POST-WAR SABOTAGE
At Scapa Flow – a body of water surrounded by the Orkney Islands, Scotland – 52 ships of the German High Seas Fleet sank in June 1919. These ships weren’t salvaged at the time because this mass sinking occurred on purpose, decided by the ships’ Admiral. At the time, shortly after World War I, Germany was asked to surrender its warships. Not wanting to hand its fleet over to Britain, the German Navy flooded the ships with water and scuppered them. From 1922 to 1979, they were raised from the seafloor one by one, and their materials reused. Today only seven of these ships remain below the water.