Lyness is a village on the east coast of the island of Hoy, Orkney, Scotland. The village is within the parish of Walls and Flotta, and is situated at the junction of the B9047 and B9048.
During the 1920s Lyness was briefly the headquarters of the metal salvage firm of Cox and Danks's raising of the German High Seas Fleet, scuttled by the Germans on 21 June 1919 during the Armistice (Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow).
During the Second World War it was home to HMS Proserpine, the main base for the naval fleet based at Scapa Flow.
Today an Orkney Ferries Ro-Ro car ferry links it to Longhope on South Walls, the island of Flotta in Scapa Flow, and Houton on Mainland, Orkney.
Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery was opened in 1915 primarily to serve the Scapa Flow base (which closed in 1946). Buried there are 445 Empire and Commonwealth service personnel, chiefly Royal Navy, from World War I (109 of whom are unidentified) and 200 from World War II (8 unidentified). There are also buried here 14 German Navy sailors and 4 other German service personnel including an unidentified Luftwaffe airman, and one Norwegian war grave. There are also 30 British non-war service burials (including 2 unidentified British Army soldiers). Major naval ship losses represented among the war graves include:
HMS Hampshire (lost 1916)
HMS Vanguard (1917) - 18 casualties buried here.
HMS Narborough (1918)
HMS Opal (1918)
HMS Royal Oak (1939) - 26 casualties buried here.
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Flotta (ˈflɒtə) is a small island in Orkney, Scotland, lying in Scapa Flow. The island is known for its large oil terminal and is linked by Orkney Ferries to Houton on the Orkney Mainland, Lyness on Hoy and Longhope on South Walls. The island has a population of 80. At the turn of the 20th century, the island was a quiet rural community like many other small islands of Orkney, but its sheltered location led to three major upheavals in the island in the century. Until 1914, Flotta was a quiet farming community.
Hoy (Hoy; from Old Norse Háey, meaning "high island") is an island in Orkney, Scotland, measuring – the second largest in the archipelago, after Mainland. A natural causeway, the Ayre, links the island to the smaller South Walls; the two islands are treated as one entity by the UK census. Hoy lies within the parish of Stromness. The Dwarfie Stane lies in the north of the Rackwick valley and dates back to around 3000 BCE. It is unique in northern Europe, bearing similarity to Neolithic or Bronze Age tombs around the Mediterranean.
Scapa Flow ('skɑːpə,_'skæpə; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. Its sheltered waters have played an important role in travel, trade and conflict throughout the centuries. Vikings anchored their longships in Scapa Flow more than a thousand years ago. It was the United Kingdom's chief naval base during the First and Second World wars, but the facility was closed in 1956.