In service since 1940, the Bismarck was the Most modern battleship of the moment but she also represented the swan song of these great gunships whose glory days had practically ended with the First World War. Its very construction symbolized the contradictory nature of the interwar German naval programme, which called for a hybrid fleet:a handful of battleships and cruisers to counter British naval supremacy, and scores of submarines with a few surface raiders to cut off supply lines. enemies. This concept was inherently flawed:the major German warships never became numerous enough to pose a serious threat to the Royal Navy British and, instead, the construction of her diverted precious resources from the most effective submarines. Furthermore, German planners ignored the importance of the air force. It is no accident that, just as the Bismarck had to blindly grope her route across the Atlantic, without reliable means of reconnaissance, information, or close-range detection devices, the U-Boats Germans remained until 1944 with the same level of development as in 1918.
Even the enemies of Germany have recognized that the Bismarck was a beautiful ship. From a distance, her silhouette conveyed a sense of symmetry, elegance and power ; up close, her 15-inch guns in four twin turrets and her copious secondary artillery confirmed this impression. The bridge housed an ineffective radar system and numerous platforms for rangefinders, fire control, and communications, and a catapult capable of launching up to four seaplanes crossed the ship near its only funnel. The ship's main armor was 320 mm and, with its length of over 251 m and beam of 36 m, it displaced 42,000 t and reached a top speed of just over 30 knots, with an effective range of 9,000 nautical miles. The Bismarck could boast of being more powerful than any of her fastest opponents and faster than her strongest. Her crew of 2,221 officers and sailors considered her indestructible, and neither the memory of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, renowned for his realistic assessment of situations, nor the loss of the invulnerable Titanic nearly thirty years earlier, could counteract this display of Germanic arrogance. /P>
Once in service, the Bismarck was subjected to extensive exercises, speed tests and fire practice in the Baltic Sea and, under the command of the able captain Ernst Lindemann, the crew it became a cohesive and operational unit that was soon ready for combat. By early 1941 she was ready to make her mark in the Battle of the Atlantic.
The British had good reason to worry. The French had been resoundingly defeated in 1940—and had had to evacuate their army at Dunkirk themselves—Italy had joined Hitler as an Axis member, neutral Spain was assisting Germany, and neither the United States nor the Soviet Union They were still involved in the war. Furthermore, Germany had occupied Denmark and Norway to extend Germany's northern flank and western bases in France ostensibly improved their outlet to the Atlantic, so it's no wonder Prime Minister Winston Churchill said, in 1940, when the Royal Air Force it prevented German rule over British skies during the Battle of Britain and forced Hitler to abandon plans to land on his shores, which had been "the best time" for his country. But even then, the main danger was not direct invasion but a slow, suffocating economic strangulation if Germany managed to decimate the supply convoys that kept Britain free and alive.
To meet this challenge, the Royal Navy used two types of warships:a powerful contingent of aircraft carriers, battleships, battlecruisers, heavy and light cruisers, and destroyers, both in its own waters and around the world, to provide remote support to convoys moving to and from British ports and contain Axis ships like the Bismarck; and the convoy escorts, made up of destroyers, corvettes, sloops, submarine chasers, and even converted trawlers, constantly circling the slow-moving columns of merchantmen keeping a close lookout and keeping an eye out with sonar for submarines in the vicinity. Their cannons could hit the U-Boote if he surprised them on the surface and his depth charges could damage and destroy them if they were forced to submerge, but life in those escorts was exhausting and their crews knew that they did not have the slightest chance of defending themselves if one of those big German ships showed up unexpectedly.
This was precisely the scenario German planners had in mind when they conceived of battleship and cruiser operations against Atlantic convoys. They knew that those actions would have to be covert and of short duration or in remote locations, and that once detected and pursued, they would have to flee to their bases in Norway and France. They also knew that these convoy hunters would have to provide their own reconnaissance, since Germany had only a tiny air-naval force to support them, their few craft having limited range and very few forward bases to detect the enemy. Germany especially relied on radio information, reports from U-Boats and in good luck to guide surface raiders to their prey. The first of those operations, which involved the pocket battleship Graf Spee , she enjoyed initial glory but ended with her self-destruction in November 1939 when the ship was pursued to Montevideo by British cruisers. Other adventures carried out by converted, camouflaged and armed merchant ships claimed more victims, but their activities were limited to areas far from the usual shipping lanes where the Allies continued to sail alone until in 1942 convoys became omnipresent.
