Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Under the seas off Northern Europe.

A lost graveyard of mega warships.

JURENS: They were the H-Bombs of the era.

NARRATOR: In 1916 these are among the most powerful weapons ever built.

At the height of the Great War, they stage an epic showdown.

DR. DELGADO: This is a fight to the death.

NARRATOR: But with the evidence lost deep beneath the waves, the battle remains shrouded in mystery.

Until Now.

Imagine if we could empty the oceans, letting the water drain away to reveal the secrets

of the sea floor.

Now we can.

Using the latest underwater scanning technology...

piercing the deep oceans and turning accurate data into three D images.

The battle of Jutland is the greatest naval action of World War One

But which side actually wins?

After the war ends how does a fleet of gigantic battleships simply vanish?

And in world war two, what sink one of the last great Jutland warships

while it's anchored in a safe harbour?

1916. Germany is at war with Britain and her allies.

In the North Sea, two mighty fleets are set to clash in the biggest sea battle of World War One

It will ultimately decide who wins the Great War.

Yet astonishingly, both sides claim victory.

DR. DELGADO: For such a climactic battle Jutland is one that is shrouded in mystery

as well as controversy.

NARRATOR: As the waters begin to drain away do they reveal who really wins the Battle of Jutland?

Danish research vessel VINA is hunting for the ships destroyed in this titanic naval clash.

JELLICOE: So this might be the beginning of a wreck field.

NARRATOR: The crew are using high tech multi-beam sonar scans to do what no-one else has ever attempted.

Uncover the entire Jutland Battlefield.

Solving the mystery of the battle is a personal quest for Nick Jellicoe.

He's the grandson of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, the commander of the British Fleet.

Admiral Jellicoe's mission is to destroy the German Imperial Navy.

And help win World War One.

JELLICOE: The burden of command that sat on my Grandfather's shoulders that day was huge.

All their lives depended on what he was going to do.

NARRATOR: Jellicoe commands the most powerful fleet in history, and it's facing its biggest test.

PROF. GROVE: Jutland is the ultimate clash of battleships and battle cruisers.

Perhaps the sort of ultimate warships ever built in terms of their military sex appeal.

NARRATOR: Before the First Worl War, Britain and Germany are locked in a dangerous arms race

Spending billions on ever large and more powerful battleships.

Each hopes to intimidate the other.

But it only inflames the tensions between them.

DR. DELGADO: Ultimately what this naval arms race leads to is war.

NARRATOR: There is only one survivor from this age of naval giants The USS Texas.

The length of this mega ship, is equivalent to the height of a fifty storey skyscraper.

JURENS: These ships were the ultimate weapons.

When you had one of these there was nothing that was more powerful.

NARRATOR: Weighing in at twenty seven thousand tonnes, the USS Texas is a Dreadnought type

battleship like many of the ships that fight at Jutland.

JURENS: The thing that makes this so enormously impressive is the technology that went in to making it.

The complicated engines, the hugely capable guns.

All of this in an enormous hull.

Much larger than any ship that had been built before.

NARRATOR: These massive fourteen inch guns are among the biggest on the high seas.

JURENS: Texas had ten of them.

If you're within range it will punch through 12 inches of armour.

NARRATOR: When war breaks out i nineteen fourteen, at first neither Britain nor Germany

dare risk losing their massivel expensive fleets in a head to head confrontation.

They finally clash in a titanic battle at Jutland in 1916.

Using the data collected by the Vina it's now possible to do something that no historian

or archaeologist has been able to attempt before. Drain away the waters of the North Sea

to reveal the remains of the greatest sea battle of World War One.

As the seawater flows away, a haunted world slowly emerges.

The smashed wrecks of the Ultimate Battleships.

Broken twisted debris from not one but dozens of warships.

Across a huge area, five thousand square miles.

May 31st, 1916.

The German fleet sets out on a secret mission.

Their plan is to locate, attack and destroy a small part of the British Grand Fleet.

