In a letter published in the Times wrote Lord Fisher (1) how he discovered Scapa Flow, Orkney Isles as a suitable anchorage for the British fleet. In 1905 at his office at the Admiralty he studied a nautical chart displaying a large bay to whom nobody paid much attention. A hour later was a ship underway and except for a good friend of Fisher being a hydrographer nobody knew what Fisher was up to. Using a pair of compasses drew he a circle with the German fleet as centre searching for a safe anchorage where the British fleet could not be surprised. When the First World War broke out was at Scapa Flow a naval base founded.
Note
1. John Arbuthnot (Jacky or Jackie) Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher (25 January 1841 Ramboda, Ceylon-10 July 1920)St. James‘s Square, London, England, an British admiral of the Fleet well known for his reform of the Royal British Navy. First Sea Lord in 1904.