Operation Rheinübung
This is how things were when the Bismarck mission began, which, accompanied by the brand new heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen , would leave the Baltic through the Danish straits, refuel in Norway or from a prearranged tanker in Arctic waters, and then choose between the Denmark Strait – between Iceland and Greenland – or the passage between the Faroe Islands and Iceland to go out into the Atlantic to hunt down Allied convoys. At the end of their activities, both ships would withdraw to Europe and return to Norway or seek refuge in the bases of Brest or St. Nazaire, in occupied France. There would be tankers in discreet areas to provide them with fuel if needed. Admiral Günther Lütjens, aboard the Bismarck with his staff, would command the mission, which was given the code name Rheinübung (Rin Maneuver).
Secrecy was of paramount importance, so the force left Gdinia, in present-day Poland, on May 19 under overcast skies. After traversing the Great Belt at night and then following the western coast of Sweden, the two ships reached the Skagerrak late on 20 May and proceeded to a fjord near Bergen on the western coast of Norway to allow the Prinz Eugen will fill your tanks. It was inevitable that someone would notice the passing ships and report them, as a Swedish cruiser did. On 21 May, German radio intercept services confirmed that the British knew the Bismarck was in Norwegian waters, but low cloud cover prevented effective identification until a fighter aircraft located the ship at anchor off Bergen. Even so, a British squadron found the anchorage empty when it later attempted to make a bombing raid, as Bismarck and Prinz Eugen had disappeared due north with no known destination on the night of 21 May.
The sighting shocked members of the Admiralty in London and the headquarters of the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland. Admiral John C. Tovey became responsible for capturing the German raiders, or at least minimizing the damage they might cause. While the Norfolk and the Suffolk, two of the heavy cruisers with the most advanced radars, patrolled the Denmark Strait, and others patrolled the Faroe Channel on the side closest to Iceland, Tovey set sail for the forces that would converge to the German formation. He had under his direct command the mighty battle cruiser Hood , along with the battleships Prince of Wales and King George V and four cruisers and nine destroyers. A second squadron, stationed off the west coast of England, consisted of the carrier Victorious, the battlecruisers Rodney and Repulse, and a destroyer escort. Lastly, there was the Force H Admiral James Somerville, based in Gibraltar and organized around the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and the battleship Renown, who could quickly join the hunt, especially if Lütjens chose to head for a French base.
Both sides had to watch consumption of fuel , so Tovey divided and reorganized his forces based on the speed with which they could reach the scene of action, and the destroyers temporarily left their positions to refuel at the nearest bases. This also meant that Hood and Prince of Wales, under the command of Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland, would reach the intended battle area before their slower companions, while Tovey followed in their wake with the rest of the force. In contrast, although the Bismarck did not refuel even once throughout the operation, her final separation from Prinz Eugen was not only for the latter to avoid suffering her fate, but was also due to low fuel reserves. of her.
The Battle of the Denmark Strait
Between 21 and 23 May the British lost contact with Lütjens for nearly 48 hours, after he made a full turn to the northwest before speeding into the misty and Danish Strait ice cream. At 8:22 p.m. on 23 May, the cruiser Suffolk re-established visual and radar contact with the German formation and alerted London:“one battleship and one battlecruiser, position 20º, range 13 km, heading 240º”. The German intelligence unit aboard the Prinz Eugen immediately intercepted and deciphered the message and notified Lütjens by signals, who assumed his location was compromised and broke radio silence to relay the news to his superiors.