PROF. GROVE: The British Grand Fleet is vastly superior to the German High Sea Fleet,

both numerically, and also in terms of gun power.

NARRATOR: The Germans under Admiral Scheer have less than a hundred warships compared

to the Royal Navy's one hundred and fifty.

PROF. GROVE: Scheer's original plan was to come out with his fleet,

run parallel to the Danish coast, Jutland, and hopefully come across some British ships

in the numbers that he can deal with.

NARRATOR: By heading out, the Germans are setting a trap for the British.

Only then will they attack.

PROF. GROVE: All they can do is hope to wear down the British Grand Fleet in a series of

engagements, to a point where perhaps the two sides might be more even in numbers.

NARRATOR: The German's have been preparing their strategy in secret.

DR. DELGADO: For the Germans this battle is "der Tag" - it's 'The Day'.

NARRATOR: But the British have a trap of their own.

They've cracked the secret radio codes ordering the Germans into action.

The Royal Navy mobilise one hundred and fifty one ships in two battle groups.

DR. DELGADO: For the British this is an opportunity to crush the Kaiser's fleet and win the war at sea.

NARRATOR: The Germans don't kno it yet but their ninety nine ships are heading exactly

where the British want them.

It should be an easy victory for the Royal Navy.

Around four thirty pm on May 31st, the two fleets sight each other and the Germans open fire

Over the next twelve hours Jutland becomes the biggest sea battle of world war one.

But what exactly happens is still shrouded in mystery.

Even on the day itself, neither side knows the precise movements of the other.

In the days before modern satellite Navigation, no-one knows their exact positions.

Both sides are running blind.

To send and receive orders, the use flags, but that doesn't wor when the visibility is poor.

JELLICOE: There are thick fog banks.

There's funnel smoke all over the battlefield.

There's even chemical smoke screens being laid down.

NARRATOR: VINA is using the sonar scans to pinpoint the exact position of one

of the early casualties of the battle the ironically named HMS Invincible.

JELLICOE: Goodness me what are these?

Could this be a gun? MAN: Yeah you can see the gun.

JELLICOE: One of the barrels. MAN: It's upside down.

NARRATOR: First they locate two gun turrets.

But where is the ship they come from?

JELLICOE: Look at this! Look at this!

I think we've found something here.

NARRATOR: It's now possible to drain the waters of the North Sea,

not only revealing the wreck of invincible, but also evidence o the explosive violence of its final moments.

Over seventeen thousand tons of high grade steel.

Armour plating six inches thick has simply been shattered by a huge explosion.

The hull of Invincible is literally blasted in two.

Such is the explosive force tha wrecks the ship that its gun turrets lie almost four hundred feet away.

The power of the blast must have blown them clean out of the ship.

JELLICOE: You know how much these things weigh?

These are about sort of 200 tons.

Can you imagine the violence and the force of this explosion? SURVEYOR: Amazing, isn't it?

JELLICOE: It's, it's extraordinary.

NARRATOR: The hull is broken at the spot where Invincible's two central gun turrets

are connected to the ammunition stores below.

What does this reveal about how the ship explodes?

Like the USS Texas, Invincible has fire proof blast doors

that stop fires spreading preventing the entire vessel from exploding.

So what goes wrong?

[explosions]

[music]

Draining the water of the North Sea is uncovering secrets about the Battle of Jutland.

And helping solve a controversial question is it the Germans or the British

who win the battle?

The drained wreck of HMS Invincible reveals extraordinary damage.

Can the shattered remains offer clues about how the explosion snaps the ship clean in half.

PROF. GROVE: This is a tremendous shock and it produces very heavy casualties.

A ship of this size going up is going to kill a thousand people.

NARRATOR: There is one substanc explosive enough to blow up a warship a type of Gunpowder,

known as Cordite and battleships like Invincible and the USS TEXAS are packed with tons of it.

It's what allows them to fire their deadly payload.

