb. 15, 1927. Work restarts after winter storms, the first airlock is fitted and almost 100 men are at work on the Moltke.
• Feb. 24, 1927. The difficulties are described of working in a 15PSI atmosphere where cutting torches burn up the oxygen as fast as it can be pumped in
• May 30, 1927. Work resumes again after 2 months of gales. A disaster is narrowly avoided when the wrong valve is closed and compressed air rushes through the ship from stern to bow, blowing the 16 divers at work inside through the ship with it.
• June 13, 1927. Cox has the Pathé newsreel men on site to witness the triumph of the Moltke breaching the surface in a controlled manner and refloating after 8 years on the seabed.

June 13th 1927, Moltke breaches the surface and stays there. Cox and his men are triumphant

But don’t just look at those grainy thumbnails, watch the whole clip on the Pathe website! Over the next four months the refloated Moltke was painstakingly winched towards Cox & Danks’ salvage base at Lyness on the island of Hoy, narrowly avoiding grounding on the island of Cava when one of her big 11 inch guns fouled the seabed and had to be cut free. They begin cutting her up in situ but it soon becomes obvious that the isolated shores of Scapa Flow were the wrong place to do this and made little economic sense. Cox therefore convinced the Admiralty to lease him the No. 3 Dry Dock at Rosyth Royal Dockyard, the largest and most modern in Scotland.

Dragging the upturned Moltke to Lyness

He then sold on the scrapping rights to the Alloa Shipbreaking Company, who would undertake the actual dismantling work at Rosyth, thus leaving him free to concentrate on the dark arts of salvage. But the problem still remained as to how to get the beached and upside-down hulk of Moltke 250 miles south to Rosyth. The only solution was to refloat it and tow it there – a hard enough task if it didn’t include having to transit the Pentland Firth with its infamous tidal currents, some of the fastest in the world. Undaunted, Cox set to work. The ship was lightened of thousands of tons of steel such as propellers and shafts, armour plate etc., and her hull was patched up with concrete where they had started to demolish it.

Getting Moltke ready for sea at Scapa

Refloated for the journey, two shelters were built on her “deck”, actually the upturned bottom; one with accommodation for the eight crew who would make the journey (including Cox himself), the other with enough pumps to keep her full of compressed air. Lifeboats were thoughtfully included too. By May 18th, Moltke was ready to go. Controversially at the time, both in Britain and in Germany, the three tugs that were chartered to take her on her final voyage were German, including the Seefalke – the most powerful in the world – the Posen and the Simson.

The unlikely shape of the upside down Moltke, with Simsun and Seefalke lashed to her sides. The third tug could pull from the front or stern to provide better directional control.

For good measure, on board was also one William Mowat, the coxswain of the Longhope Lifeboat, probably the only man in the world qualified to pilot the wallowing hulk out of Scapa and safely past Duncansby Head.

William Mowat and the crew of the Longhope lifeboat. “Bill” Mowat is middle row, 2nd from left. © Orkney Image Library, 10060

Despite Mowat’s presence, disaster was soon upon them when the weather got up. The three tugs could not make headway against the wind and current and Moltke started going backwards though the Pentland Firth, rolling by up to 13.5 degrees. She lost 6 feet of her precious freeboard as the compressed air bubbles within that kept her afloat leaked out due to the constant rocking and pitching motions. The pumps could not keep up and she was slowly sinking. Salvation came with the tides themselves, which inevitably turned and speedily ejected the battlecruiser and her three attendants out of the Firth.

After this literally rocky start, things calmed down and the pumps were able to refill the air bubbles and lift the hull back out of the sea again. With the tugs now making headway the close call was soon forgotten about and Cox the showman had the crew play a makeshift game of cricket on the deck for the press. I think he is the man umpiring at the back, in the pullover with his hands behind his back.

All calm on the deck of the Moltke © Orkney Library

The rest of the journey to the Firth of Forth proceeded calmly and according to plan and by May 21st she was off Granton. The last manoeuvre required of the tugs was to get her safely under the Forth Bridge and into the Rosyth basin. And this is where things start to go wrong. Again.

This time it was down to petty officialdom. The Forth Pilot arrived from Granton and tried to take command. He was joined shortly afterwards by the Admiralty pilot from Rosyth. A standoff now ensued as the civil and military opposite numbers argued over who had the rights to pilot the Moltke up the Firth. Neither was willing to back down and the set to kept on going, as did the changing tide and currents of the Firth. Gradually, so to did Moltke herself, gently easing her way inevitably upstream. Before the situation could be resolved, they found themselves coming upon Inchgarvie island; the very rock on which the piers of the bridge was built. And the newsmen from Pathé were there to film it all!

One of tugs found itself grounded on Inchgarvie…

Moltke approaches Inchgarvie

The Seefalke, attached at the back and in charge of providing steerage then drifted around the wrong side of the island and had to cut the tow. Moltke was now at the mercy of the currents, with two tugs lashed to her, one being dragged along the bottom, and with no ability to manoeuvre their charge.