Throughout the morning of May 24, a game of cat and mouse was unleashed amid intermittent snowstorms, at speeds reaching 30 knots and occasional naval fire, in which Bismarck, frequently exchanging positions with Prinz Eugen, dragged Suffolk and Norfolk on a mad dash to the southwest in an attempt to shake off his pursuers. Meanwhile, Holland's forces altered course to intercept the German formation southwest of Iceland, but Lütjens, unaware that the Home Fleet he was out at sea and with his vanguard close, he remained optimistic. Certainly the Germans disappeared from British radar screens for several hours, until about 3:30, but somehow the Suffolk regained contact and relayed Lütjens's position and movements to Holland and Tovey, and two hours later at 5:30 , a lookout spotted the enemy to the west from the top. The chase was about to turn into combat.
The Hood, the Prince of Wales and the two cruisers were clearly superior to the German formation, except for one fundamental disadvantage:by design, the battlecruisers sacrificed protection in favor of of speed and in the case of the Hood its main artillery of 38 cm, similar to that of the Bismarck, had been achieved at the cost of weakening the deck armor. At long range the shells could strike directly from above and put the ship's armor to a severe test, but if the Hood got closer to the enemy the shells would hit at a sharper angle and possibly ricochet before doing any damage, so that's not surprising. that Admiral Holland chose to reduce the distance as quickly as possible once the Germans were sighted.
At the time of contact Prinz was in the lead Eugen and not the Bismarck, which confused Holland's gunners because the cruiser's profile closely resembled that of the battleship, whose 8-inch guns were identically deployed. At 0553 the British ships opened fire on Prinz Eugen, without hitting a target, and allowed Bismarck to target Hood without being attacked. Holland had opened up his formation so he could turn all of his guns around, so he presented easier targets to the Germans. Then it happened:shortly after 0600, at a range of 16 km, the fifth salvo from the Bismarck penetrated the Hood's armor. A flash quickly pierced the magazine and blew up the ship in a tremendous blinding blast that left only a towering plume of black smoke to mark the site of the disaster. Of her crew of 1,421, only 3 survived. Bismarck then exchanged salvos briefly with Prince of Wales where both battleships received and absorbed hits, until the British ship finally turned east, allowing the Germans to continue south. pursued at a distance by Suffolk and Norfolk, under the command of Rear Admiral Frederick Wake-Walker, now the most senior officer present after Holland's death.
Over the next hour, both sides made the decisions that would seal the fate of the Bismarck. After discovering that an enemy projectile had penetrated a forward fuel tank through which, without affecting the ship's ability to fight, she began to release a trail of fuel as water poured through the opening, Lütjens informed the Western Naval Command that he would suspend the offensive operation and proceed to St. Nazaire, France, for repairs, while the Prinz Eugen – a lucky ship that would not only survive Rheinübung , but that she would remain operational until the surrender of Germany – she would separate to operate on her own against the merchant marine. Bismarck's last photograph shows the battleship with her bow slightly sunken as she makes her way through heavy seas.
Meanwhile, a dour Admiral Tovey vowed to avenge the loss of the Hood and prevent the Bismarck from escaping at all costs. His forces were still vastly superior to the German battleship but they were scattered and, now that the enemy's position and trajectory were known, they had to be concentrated. With the Prince of Wales and Wake-Walker cruisers in the area and other elements of the Home Fleet maneuvering to cut off the Bismarck's retreat, the Force H , coming from Gibraltar, turned to the northwest, and convoys in the vicinity were redirected away from danger.
A new weapon was then added to the fight against the Germans, nine Swordfish torpedo boats. they took off from the carrier Victorious late on May 24 to attack the enemy 100 miles to the west. With evasive action and a volley of anti-aircraft fire, Bismarck evaded all but one of the torpedoes, which hit to starboard without significant effect. All Swordfish they returned safe and sound. Lütjens now knew that danger lurked from many directions and forms and that a retreat without further fighting seemed unlikely.
The sinking of the battleship Bismarck
Her last chance to slip away came shortly after 0300 on May 25, when the unsuspecting Suffolk lost the Bismarck on her radar and for over 30 hours the British they did not know the whereabouts of the German battleship. Tovey thought the enemy was making their way toward Norway and deployed his ships accordingly, while Admiralty tracking technicians in London correctly deduced from the volume of German radio traffic that the Bismarck was heading toward France. In the end, Tovey found himself almost out of the picture as the Force H de Somerville was sailing directly toward the enemy. At 1030 on May 26, the German battleship sighted an aircraft to port. The battle was about to resume.