JURENS: The whole purpose of this enormous ship is to take this projectile,

which weighs half as much as a Toyota, and push it out ten or fifteen miles to hit an enemy.

Some Husky Sailors would lift up 4 of these big propellant bags.

Inside was Cordite.

Central station fires the gun, ignites the cordite, pushing this shell out about four times

the speed that an airliner flies.

About 25 seconds later and ten miles away, this thing comes down and we hope hits the enemy.

[explosion]

NARRATOR: But the danger for al battleships is that if their ow cordite store is ignited

by an enemy shell, the entire vessel explodes.

So extraordinary safety feature to keep fires from spreading ar built into the design

of battleships like the USS Texas.

Cordite is stored in magazines deep inside the ship.

The metal blast doors seal the magazines preventing fire spreading down from the guns above.

And the highly flammable bags of cordite are passed up to the guns through secure hatches.

So with all these elaborate safety precautions in place wha goes wrong on the Invincible?

VINA deploys a submersible camera to search for evidence around the turrets

JELLICOE: My gosh, look at that, we're right underneath.

There's something here.

It does look more like a shell doesn't it?

So just below the shell one can see the top of a cordite container and strands of

Cordite.

Because in these long stick like strands all bundled together.

Quick burning, very unstable.

NARRATOR: The cordite and shells piled together in the wrecked turret,

expose a fatal vulnerability.

The Royal Navy is playing with fire literally.

JURENS: They could be ignited if something went wrong inside the turret itself.

NARRATOR: The drained wreck, shows the force of the blast goes through the ship

from top to bottom.

There's only one possible explanation.

The blast doors are left open.

This solves the mystery.

A German shell hits the gun turret amidships and ignites the cordite.

Fire spreads in seconds through the open doors to the main ammunition store below.

The result - Invincible is torn in half, and the two gun turrets blown sky high.

JURENS: The impact of a hundred tons of cordite going off is enormous.

It'll tear a ship in half, it tore invincible in two.

NARRATOR: But why would Invincible's crew risk leaving the fire proof blast doors wide open?

DR. DELGADO: In naval warfare there are different approaches to fighting.

For the British it's rapidity of fire, it's getting as many shells off as fast as you can.

PROF. GROVE: To increase the rate of fire, magazine doors are left open.

The propellants are piled up.

You hit anywhere in that system, and you have a trail of destruction going down

into the magazines.

Some magazine doors were actually taken off.

This is suicidal.

NARRATOR: This tactical error causes the Royal Navy to lose four of its best ships in less than three hours.

And the battle is yet to reach its climax.

Emptying the North Sea reveals the extent of the battlefield.

This extraordinary drained landscape helps decipher the course of the action.

DR. DELGADO: When you look at the entire battlefield, if you were to take all the water away

what you see is each warrior where they fell.

The position in which they lie, the type of damage that they took.

In a larger forensic sense, helps you re-create the Battle of Jutland.

NARRATOR: About four hours into the battle, the Germans still believe they are facing a small

part of the British fleet.

Until the sea fog lifts.

PROF. GROVE: Suddenly Admiral Scheer the German commander sees the whole northern horizon

light up with the gunfire of a long line of British battleships.

This is his worst nightmare.

NARRATOR: Scheer is staring down the awesome firepower of the main British battle fleet.

With fifty more ships than his enemy, Admiral Jellicoe has an extraordinary opportunity.

JELLICOE: The British didn't just want victory they wanted total annihilation of the German fleet.

PROF. GROVE: The classic naval tactic is to cross the enemy's T.

Have your fleet sail across the front of the enemy fleet, so that you concentrate

your firepower and the enemy doesn't have as many guns brought to bear.

JELLICOE: It's a moment of potential annihilation.

This is the critical point of the battle in many ways.

NARRATOR: By Crossing the T, the British bring the full force of their weapons to bear.

They open fire.

The German reaction is astonishing.

They launch a daring escape bid, under heavy fire, risking collisions between their ships.

DR. DELGADO: As the British cross the T, the Germans execute an incredible feat

of seamanship they turn 180.

