During the Second World War, the scuttling of the Danish Navy in the early hours of the morning on 29 August 1943 was one of the most pivotal events of the German occupation of Denmark.

As a result of the collapse of the corporation policy between the Danish government and the German occupation forces in Denmark, at 0400 hours on the 29. August the Germans moved to seize the matériel of the Danish Army and Navy. The German attack resulted in heavy fighting at several locations across the country, but due to luck and good planning, most of the Navy's vessels either succeeded in scuttling themselves or escaped to neutral Swedish territory.

In this book, naval historian Søren Nørby recounts both the history of the Royal Danish Navy during the occupation and the fate of the individual vessels at and beyond the Naval Base at Holmen on 29 August.

The official accounts are complemented by a number of eyewitness testimonies and an extensive collection of remarkable photographs depicting the vessels before, during, and after the scuttling. Many of the images reproduced in the book have never previously been published.