It was a PBY Catalina from Northern Ireland piloted by an American volunteer, who relayed the position and heading of the battleship and revealed that only the Force H from Somerville - made up of the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, the battleship Renown and the heavy cruiser Sheffield, some 100 km just east of Lütjens - could prevent the Bismarck from reaching France. At 1145 the Admiralty authorized the air-naval attacks, but Somerville would have to refrain from any gunnery duel until King George V and Tovey's Rodney could intervene. The fate of the Hood weighed on everyone's mind.
Somerville asked Sheffield to assume a follow-on role similar to that of Suffolk in previous days, and shortly after 1500 Ark Royal launched her Swordfish . There was a kind of comic intermission when they were about to sink their own cruiser , and only a second wave of 15 aircraft, which took off at 7:00 p.m., headed towards its true objective, which by then had already been located by Sheffield's radar. A violent action ensued as the sun set, with the biplanes desperately trying to launch their torpedoes into the rough seas while the Bismarck maneuvered wildly and unleashed copious anti-aircraft fire. Incredibly, two of the torpedoes hit their target:one, amidships, caused a new leak, and another, much more deadly, jammed both rudders of the battleship to port. Long before Pearl Harbor, air power at sea had become a crucial game changer.
Damage control teams worked frantically to stabilize the battleship, while she held off Sheffield with a few warning shots. But even though Captain Lindemann slowed down and tried to maneuver the ship by engine alone to keep it from endlessly circling in tight circles, his steering remained erratic. Nothing worked, the giant had become an easy prey, while her hunters reloaded weapons. At dawn on May 27, Lütjens sent a message to Hitler assuring him of his fidelity and his willingness to fight to the last shell.
The first to reinforce Sheffield were five destroyers escorting a nearby Allied convoy, who during the night bravely but unsuccessfully attacked Bismarck with torpedoes and artillery, making you waste valuable ammunition. The cruiser Dorsetshire also arrived from another convoy, along with the Norfolk. Meanwhile, Tovey tried to get to the stage at dawn with his main units, as did Somerville with the Renown.
Aboard the Bismarck a sense of gloom spread. Attempts to transfer the logbook, photographic material, and the crew's last letters to the nearby submarine U-556, or to fly them to France by hydrofoil, proved futile. As the bond tightened with the arrival of Tovey's main units, the more than 2,200 crew of the vanquished colossus could only hope for a merciful end.
But there would be no leniency . The final bombardment began at 0847 when King George V began firing 14-inch shells at the German battleship, whose fire became as erratic as her speed and course. When the Rodney joined the fray, as did the cruisers and destroyers, what followed was not battle but carnage. With over 400 direct hits, every available cannon and torpedo ensured that the Bismarck never again fought or left the site of her dying breath. Does it matter which ship struck the final blow? Does anyone care when the Bismarck's last gun was rendered inoperative? Or was it mined from within or simply sunk after the carnage on her decks left only a handful of living men? Sometime after 10:15 the fire gradually died down, and half an hour later, winners and losers watched the battleship sink forever.
Rescue operations began almost immediately, but frightened by submarines, the Dorsetshire and other vessels only managed to rescue 114 officers and sailors from the frigid water, including none Lütjens nor Lindemann. The Battle of the Atlantic, with the U-Boote Trying in vain to turn the scales, she would wreak havoc for another four years, but no German surface warship would strike fear into the British as did the battleship Bismarck on her first and fatal mission in May 1941.
Bibliography
- Bercuson, D.J.; Herwig, H. H. (2003):The Destruction of the Bismarck. New York:Overlook.
- Kennedy, L. (1974):Pursuit:The Chase and Sinking of the Battleship Bismarck. London:Collins.
- Müllenheim-Rechberg, B. von (1980):Battleship Bismarck:A Survivor’s Story . Annapolis:Naval Institute Press.
- Zetterling, N.; Tamelander, M. (2009):Bismarck:The Final Days of Germany's Greatest Battleship. Philadelphia:Casemate.