The British aren't even expecting this and so the Germans get out of the trap.

JELLICOE: One moment Jellicoe has all the German fleet in his sights.

Four minutes later nothing.

The Royal navy misses a golden opportunity to destroy the German fleet and change the course of the war.

Draining the whole Jutland battlefield uncovers more wrecks,

revealing how the Germans try to get away, and the British try to catch them.

VINA heads south, hunting for the remains of a warship that reveals the lengths the Germans

are willing to go to avoid capture

Lutzow.

PROF. GROVE: Lutzow was the newest of the German battle cruisers,

only just been commissioned and she was a very fine ship.

She had 8 12 inch guns, very heavily protected.

NARRATOR: The waters of the North Sea drain away

and Lutzow appears for the firs time in over a hundred years.

This reveals astonishing new evidence of the ship's extraordinary fate.

Lutzow lies face down.

There's damage to the hull but unlike Invincible the ship hasn't been blown in half.

So what sinks Lutzow?

Draining away the cold dark waters of the North Sea, reveal one of the most powerful German

warships at Jutland Lutzow.

DR. DELGADO: Luützow was heavily mauled in the Battle, so much so that it's almost

like target practice for the Royal Navy.

NARRATOR: Lutzow is heavily damaged, but the wreck reveals a surprise.

The hull is not blown into separate pieces.

JELLICOE: It actually looks like quite a complete hull.

So not battle damage? SURVEYOR: Not battle damage.

NARRATOR: Lutzow's intact hull is evidence it doesn't blow up, and Vina's cameras now suggest

a possible reason why.

The ship's highly explosive cordite is stored in these protective metal canisters.

JURENS: The German systems used brass cartridge cases to carry the propellant

from place to place so it was enclosed and less likely to ignite.

NARRATOR: The drained seabed also shows the wreck lies nowhere near where the British fleet is operating.

Suggesting it isn't sunk by the Royal Navy.

The wreck reveals extensive damage below the waterline.

Evidence that Lutzow is struck by weapons feared by all the ultimate battle ships

Torpedoes.

Unleashed not by the Royal Navy but by the Germans.

DR. DELGADO: Lutzow gets away from the British and Limping home,

the crew realizes that the ship's not going to make it.

Rather than leave it afloat for the British to capture and make a trophy of,

they decide to sink it.

[explosion]

NARRATOR: Packed with advanced military technology, it's vital Lutzow doesn't fall into enemy hands.

But that's not all.

DR. DELGADO: There's honour at stake here and so they scuttle it and they see nothing wrong with that

in fact it's the type of action that will get you a medal.

NARRATOR: But the pride that drives the Germans to sink one of their best ships,

comes at a terrible price.

JELLICOE: There were men trapped in the dynamo room.

They had stayed on board to keep the light running so that their comrades could get off.

They were the ones who were told they're not going to get off, the ship is going to be

torpedoed by their own torpedo boats.

They knew they were gonna die.

NARRATOR: Eight hours into the battle night has fallen.

The battered German fleet is running south to its base at Wilhemshaven.

Draining the wrecks lying close to Germany reveals what happens when the British catch up to th Germans.

Will they prevent their escape, destroy their fleet, and win the battle?

VINA is following the course th British take as they pursue the Germans south in the darkness.

Scans pick up another wreck.

It's a British armoured cruiser a type of warship completely outgunned by German battleships

JELLICOE: We can see the propeller shaft here and some extensive damage in the stern section.

NARRATOR: VINA has found the wreck of HMS Black Prince.

Draining away the sea water reveals that the hull is broken clean in two.

A gun turret lies exactly in th position where the hull splits.

It's taken a direct hit and the magazines have blown up.

From the drained wreck we can start to piece together what happens.

While looking to re-join the main British fleet, Black Princ runs into a formation of twelve

German battle ships and in the darkness mistakes them for the Royal Navy.

