HMS Royal Oak was a
Revenge-class battleship of the
Royal Navy. Launched in 1914 and completed in 1916,
Royal Oak first saw action at the
Battle of Jutland. In peacetime, she served in the
Atlantic,
Home and
Mediterranean fleets, more than once coming under accidental attack. The ship drew worldwide attention in 1928 when her senior officers were
court-martialled. Attempts to modernise
Royal Oak throughout a 25-year career could not fix her fundamental lack of speed, and by the start of the
Second World War, she was no longer suited to front-line duty. On 14 October 1939,
Royal Oak was anchored at
Scapa Flow in
Orkney, Scotland, when she was torpedoed by the German
submarine U-47. The ship rolled and sank rapidly, taking with her 833 from a complement of 1,234. The loss of the obsolete vessel little affected the numerical superiority of the British navy and its
allies, but had a considerable effect on wartime morale. The raid made an immediate celebrity and
war hero out of the U-boat commander,
Günther Prien, who became the first submarine officer in the German
Kriegsmarine to be awarded the
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The wreck of
Royal Oak is a protected
war grave, and lies almost upside down in shallow water with her upturned hull just beneath the surface. In an annual ceremony to mark the loss of the ship, Royal Navy divers place a
White Ensign underwater at her stern. (
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