The Man Who Bought A Navy

The Man Who Bought a Navy, by Gerald Bowman, tells the amazing story of how in 1919, and under the watchful eyes of their British captors, the Germans managed to scuttle their entire surrendered High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow, Orkney.

It then goes on to tell the even more amazing story of how in 1924 the engineer Ernest Cox gambled his entire personal fortune on buying the sunken navy from the British Admiralty and how he then embarked on the colossal task of raising all of the German ships.

In the end, against incredible odds, and in spite of his lack of any previous experience, Cox succeded in raising seven large warships and 26 torpedo-boat destroyers. At the time the 28,000 ton battleship Hindenburg was the largest ship ever salvaged.