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A team of international divers including academics from the University of Dundee and Newcastle University have taken advantage of recent exceptional weather and special permission to capture new images of two of Scapa Flow’s protected warship wrecks in spectacular detail.

The project is being delivered by the Scapa 100 Initiative, working closely with Huskyan Charters under licence from the Ministry of Defence. The team regularly survey Orkney wrecks and have said they are delighted to be collaborating with the Scapa Flow Museum and the National Museum of the Royal Navy on this project.

The iconic WW1 cruiser Hampshire, built in 1903, was lost in 15 minutes after striking a German mine off Marwick Head on Orkney’s north-west coast on 5 June, 1916. No more than a dozen of the 749 crew survived, and among the dead was Britain’s war minister, Lord Kitchener.

It had been Kitchener’s face on the famous wartime recruitment posters: “In 1916, he was probably as well-known across the empire as King George V,” says the Royal Navy. 

The field marshal had been leading a delegation to Russia in support of the Eastern Front, and his death came less than a week after the navy had failed to deliver a “second Trafalgar” at Jutland. “Together, the two events shook public and political confidence in the Senior Service,” says the RN. 

HMS Vanguard was a Dreadnought battleship assigned to Britain’s Home and Grand Fleets. She saw action in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and much of her career was spent on North Sea patrol until, on 9 July, 1917, a series of magazine explosions sank her almost instantly, killing all but two of the 845 men onboard.

The wreck, which lies in around 34m, was protected as a war grave in 1984, though by this time it had already been heavily salvaged for non-ferrous metals. Like HMS Hampshire, however, it remains a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act, meaning that diving is normally forbidden.

With MoD permission the Hampshire, which is inverted at a maximum depth of 68m, has been partially salvaged. One of its propellers is on display at Scapa Flow Museum, which celebrates the RN having made Scapa Flow its principal base through both world wars. It is now set to use the newly captured imagery to display enhanced digital 3D models of the Hampshire and Vanguard.

The divers carried out the latest studies “with great care and professionalism”, according to the museum’s culture team manager Nick Hewitt. “The end result will be an improved digital resource for visitors to the museum and one which helps tell the story of Orkney’s role in the world wars as the UK’s key naval base – and the immense losses borne out here,” he said.

Currently one of five museums shortlisted as the best of 2023, Scapa Flow Museum on the island of Hoy recently signed a collaborative deal with the National Museum of the Royal Navy to clear the way for diving to take place over official war graves.

“The study of wrecks is important in understanding the events around their loss, which are sometimes obscure,” commented the national museum’s director-general Prof Dominic Tweddle. “Orkney Islands Council does an exemplary job in protecting the many wrecks in their care and we are delighted to support them.”

“More than 100 years has passed since both these disasters, and Scapa Flow is no longer heaving with naval vessels – but this work will help ensure the scale of the losses are sensitively retold and remembered,” said Cllr Gwenda Shearer, describing the survey work as being of “national significance”.

Also on Divernet: Scapa Flow 100 History & Wrecks, Above 18m: Shallow wreck-dive in Scapa, Above 18m: Wrecks of Churchill Barrier II, Pilgrimage to Scapa Flow, Dive Scapa Flow

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