HMS Royal Oak

[mcguire]

I happened to run across this on YouTube.

[bob48]

Very interesting.

[Martok]

Fascinating, if tragic.  I don't think I'd heard about the HMS Royal Oak before. 

[bob48]

It was a massive shock right at the beginning of the war with over 800 of the crew lost.

[BanzaiCat]

It's funny, in a macabre way, how these things go with the public:

Public: "It's WAR then! We'll whup 'em in no time and be home for Christmas!"
War: "let me just see about that, now"

That was a very interesting video, though. It doesn't look like she's that deep in the water so it's great they were able to get such good film of the wreck.

It's also pretty amazing how these wrecks are still leaking oil even to this day (the Arizona also comes to mind).

[Steelie]

The first time I ever heard of the HMS Royal Oak sinking was as a teenager reading Wouk's "The Winds of War". If I recall correctly, the protagonist Pug Henry was at a diplomatic dinner party in Berlin where the Captain who had sunk the Royal Oak was a guest.  Like so many other parts of TWOW, it sent me scurrying to a history book for more information.

The video is sad and fascinating. I got a lot out of the discussion of the islands themselves and Scapa Flow. To an American, a fairly new country as these things go, living in a nation with Stone Age remains is mind blowing. Of course, we DO keep digging up T-Rex bones in our badlands, so there's that.   

[mcguire]

What struck me most about it is that all of the other documentaries I've seen focused on Gunter Prien and the u-boat's sneak into Scapa Flow.

[Steelie]

Good point!