The wreck lies pointing to the North East, confirming Black Prince is trying desperately to steer away from the Germans.

PROF. GROVE: We know from the archaeology now that the ship appears to have turned,

so they knew what danger they were in.

They didn't, they didn't just sail into it.

But they turned too little, too late.

[explosions]

NARRATOR: All eight hundred and fifty seven men on board are lost.

Black Prince is not the only ship the British lose as they pursue the enemy.

At least four more warships are sunk.

The German rear guard action uses torpedo attacks to keep Jellicoe's force at bay.

Knowing his fleet isn't well equipped for night fighting he disengages.

The following day the Germans make it safely back to base.

The Royal Navy fails to stop their escape, after just twelve hours,

the battle of Jutland is over.

Ten thousand sailors are dead.

As dawn breaks over the North Sea, bodies from each side, start to wash up along the Danish Coast.

Even though they have retreated the Germans claim victory because they have fewer losses.

The British have lost fourteen ships.

Admiral Scheer's German fleet, just eleven.

JAMES DELGADO: He has inflicted incredible losses on the Royal Navy,

he has sunk more British tonnage and killed more British sailors than he has lost,

so to his mind and for the Kaiser and for Germany this is a victory.

NARRATOR: But despite losing more ships and men, Admiral Jellicoe's fleet ultimately win

the battle because they now have complete command of the North Sea.

For the rest of the war, German battleships never dare challeng the full might of the Royal Nav again.

PROF. GROVE: The crucial strategic fact is that the British Grand Fleet is acting

as the stopper in the bottle, to stop German surface ships getting out.

NARRATOR: Taking control of the sea after this battle is decisive in winning World War One.

For two years after Jutland, Britain blockades German ports.

Slowly starving the country into submission.

In 1918 Britain and her allies are victorious.

Germany is forced to give up its navy without another shot being fired.

But if the conflict is over, wh does the entire German fleet no lie on the bottom of the sea?

[music]

When World War One ends on November the eleventh nineteen eighteen,

the German high seas fleet is anchored in its main base.

But a little over six months later, it's on the sea bed five hundred miles away here,

off the northern tip of Scotland.

The Orkney Islands cluster around a gigantic natural harbour called Scapa Flow.

Using the latest data from detailed underwater scanning,

it's possible to drain away the waters here.

The sea pushes back to expose narrow passages between the islands.

This ancient submerged landscap makes Scapa Flow one of the largest natural deep water harbours in the world.

The perfect place to imprison a battle fleet.

Skipper John Thornton knows these waters better than most.

THORNTON: Scapa's a very special and unique place, in that the waters are sheltered,

it's the reason why it was used as a British naval harbour.

Also its position geographically is very strategic.

NARRATOR: November 1918 the defeated German fleet is ordere to set sail into captivity.

DR. DELGADO: The Germans with flags flying steam out, and come into Scapa Flow,

and there they're to be interned.

NARRATOR: They are anchored at Scapa while politicians from th Victorious allies decide

how they'll divide up these spoils of war worth billions.

PROF. GROVE: It must have given the Germans terrible feelings of,

of disgrace and humiliation and a determination

not to allow these ships to fall into the hands of Allies.

NARRATOR: The political wrangling over which of the allies will get which

of the German ships continues.

June 1919.

Nearly Seven months after their capture, the seventy four Germa ships remain at anchor

under Royal Navy Guard.

Their skeleton crews prisoners on their own vessels.

THORNTON: They had to be fed and supplied from Germany the British refused to supply them locally.

They're on the ships with no entertainment, no heating.

So these poor people would have had a grim time.

NARRATOR: Using the latest sonar data, draining Scapa Flow reveals the fate of the German fleet.

As the water recedes, it uncovers the wreck of one of the most advanced ships in the entire German navy.

Packing no fewer than ten twelve inch guns.

Markgraf is brand new when the war starts in 1914.

The drained wreck now reveals huge chunks cut out of the hull more recently by salvagers,

searching for valuable scrap metals.

