Allied Warships

HMS Royal Oak (08)

Battleship of the Royal Sovereign class

HMS Royal Oak at anchor before the war.

Navy	The Royal Navy
Type	Battleship
Class	Royal Sovereign
Pennant	08
Built by	Devonport Dockyard (Plymouth, U.K.)
Ordered	1913
Laid down	15 Jan 1914
Launched	17 Nov 1914
Commissioned	1 May 1916
Lost	14 Oct 1939
Loss position	58° 55'N, 2° 59'W

History	Torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-47 inside Scapa Flow. [For more details see the event for 14 October 1939 below.] For some more information on HMS Royal Oak see this website (offsite link). Hit by U-boat Sunk on 14 Oct 1939 by U-47 (Prien).
U-boat Attack	See our U-boat attack entry for the HMS Royal Oak

Commands listed for HMS Royal Oak (08)

Please note that we're still working on this section
and that we only list Commanding Officers for the duration of the Second World War.

	Commander	From	To
1	Capt. William Gordon Benn, RN	7 Jul 1939	14 Oct 1939

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Notable events involving Royal Oak include:

This page was last updated in December 2017.

4 Sep 1939
The battleships HMS Royal Oak (Capt. W.G. Benn, RN, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral H.E.C. Blagrove, RN) and HMS Royal Sovereign (Capt. L.V. Morgan, CBE, MVO, DSC, RN) both departed Scapa Flow to patrol to the east of the Fair Isle Channel. They were escorted by the destroyers HMS Broke (Capt. R. Kerr, RN), HMS Wanderer (Cdr. R.F. Morice, RN) and HMS Whitehall (Lt.Cdr. A.B. Russell, RN). They were joined at sea early in the afternoon of the 6th by three more destroyers; HMS Foresight (Lt.Cdr. G.T. Lambert, RN), HMS Forester (Lt.Cdr. E.B. Tancock, RN) and HMS Fury (Cdr. G.F. Burghard, RN).

4 Sep 1939
For the daily positions of HMS Royal Oak during the period of 4 September 1939 to 6 September 1939 see the map below.

(1)

6 Sep 1939
Late in the afternoon the battleships HMS Royal Oak (Capt. W.G. Benn, RN, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral H.E.C. Blagrove, RN) and HMS Royal Sovereign (Capt. L.V. Morgan, CBE, MVO, DSC, RN) and their escorting destroyers; HMS Broke (Capt. R. Kerr, RN), HMS Wanderer (Cdr. R.F. Morice, RN) and HMS Whitehall (Lt.Cdr. A.B. Russell, RN), HMS Foresight (Lt.Cdr. G.T. Lambert, RN), HMS Forester (Lt.Cdr. E.B. Tancock, RN) and HMS Fury (Cdr. G.F. Burghard, RN) returned to Scapa Flow from their patrol to the east of the Fair Isle Channel.

11 Sep 1939
HMS Royal Oak (Capt. W.G. Benn, RN, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral H.E.C. Blagrove, RN) conducted gunnery exercises at Scapa Flow. (1)

15 Sep 1939
HMS Royal Oak (Capt. W.G. Benn, RN, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral H.E.C. Blagrove, RN) conducted gunnery exercises at Scapa Flow. (1)

20 Sep 1939
HMS Royal Oak (Capt. W.G. Benn, RN, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral H.E.C. Blagrove, RN) conducted gunnery exercises at Scapa Flow. (1)

9 Oct 1939
HMS Royal Oak (Capt. W.G. Benn, RN, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral H.E.C. Blagrove, RN) departed Scapa Flow to patrol to the west of the Fair Isle Channel. She was escorted by the destroyers HMS Matabele (Cdr. G.K. Whitmy-Smith, RN) and HMS Sturdy (Lt.Cdr. G.T. Cooper, RN).

10 Oct 1939
In very heavy seas, HMS Royal Oak (Capt. W.G. Benn, RN, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral H.E.C. Blagrove, RN), had lost touch with her escorting destroyers HMS Matabele (Cdr. G.K. Whitmy-Smith, RN) and HMS Sturdy (Lt.Cdr. G.T. Cooper, RN). Course was therefore set to return to Scapa Flow.

11 Oct 1939
HMS Royal Oak (Capt. W.G. Benn, RN, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral H.E.C. Blagrove, RN) arrived back at Scapa Flow. Anchor was dropped in the north-east corner of the Flow close to the seaplane tender HMS Pegasus (Cdr.(Retd.) H.E. Seaman, RN).

14 Oct 1939
At 0116 hours on 14 October 1939 the German submarine U-47 fired a spread of three torpedoes at HMS Royal Oak (Capt. W.G. Benn, RN, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral H.E.C. Blagrove, RN) and the British seaplane tender HMS Pegasus (Cdr.(Retd.) H.E. Seaman, RN) lying at anchor in the harbour of Scapa Flow, then turned around and fired a stern torpedo at 0121 hours. Prien claimed a hit on the seaplane tender, misidentified as HMS Repulse, but one of the torpedoes apparently hit the starboard anchor chain of HMS Royal Oak and both targets were undamaged.

At 0123 hours, the U-boat fired a second spread of three torpedoes of which two hit HMS Royal Oak on the starboard side and caused a magazine to blow up. The battleship rolled over and sank in 19 minutes. 833 of the crew were killed. 386 of the 420 survivors, including the Commanding Officer, were rescued by the drifter HMS Daisy II (Skr. John Gatt) which had been alongside as tender.