Seefalke stands off

Now totally out of control, Moltke spun through 90 degrees and drifted sideways down the Firth towards the bridge, dragging the helpless tugs along with her. All twenty three thousand or so tons of her was now heading broadside towards the central piers of the bridge, those which rose directly out of the water itself. All the while, trains rattled to and fro overhead with little idea what was unfolding below them.

Moltke floats down the Firth towards the bridge

If you watch the remarkable clip, you can see Moltke drifting beam-on towards the bridge as a train goes by overhead. Somebody must have been saying their prayers onboard though, as somehow the tugs lashed to Moltke‘s hull managed to position the 612 feet wide floating wrecking ball perfectly between the piers and Inchgarvie, narrowly avoiding disaster.

Safely under the bridge and back under control.

The Seefalke was now able to get a line across and bring the hulk under control, steering her gingerly towards the safety of Rosyth. The watching press were blissfully unaware how close disaster had been, the Scotsman reported “a wonderful piece of navigation and most successfully performed“. However, if you look closely at the footage, Moltke approaches the bridge stern first (with her 4 propeller supports leading the way) but passes through it bow-first (with the big notch cut out from initial breaking up leading). The big battlecruiser had done a 180 degree pirouette while passing under the bridge!

Nothing to see here!

Moltke was edged finally towards the channel into No. 3 Dry Dock but Cox couldn’t yet breathe a sigh of relief; first he has to get the ship into the dock, as his contract stipulates he won’t get paid by the Alloa Shipbreaking Co. until she is in and the dock is drained.

Moltke approaches the gate of No. 3 Dry Dock

But this last step will be no small feat – there is just a one day window on the highest spring tide to get the upside down hulk into dock. Ships usually go in the right way up of course, but the inverted Moltke is drawing 41 feet of water at her deepest, 25% more than she would otherwise, and the dock gate had a lip that reduces the depth of the water to only 38 feet! But this was Cox and he was undaunted – by an incredibly skilful act of pumping compressed air in at one end and letting it out at another, and then reversing the process, he was able to “hop” the deepest part of the ship over the dock lip and get her safely in with the gates shut.

But on the brink of final triumph, once again officialdom almost screwed everything up for Cox. With Moltke bobbing in the waters of the still flooded dock, the supervisor stepped in and disagreed about how to support the upside down ship on the dock floor. He had a point – ships didn’t normally go into dock with their pointy-bits facing down the way. There were all sorts of projections beneath the hull that might damage the critical national infrastructure that he was in charge of. Of course the Admiralty should have worked this all out with Cox before they signed over the use of the dock to him. A frantic phonecall to Whitehall couldn’t resolve things so Cox jumped straight on the first train south to thrash it out in person. Ironically to do so he first had to pass over the bridge he very nearly demolished only a few hours previously. In London an agreement was reached and he was back the next day, 28th May, to get his men to work shoring up the hull with baulks of timber.

Then dock was then slowly drained and the ship finally came to rest on the bottom. It was June 5th as the last of the water was pumped; Cox had finally won. He had raised a 23,000 ton ship from the seabed that had spent 8 years submerged – twice! -, beached it, refloated it, sailed it 250 miles through the treacherous Pentland Firth and squeezed it upside down into a dry dock into which it shouldn’t have fitted and all without demolishing one of the most important structures in the western world!

Moltke high and dry in the dock

The Alloa men could now get to work and on September 13th 1928 set about cutting up the pride of the Hocheseeflotte into thousands of tons of valuable scrap metal.

Moltke being cut up

Cox would go on to salvage every ship he could from the bottom of Scapa Flow giving up eight years later and £10,000 worse off than when he began. For all his drive and determination, his financial skills were somewhat lacking and his pioneering methods proved inefficient and just never paid back. Other Scottish businessmen, including those of Alloa Shipbreakers and salvage diver Tom Mckenzie, then formed Metal Industries Ltd to carry on were Cox left off. With more efficient, refined techniques and more sensible business practices, their venture would pay off in a big way.

The salvage of the Kaiserin by Metal Industries in 1936. Sealed and pumped full of compressed air, the ship breaches the surface, air locks and all. From the Illustrated London News.

The last Scapa ship raised by Metal Industries was SMS Derfflinger. Another war intervened in this venture and she spent WW2 beached and upside down, alongside the disarmed old battleship HMS Iron Duke, HQ ship at Scapa, which during WW1 had faced off against the Hocheseeflotte at the Battle of Jutland. The salvage men aboard Derfflinger would save the Iron Duke after she was nearly sunk in an air raid early in the war. Derfflinger was floated into a submersible dry dock and towed to Faslane after the war for scrapping.

Derfflinger enters Faslane, the last of the German battleships from Scapa to be scrapped

One of Metal Industries’ many improvements on the salvage process was to rapidly sink the ship as soon as they had raised it, to crush and concertina the protruding superstructure up inside the hull, removing most of the underwater obstructions that plagued Cox. It is praiseworthy that the basic salvage techniques pioneered by Cox and McKenzie, and refined by Metal Industries, are still those that are in use today.

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