Another Opportunity to Talk about Ernest Cox

Posted 28Aug18.

“What happened during World War One that nobody talks about today?”

One of my favorite stories from the First World War actually took place in 1919 – the scuttling, and later (partial) salvage of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow, in Scotland.

To summarize, the German sailors were fairly pissed that they were dishonored and forced to keep their once-proud warships at Scapa Flow while the details of the Armistice were being hashed out. The British really didn’t care all that much – they had a case of Charlie Sheen-esque “Winning!” on their mind and the Germans could deal with it or… well, the had to deal with it.

German leadership decided it was best to give the British the nautical finger to whatever plans they may have had for the captive warships, so they petulantly scuttled them all on 21 June 1919. 52…