'The grimmest incident of the whole war'

The discovery of a letter offers a rare and frank personal account of the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow in the Orkneys Islands in 1919.

In a letter to his mother, 18 year-old Hugh David, sub-lieutenant on the battleship HMS Revenge, recounts the sight of "Carley floats, chairs and human beings" in the wreckage.

He describes it as "the grimmest and most pathetic incident of the whole war".