GRAND SCUTTLE

This is the remarkable story of the scuttling of the German Fleet in Scapa Flow 21st June 1919. The Grand Scuttle became a folk legend in both Germany and Britain, but few people were aware that Rear-Admiral Ludwig von Reuter became the only man in history to sink his own navy because of a misleading report in a British newspaper; that the Royal Navy guessed his intention but could do nothing to thwart it; that the sinking produced the last casualties and the last prisoners of the war; and that fragments of the fleet are on the moon. "Mr van der Vat has broken a lot of new ground in an important and hitherto neglected patch of history and has established himself as a first-rate storyteller in the process" - "The Economist".