h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Scuttle of the German High Seas Fleet, 1919 - A2436635
Author: Frenchbean <star> not fade away... - U236943

Here's number 4 in my occasional series of entries about Orkney.

Is it too long? I almost divided it into 'The Scuttle' and 'The Salvage', but decided it would be too disjointed.

Peer away


f/b

Slight title change. I only just discovered 'scuttle' isn't a noun, only a verb


f/b

Excellent.

Two points:
1) perhaps a footnote to explain what sea cocks are? some sort of tube that'd let in water, no?
2) one typo - Coz's, rather than Cox's

Thank you Six

I've added a footnote about seacocks - they're valves rather than tubes. And I've done the typo...


F/b

Nice

Might it be an idea to add a little more detail to define exactly what scuttling is? You already say self-destruction in the first paragraph, which sets the scene nicely, but I was wondering whether someone who hadn't come across the term before might still be grasping for the exact meaning?

What does anybody else think about defining 'to scuttle'? More footnotes?

I'm so familiar with the story that I'm not really able to judge.


F/b

Any more comments from you Peerers?



F/b

Really good entry - tells an interesting story well.

No need for any further changes, I think.

sprout

Thank you sprout!


F/b

I figure this is something you knew a bit about before writing the entry, but a serious amount of research must have gone into this one F/b

"This stretch of water is 24km wide and 13km long and lies, atoll-like"
An atoll is an island enclosing (or almost enclosing) a lagoon isn't it? So a stretch of water couldn't be likened to an atoll... Is there a better way of describing it?

'Torpedoboat-Destroyers', 'destroyer (torpedo-boat)'
Which is correct? The former doesn't look right to me.

'Some like the Bayern sank on their sides, their heavy guns forcing them to turn turtle'
Doesn't that mean to turn upside-down? A turtle couldn't rest on its side (edge). Unless it was really, really good at balancing

'In all five battlecruisers'
Should be a comma after 'all'.

"Over the 20's and 30's"
'During the 1920s and 30s', and a few more instances of decades with apostrophes - 70s, not 70's.


Scout

Frenchbean, I'd say you can safely add another to your nome de plume

Just a few points from my side:

Footnote 3 - 'Dreadnought' was a British class. You can perhaps compare battleships with them, but *calling* them dreadnoughts IMHO wouldn't be correct. After all, the Dreadnoughts were quite special in their balance between armour, size and mobility.

You managed to slip in the umlaut-o in 'König', so it should be possible to give the 'Grosser Kurfurst' and 'Koln' their umlauts too: please make that 'Grosser (Großer?) Kurfürst' and 'Köln' throughout.

'Those that that had been beached' - delete one 'that'


Bossel

Nice one.

"The though of sailing up to them made us boys almost sick with excitement!"

Did James Taylor really write though instead of thought?

And please put a comma after the month and before the year when giving a date It saves the subbie a bit of headache.

...But of course these are very minor points. I'd say this one is ready to go.

Fb,

I see from looking at the link on photographs, that some of the lifeboats were fired on by the British because the boats (or rather the people in them!) refused to fly white flags and about 50 people were killed in this way. How many German sailors lost their lives as a whole? Were any drowned?

That was a lovely flurry of comments

Gosho After a lifetime of visiting Orkney, it's one of those topics which is in my bones and I'm constantly amazed that other people haven't heard of it

I've dealt with the >stretch< and >atoll< dilemma.

Ditto torpedo / destroyers

And balancing turtles, and additional commas and excess apostrophes.



Bossel for your comments. I've taken out the dreadnought footnote - hadn't actually realised that was only a British class of warship.

I'm having umluat trouble. How do I get it over the u in Kurfurst? Over the o is no trouble - just copy/paste.

Other typo sorted



Hello Jodan Do you think it's that James Taylor? Typo sorted. I think I've added all the month/year commas now.



ZSF
There is some contradiction in the links about how many were killed. But the official line is that 9 Germans were shot and none drowned. I've got that in the entry - the last deaths of WW1.


F/b

Fb - use &uuml; (replace the 'u' with it) - see A1098875 - Character codes.

Belter

Umlauts added Thanks ZSF

Glad you like it McKay

All done?


F/b

Did you hear about this on the news this morning?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3570501.stm

Great timing! I shall think about adding a sentence in the final section to take account of it.


Fb

Gosh, it's staggering that photographs could possibly last any time under water at all!

I didn't know how to do the umlaut before I became a sub, Fb. I've learned more about how to craft entries since I joined them.

On second thoughts, I've decided not to add anything about the postcards, as I've not really referred to any other finds from the ships in any detail.

You trying to recruit subs ZSF?


Fb