14 C O N T E X T 1 3 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4 GEOFFREY STELL Orkney’s legacy of the first world war Structures and buildings on Orkney are evidence of Scapa Flow’s role as the principal wartime anchorage for Britain’s surface fleet from 1914 to the end of the war. As Stuart West has explained (‘A view from Orkney’, Context 132, November 2013), Orkney has long been open to many influences, its distinctive cultural and built environment being both exceptionally ancient and manylayered, all framed within an equally distinctive physical blend of land, sea and sky.The biggest challenges to its environment were the two occasions in the first half of the 20th century – in 1914 and 1939 – when Scapa Flow, since Norse times a relatively remote backwater at the centre of the Orkney archipelago, dramatically became the maritime heart of the British Empire, one of the most important expanses of water in a world about to descend into bloody conflict. It was to Scapa Flow as its designated war station that the Grand Fleet, Britain’s most precious single military asset, sailed north in secrecy in late July 1914. It remained the principal wartime anchorage for Britain’s surface fleet until April 1918, when Admiral David Beatty, who made no secret of his personal preference for the Forth estuary, made that the Grand Fleet’s main base, centred around the new royal dockyard of Rosyth. Popularly dubbed ‘the stopper in the North Sea bottle’, Scapa Flow combined a strategic location that controlled the northern seaways with an expansive anchorage which afforded much sheltered sea room for training and manoeuvres. Almost up to the eve of war, however, there had been much debate and uncertainty about whether the Firth of Forth, the Cromarty Firth or Scapa Flow would best serve as the fleet’s main wartime base. Both the Forth and Cromarty were protected by powerful coastal defences, either in place or under active construction, but at the outbreak of war Scapa Flow remained virtually defenceless. All that Orkney had witnessed were unfinished survey proposals and ship-to-shore artillery exercises involving ‘flying columns’ of Royal Marines, mainly around the island of Flotta. It took almost the entire first year of war to make good these deficiencies. By the autumn of 1915 the fleet anchorage was at last equipped with a relatively secure shore-based and underwater defence network that befitted its importance and status. Empirically resolving the pre-war debates, wartime routines were effectively settling complementary support roles for both the Forth and Cromarty, homes to squadrons of battle-cruisers and destroyers respectively. Hoxa four-inch coast battery, South Ronaldsay, where Gunner Astles, the diarist, served.The photo of a practice firing is captioned ‘Action. Somewhere not in France’ and dated 1916. (Photo: Geoffrey Stell) Coast battery, Roan Head, Flotta: a typical gun emplacement and holdfast showing the adaptor plate introduced in 1916 when ‘puny’ three-pounder guns were replaced by 12-pounders. A view from the north east, taken in 1998. (Photo: Geoffrey Stell)
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