The ship capsizes as it goes down.

There are no signs of battle damage along the giant hull So what sinks the Markgraf?

These portholes are clearly visible close to what was the waterline.

And they appear to be open.

From the Dive Boat Karin, a team sets out to investigate the wreck.

[music]

[music]

They want to find out if the portholes were opened before or after the ship sinks.

STEVENSON: It's a huge ship, your only impression is just scale.

Minute after minute just slowly moving along it.

It just keeps going and keeps going, she's a massive ship.

NARRATOR: Dan's picture clearly shows an open porthole.

STEVENSON: Here's one with the actual glass portal still in place.

JELLICOE: But it's open STEVENSON: It's wide open.

There was no way a diver could have got on the inside to have unbolted that porthole so

it had to have been sunk with the with the port hole wide open.

NARRATOR: It's a vital clue revealing an amazing event.

DR. DELGADO: One of the most incredible acts in the history of any Navy.

NARRATOR: There are more German Battleships lying on the bottom of Scapa Flow.

These wrecks are undamaged no sign of explosions, no holes made by torpedoes.

It can only mean one thing.

DR. DELGADO: What the Germans do under the noses of their captors is to simultaneously scuttle

their fleet that is send it to the bottom.

NARRATOR: Shocked witnesses take pictures of the ships actually sinking.

It's June twenty first, 1919.

The decision on how the German fleet is to be divided up is due to be announced.

Under secret orders from Germany, Fleet commander Von Reuter has been quietly

preparing this moment for months.

PROF. GROVE: The Germans saw scuttling the fleet as actually a way at getting back at their captors.

It was actually an aggressive move.

The Germans had got their revenge at last, three years after the battle of Jutland.

NARRATOR: Sinking their entire fleet, prevents the allies from getting their hands on the German ships.

[music]

But sinking seventy four warships at the same time, requires more than just leaving portholes open.

How did they do it?

David Manley is a naval architect with an unusual skill

His job is testing ships by trying to sink them.

HMS Belfast is a typical warship.

It has weak spots if you know what to look for and have the right tools.

MANLEY: We're well below the waterline here, and this pipe is one of the ways in which you

would very easily uh sink a ship of this size and all you need is just a sledgehammer like this.

Hit the pipe hard, give it a good whack, split it apart.

The force of the water coming out of here well I mean if,

if you were standing near it, it would take your head off.

It would enough to fill this compartment in just a few minutes.

And then everybody is just heading for the upper deck.

NARRATOR: With their ships flooding, the German crews have to evacuate from deep within th hull.

MANLEY: The amount of coordination, is just fantastic.

To do that under the eyes of the British who are guarding the fleet is a feat of amazing skill, amazing ingenuity.

Right so it's taken me a few minutes to get up here from the engine room,

but at least I'm on the upper deck, I'm safe and I can escape.

NARRATOR: But in Scapa Flow whe the Germans reach the decks of their sinking ships

they are far from safe.

This cemetery bears witness to the tragic consequences when British guards realize what is happening.

JELLICOE: Here is the last resting place of the nine or so German sailors who were killed

during the scuttle.

Walter Schumann, was the commander of the SMS Markgraf.

He was shot after he had surrendered.

They were effectively the last casualties of the First World War.

NARRATOR: German sailors make the supreme sacrifice.

Shot while surrendering after preventing the capture of their ships.

[music]

In 1919 Seventy four German warships are scuttled in Scapa Flow.

But draining the water reveals only seven actual shipwrecks.

And ghostly imprints left behin by the others, what happens to the missing warships?

[music]

As a boy Ian Murray Taylor lived on the shores of Scapa.

He's the last man alive who went inside one of the scuttled German warships.

TAYLOR: I went right down through the ship, it was very duh dirty and dusty

and the air was a bit whiffy and you could look down on to the seabed below.

NARRATOR: In 1924 Ian's grandfather Thomas MacKenzie starts recovering the sunken wrecks.

