Sadler - Blood on the wave: Scotlands sea battles

This eBook edition published in 2012 by
Birlinn Limited
West Newington House
Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS
www.birlinn.co.uk

First published in 2010 by Birlinn Ltd

Copyright John Sadler 2010

The moral right of John Sadler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-560-4
ISBN 13: 978-1-84158-865-0

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This one is for Doug,
for so many years of friendship

Let loose the hounds

Of war,

The whirling swords!

Send them leaping

Afar,

Red in their thirst for war;

Odin laughs in his

Car

At the screaming of the swords!

Fiona Macleod, Washer of the Ford

Preface

Cape Wrath stands at the north-westerly extremity of mainland Britain. The beacon of the lighthouse there gives note of civilisation in a barren and untamed landscape of moor and moss, rock girt coasts and sandy inlets, secret lochans and tumbled stone. Nearly forty years ago, as a boy, I travelled with my father, the pair of us bumping along the uncertain track that wound northward from the hamlet at Blairmore in a venerable Series IIA Landrover. It was a quiet and empty landscape, the mournful note of a curlew the only complement to the racket of the engine. The rutted way gritted past Loch na Gainimh and Loch aMhuilinn before it petered out and we ground to a halt.

Then there was only the silence. The rest of the way to the coast a couple of miles or so was accomplished on foot, through heather and harsh marram of the dunes, past the rectangle of Sandwood Loch and its much haunted bothy to the bay itself. This was in July, a leaden day, skies heavy and grey, fitful wind plucking at the grasses. And suddenly we were on the beach, a lordly strand of unblemished gold that stretched between distant headlands, the long finger of Am Buachaille pointing at the sky. A sky which, as though by mysterious alchemy, suddenly cleared to flood the blue waves in dazzling light; such was my introduction to the coasts of Alba.

This book is as much a journey as history. In 1996 my earlier work Scottish Battles was published. I sought to provide in that work a single-volume introduction to land based conflict in Scotland. Since then I have followed this with numerous studies of individual battles and campaigns. All of this arises from my enduring fascination with Scotland, its peoples and history. Though I may claim to be a military historian I cannot pretend to enjoy equal expertise in naval matters. This is not, therefore, a specialised naval study. It is an account intended for the general reader who, like the author, loves Scotland, history and travel in roughly equal measure.

Naval encounters in Scottish waters are perhaps less well written up than Scottish land battles, though every bit as important an element in the rich tapestry of a nations history. The sea runs in the lifeblood of many Scots, and dramatic events on land have rarely been unaccompanied by actions at sea. The period this book seeks to cover from the Iron Age to the Cold War is very long and has witnessed immense changes in the technology and tactics of naval warfare. The view, therefore, which is given of each era is essentially a snapshot: an attempt, in each case, to provide a guide to the ships, men and principal actions.

Our narrative thus moves from triremes to longships, to birlinns and nyvaigs, carracks and galleons, ships of the line to ironclads, dreadnoughts and Polaris. From Romans to Scots, Norsemen, the Lords of the Isles, Andrew Wood and the Bartons, pirates, privateers and Nelsons Band of Brothers, to echoes of Jutland and the Battle of the Atlantic, the long decades of the Cold War and the continuing debate over a nuclear deterrent. It is a story of kings and kingdoms, the Wars of Independence, Jacobites and Frenchmen and the death of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow.

Thanks are due to my agent Duncan McAra; my editor at Birlinn, Hugh Andrew; Mark Lawrence of Lochaline Dive Centre; Dr Paula Martin of Morvern Maritime Centre; Sue Mowat for providing access to a valuable resource on the subject of privateering; Bob Mowat of RCAHMS; Cindy Vallar for advice on pirates, ancient and modern; Jon Addison of Scottish Maritime Museum; Martin Dean of ADUS at St Andrews University; Iain Mackenzie of the Naval Historical Branch; Susie Barrett; Tamara Templer, Lorna Stoddart and Lee Deane of National Trust for Scotland; Malcolm Poole of Mallaig Heritage Centre; Denis Rixson, author and authority on the Hebridean galley; Cron Mackay for casting light on aspects of galleys at war; Tobias Capwell of Glasgow Museums; Charlotte Chipchase of the Royal Armouries, Leeds; Helen Nicoll of the National Museum of Scotland; Ailsa Mactaggart of Historic Scotland; James Mitchell of The Secret Bunker; and Sarah Beighton of the National Maritime Museum.

All errors and omissions remain, of course, the sole responsibility of the author.

Northumberland, Spring 2010

S CAPA FLOW, ORKNEY IS A lagoon-like stretch of water, a mere 24km by 13km, girded by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. A superb natural anchorage, it has been a haven for battle fleets, certainly from the Viking epoch. Lyness on Hoy was the HQ for the British fleets that utilised Scapa Flow during the twentieth century and throughout the course of both World Wars. Thus this desolate shelter has housed some of the mightiest assemblies of warships ever seen at a time when British naval power was both unprecedented and largely unrivalled, slab-walled hulls and the vast, gleaming ordnance of dreadnoughts riding in the swell. It was from here that the fleet ventured out to do battle with the Kaisers navy at Jutland, and Scapa Flow remained the British navys northern haven for the whole duration of the struggle.

B EGINNINGS

Scotlands waters are no stranger to dramatic confrontations and encounters at sea. From Agricolan invasion to shadow play of the Cold War, men-of-war have prowled her coasts. And it is a very long and varied coast, one of the most challenging and dramatic in the Western hemisphere. At 11,800km in length, it is over twice as long as Englands, longer than the coastline of the USA and accounts for 8 per cent of the entire coasts of Europe. Nobody in Scotland can be further than 65km from the sea. The spreading expanse of the Atlantic and the grey swell of the North Sea have provided livelihoods for countless generations of Scots, from the time of the earliest settlers to the harvesting of North Sea Oil.