HMS Royal Oak

This website is dedicated to the construction of a replica model of HMS Royal Oak in remembrance to those who lost their lives to a torpedo attack.

On 14 October 1939, Royal Oak was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland, when she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-47. Of Royal Oak‘s complement of 1,234 men and boys, 833 were killed that night or died later of their wounds.

Despite the relatively shallow water in which she sank, the majority of bodies could not be recovered from Royal Oak. Marked by a buoy at 58°55′44″N 2°59′09″W, the wreck has been designated a war grave and all diving or other unauthorised forms of exploration are prohibited under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. In clear water conditions, the upturned hull can be seen reaching to within 5 m of the surface. The brass letters that formed Royal Oak‘s name were removed as a keepsake by a recreational diver in the 1970s. They were returned almost twenty years later, and are now displayed in the Scapa Flow visitor centre in Lyness.Royal Oak‘s loss is commemorated in an annual ceremony in which Royal Navy divers place the White Ensign underwater at her stern.