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Victims of WW2 tragedy honoured with new Royal Oak monument

Local Sea Cadets provide a guard for the new Royal Oak monument
7 October 2024
A monument to 835 men and boys killed in the first weeks of World War 2 has been dedicated with full military honours in Portsmouth.

Veiled in White Ensigns which Royal Navy divers had recovered from the wreck in the depths of Scapa Flow, the flags were removed by the descendants of those lost to reveal a new memorial to HMS Royal Oak.

Families, veterans’ groups, serving sailors including a Guard of Honour, musicians and cadets gathered on Portsmouth’s historic Hard to take part in a ceremony to bless the obelisk honouring the battleship’s crew and remember those lost in a tragedy which rocked the Navy and nation in 1939.

The battleship was torpedoed in the Navy’s wartime anchorage of Scapa Flow in Orkney after U-boat ace Gunther Prien evaded the base’s defences and fired two salvoes.

The first did little damage, but the second volley of three torpedoes tore the leviathan apart. She began to roll over and sank in under 15 minutes, while Prien slipped away and returned to Nazi Germany where he was hailed a hero.

Of the 1,259 souls aboard the battleship on that fateful Saturday night in October 1939, two out of three were lost, 835 sailors and Royal Marines.

Some 134 of the victims were boy seaman – aged under 18 – prompting a national outrage and questions in Parliament.

Though built in Devonport and based at Scapa Flow during wartime, HMS Royal Oak is heavily associated with Portsmouth, with many of the 1939 crew based in the city… which, like Orkney, became a focal point for commemorations in later years as former sailors remembered their lost shipmates.

Although it is nearly a decade since the last survivor of the tragedy passed away, there remains a very active Royal Oak Association which strives to keep the memory of the ship and her crew alive.

Having already erected a memorial at Scapa Flow, the association has now installed a similar monument on the South Coast.

A Guard drawn from HMS Nelson personnel, HMS Collingwood’s Volunteer Band and Sea Cadets from HMS Excellent-based TS Alamein gave the unveiling a suitable dark-blue backdrop.

Wreaths were laid by the Commanding Officers of HMS Nelson and Excellent, Captain Lee McLocklan and Commander Simon Gale, German Naval Attaché Captain Volker Gelhausen, as well as numerous veterans’ associations, not least the Royal Oak itself.

“Its location outside the entrance to His Majesty’s Naval Base is not only a fitting tribute at the home of the Royal Navy to the sacrifice made by so many,” explained association chairman Gareth Derbyshire, “but also an enhancement of the connection between HMS Royal Oak and the City of Portsmouth, her home port.”

Memorial pictures: Malcolm Wells/pictureexclusive.com

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