His family films the extraordinary work that brings them back to surface

so the valuable steel can be sold for scrap.

Divers seal holes in the hull.

Compressed air is pumped in until the ship is buoyant like filling a balloon with air.

Then the massive battle ships explode back to the surface.

In this way, during the 1920s and 30s all but seven of the German wrecks are raised.

Their hulls are towed away and broken into pieces.

There are willing buyers for the salvaged metal.

Among them, Adolf Hitler. He's building a powerful new navy.

Scrap metal from The German fleet returns home to be melted down and re-used for a new

and deadly purpose.

DR. DELGADO: What also happened in the aftermath of Scapa Flow is for the Germans in particular

a sense of a War that really hadn't ended.

What followed was a grim determination to come back and fight that War again.

NARRATOR: 1939 The Nazis use th steel from the sunken German megaships to prepare

a new generation of weapons.

PROF. GROVE: There is something of a full circle here.

The Germans are getting their own back

NARRATOR: They've learned the bitter lessons of Jutland.

This time they'll use submarines, not battleships to wage war.

PROF. EPKENHANS: The era of the big battleships which dominated the seas, was over.

NARRATOR: In Scapa Flow the sinking of one ship marks the dramatic end of this era.

Investigators scanning this unique wreck for the British Ministry of Defence reveal

a capsized hull resting on its twisted superstructure.

But only by draining the water away, is it possible to see close up the evidence

of what sinks this veteran of Jutland?

HMS Royal Oak.

One side appears undamaged, but the other displays gaping wounds.

What sends Royal Oak to the bottom in this safe haven?

LAWRENCE: The level of impact and the destruction, uh

it was just, just mind-bending to see

NARRATOR: October 1939. One month into World War Two.

The Nazis want revenge on the British and are hunting for targets.

PROF. EPKENHANS: It was of great symbolic value to hit the Royal Navy in its heart and Scapa Flow

was of course the heart of the Royal Navy.

NARRATOR: Royal Oak lies safely at anchor.

The crew, including over a hundred and fifty young saylors, under eighteen

suspect nothing.

The guns are trained on the skies in case of Nazi air raids...

But the real threat lies below.

At the time of Jutland, old ships are deliberately sunk to block Scapa's narrow entrances

and defend against submarine attacks.

But now they're falling apart and it's possible to sneak past them.

PROF. GROVE: There were now passages for submarines to get through,

where a daring submarine commander could actually get into the Flow.

NARRATOR: October 14th 12:58 A.M.

U-Boat Ace Gunther Prien stealthily navigates U47 throug the poorly defended channels of Scapa.

The men and boys aboard Royal Oak have no idea of the danger they are in.

Examining the drained wreck reveals Prien's first torpedo smashes clean through the bow.

LAWRENCE: They all thought that it was an explosion in the paint store or of the aviation

fuel store um and uh they, they didn't realise they were being attacked.

NARRATOR: The wreck now reveals three more torpedo strikes along the hull.

These are the deathblows, smashing huge holes in Royal Oak.

[explosions]

Fatally wounded below the waterline.

Royal Oak begins to capsize.

For most there's no escape. The ship sinks in minutes.

833 sailors are lost.

More than a 130 of them are just boys.

PROF. EPKENHANS: It was received with enormous enthusiasm in Germany.

Hitler sent his aeroplane to Kiel to pick up the crew and fly to Berlin where people hailed

them and everybody was happy.

DR. DELGADO: So it's one of the greatest ironies perhaps in naval warfare that out of the

scuttling at Scapa Flow comes the steel that helps re-arm Germany and one of those ships,

one of these U-Boats, sneaks in to Scapa Flow and sinks a veteran of Jutland.

If that's not ironic I don't know what is.

[music]

NARRATOR: The wrecks of Jutland and Scapa Flow

bear silent witness to a lost age of naval warfare.

[explosions]

But draining the Ultimate Battleships reveals the world changing impact of the day they fought to the death

and the courage of the men and boys who served aboard them.