Night the Germans sank Plymouth's mighty Royal Oak

ON THE night of October 13, 1939 the crew of Devonport-built battleship HMS Royal Oak were enjoying the calm before the storm.

World War Two was six weeks old, but so far the conflict was remote, on land in eastern Europe, where the German army had seized Poland, and out at sea in the Atlantic where their submarines – U-boats – had sunk merchant ships.

The Royal Oak was safely at anchor in the Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, the Royal Navy's wartime base.

The mood was relaxed and as calm as the sea. The watertight hatches were not secure, no small boats were on patrol.

A few hours earlier, 18-year-old seaman Jack Wood had been penning a reassuring letter to his family.

"Don't worry about me," he wrote. "You would not think there is a war on where I am, everything is quiet."

The crew felt so secure because Scapa was protected from submarine attack by a network of impregnable barriers.

But just after 1am the next day, Royal Oak was rocked by a huge explosion. Then another. And another.

The ship listed, rolled and sank within minutes, killing 833 crew.

The 'impossible' had happened. A U-boat had penetrated the defences of Scapa Flow and sunk a Royal Navy battleship.

As the 29,000-ton monster was shaken by the explosions, the scenes inside were horrific.

The lighting failed. The only illumination came from raging fires.

In a magazine, cordite, the propellant for the Royal Oak's shells, caught fire sending jets of brilliant orange flame roaring through every opening, incinerating anything and anyone in its path.

There was no time to launch lifeboats. Men dived 30 feet off the ship's side into the sea; others, trapped below the waterline, escaped through portholes, desperately kicking towards the surface.

The water was bitterly cold and covered in oil from the Royal Oak's tanks. It was like 'swimming through liquid tar', said one survivor.

Some died of exposure, some of injuries from the fires and explosions, others drowned or choked on the oil.

A few made it nearly a mile to the shore. And, amazingly, 386 were saved from the sea by the Daisy 2, a craft just 100 feet long.

The shock wave was felt throughout Britain. A great ship in the Royal Navy, the world's most powerful fleet, had been sunk in home waters by the enemy. There was horror, too, at the loss of so many young lives, some barely out of school. At that stage, boy sailors from 15 years upwards went into battle and this was the greatest loss of such young lives – 120 died on the Royal Oak. Royal Navy policy was changed as a result so that to go into battle sailors had to be 18-plus.

When the news reached Winston Churchill, at the time the First Lord of Admiralty, he wept.

Churchill knew the truth about Scapa from a personal inspection made a few weeks previously. The defences were old and decayed. He had immediately ordered new defences to be built, but the work would take years.

When he stopped crying, Churchill acknowledged the bravery of the enemy. "What a wonderful feat of arms," he said of the U-boat crew.

The courage and achievement of Kapitan-leutnant Gunther Prien and the crew of U-47 was swiftly recognised in Germany. The submarine slipped safely out of Scapa Flow as the Royal Oak sank and returned home where the men enjoyed a parade before adoring thousands in Berlin before having lunch with the German leader, Adolf Hitler.

As Germany celebrated, Britain mourned.

Although Royal Oak was based in Portsmouth, she was the last and largest battleship ever built in Plymouth and started her final journey from Devonport. There were a number of men from the city among her crew. The ship's loss was felt keenly in Plymouth.

Nine-year-old David Turner returned from school on October 14, 1939 to find his mother, Muriel, in tears in the kitchen of their home in Laira.

"She told me, 'I've just heard on the (BBC) Home Service that your Uncle Lennox's ship has been torpedoed'." Two days later official confirmation came that his mother's brother, Commander Ralph Lennox Woodrow-Clark, was dead.

"I promised my mother then that I would visit my uncle's grave," said David. In 2003 he kept that vow, laying a wreath on Lennox's grave at Lyness Naval Cemetery, Orkney.

In the years since David has worked hard to ensure that the story of Royal Oak and her tragic crew is not forgotten. His meticulously researched book on the sinking, Last Dawn, has been released in a new edition to mark the 70th anniversary of the sinking.

He was an adviser to, and appears in, a Sky TV documentary which is being aired tomorrow .

The retired airline pilot is most proud, though, that his research has now been included in the World War Two schools curriculum throughout Britain.

"It is important that we never forget the sacrifices made by that generation," said David, who now lives in Manchester. "Children also need to know what happened to people of their age."

There are the broader lessons of the history of the period, too. "The sinking of the Royal Oak was the first great tragedy experienced by Britain in World War Two," David added.

Today only six survivors remain to keep the memories alive first hand. Among them is Bertie Jonson of Plymouth, now aged 93.

This week, the loss of his 833 shipmates is being marked with a memorial service in Orkney.

Bertie will be travelling to Scotland with his son, but not attending the commemorations as he prefers to keep out of the media spotlight.

Also helping keep memories alive is another Devon man, diver Peter Rowlands, of Ivybridge. The keen amateur has dived the wreck many times, with the permission of the Royal Navy – the Royal Oak is a designated war grave – and made an officially sanctioned commercial video of the story of the loss, including footage of the sunken hulk.

"She is just like a time capsule," said Peter, who runs an online international magazine for divers. "It is incredibly emotional to see her. She is almost completely intact, very daunting – 600 feet long."

Peter has set up an extremely comprehensive website about the Royal Oak and is in Orkney this week, recording the commemorations for the Royal British Legion.

He, too, is fascinated by the Royal Oak story and her place in history.

Royal Oak, launched in 1914, was a veteran of World War One. Although powerful – her 15-inch guns could hurl a 1,900lb shell 18 miles – she was in fact considered vulnerable and slow, despite her motto, Old But Firm.

Her sinking was hailed as coup in Germany, but British losses could have been much, much worse.

Kapitan-leutnant Prien hoped to find a large part of the Royal Navy's Atlantic Fleet, in Scapa, including several more modern and prized battleships. Instead they were at sea.

"The submarine was loaded with torpedoes and packed with explosives," said David Turner. "She was really on a suicide mission, to sink as many ships as possible and then blow herself up taking others with her."

David's book recounts how Prien became the most celebrated U-boat commander of the war, the first to sink 200,000 tons of Allied shipping. He died in March 1941 when U-47 was sunk by a British destroyer.

For a couple of years the U-boats had caused mayhem until the Royal Navy gradually gained the upper hand.

One decisive factor in the ultimate success against the U-boats – and the entire German war machine – was the cracking of the Nazis' secret codes. This was achieved by code breakers at Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, using an Enigma machine captured from a U-boat.

Ironically, one of the team at Bletchley was David's mother, Muriel – who is buried next to one of the first victims of the U-boat menace, her beloved brother, Lennox, at the military cemetery in Orkney.

That was her final wish, which her son had to gain special permission to fulfil after her death in 2007: she was the first civilian ever to be buried in a military grave.

Across the bay, just 15 feet deep at low water, lies the tip of the upturned hull of HMS Royal Oak, the tomb of so many including teenage sailor Jack Wood.

His letter, written hours before the sinking and so full of reassurance for his worried parents, reached his home at the same time as the official notification of his death.

Last Dawn, by David Turner, is published by Argyll at £7.99. The documentary, The Sinking of the Royal Oak, is on History (Sky 529, Virgin 234), at 7pm tomorrow.

Peter Rowlands' website is www.hmsroyaloak.co.uk, where there is a link to extraordinary video footage of U-47's crew returning to a hero's welcome at www.youtube.com/ watch?v>-CtE1naZWcU