The Second World War was fought in the far corners of each ocean in the world with many stirring stories about sea chases, with lucky chances, blunders, and skill that shaped the outcome. One of the best of those sea chases took place in late May, 1941, in the North Atlantic. The Battle of the Atlantic had long been under way, but a new twist was added by the German Kriegsmarine with the launching and deploying of its new, powerful battleship, Bismarck. Here is that story.
The Plan: The German plan for the Battle of the Atlantic was to strangle British shipping with the usage of U-boats (submarines) that worked so well during the First World War along with surface raiders—moderate and heavy battleships—that could attack the lightly armed convoys from the surface. The plan would eventually put Bismarck together with her sister ship Tirpitz and two smaller battleships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The four surface raiders acting separately or in unison would add a dramatic new dimension to the Battle of the Atlantic. With the existing network of U-boats providing information as to the location of convoys, one or more of the surface raiders could plot intercepts in the open sea and pounce on the convoys out of range of British aircraft and naval resources. Not only would this factor result in more ships being sunk, but it would require the Royal Navy to send heavy warships as escorts to protect convoys and try to locate and destroy the raiders. All this would require a dramatic increase in the amount of naval fuel oil consumed by Britain in this theater of the war and heighten the risk of losing more of their best warships. But only Bismarck was available at the time, and in late May, 1941, she was sent out to the open sea from a staging point in Norwegian waters along with a heavy cruiser, Prinz Eugen.
The Battle of Denmark Strait: The small flotilla circled north around the British Isles without stirring up a reaction, but when they reached the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland, they soon noticed that they were being followed by British cruisers HMS Norfolk, and HMS Suffolk both equipped with the latest maritime radar. This meant that their cover was blown, and that the Royal Navy was out looking for them and not at their bases as previously thought. Admiral Lutjens, commanding Bismarck’s flotilla, decided to fire a few shots at the British ships in an attempt to shake them off in the bad weather. The shots missed, but Captain Lindemann discovered that the vibration of the artillery knocked out Bismarck’s radar forcing the decision to have Prinz Eugen, whose radar still worked, leading the way. The harsh weather cleared up on the morning of May 24, and the flotilla was then intercepted by two heavy warships from the British home fleet who had been tracking their progress. Admiral Lutjens was ordered to avoid engaging Royal Navy forces at all costs in order to utilize the ship’s resources solely for attacking convoys. However, in this particular instance Bismarck was forced to engage the two ships in combat: HMS Hood, a battlecruiser, and HMS Prince of Wales, a battleship. Admiral Holland, commanding the British group, knew he had to close the range between his ship, Hood, and Bismarck as the Hood had only three inches of deck armor versus nearly thirteen for Bismarck. The closer range would cause the Bismarck, perched higher in the water, to be forced to arc its shots high into the air, whereas Hood, slung low in the water, could still fire point blank. The two British ships approached at flank speed with Hood in front. They opened fire at about 28,000 yards. Admiral Holland ordered the Hood to concentrate on the lead ship as it was believed to be Bismarck, not realizing that the two ships had switched. The two sides fired back and forth at each other with only a few shells finding their mark. A fire caused by a hit by Prinz Eugen on Hood’s aft section broke out and quickly became a raging inferno. Admiral Holland believed he had closed the distance enough at 12,000 yards to begin turning his ships to parallel the Germans thereby bringing his rear artillery into the action. This process continued with a second turn when a shell from Bismarck slammed into Hood right where the fire had started. In a few seconds the cordite propellant in storage ignited sending fiery plumes skyward much like a giant Roman candle. A second or two later, the Hood erupted into a massive explosion blasting the big ship into two giant pieces that both sank within five minutes. The stunning turn of events did not sway the Prince of Wales from pressing the attack. However, the German gunners could recalibrate easily to fire at her because she was directly behind Hood. In the ensuing few minutes Bismarck slammed as many as seven salvos into Prince of Wales including sending a shot that crashed completely through the ship’s bridge before detonating on the other side. Further, Prince of Wales was having trouble with their fire control system and did not have all her guns operational. Forced to break off the fight, Prince of Wales turned away and headed out of range ending the Battle of Denmark Strait.
Evading the British Pursuers: Bismarck did not escape the action completely, however. While she was firing at Hood, the Prince of Wales scored three hits on Bismarck including one that damaged one of the fuel tanks causing her to leak oil. Further, the ship took on salt water from another hit causing a slight list to port and down by the bow. It would be necessary for Bismarck to seek repairs in one of the ports of German occupied France before continuing the Atlantic operation. The Royal Navy sent in three more heavy warships plus an aircraft carrier from the Home Fleet to join Prince of Wales: HMS Rodney, HMS King George V, HMS Repulse, and HMS Victorious. Prince of Wales managed to get all but one of her main guns back in operation, and Admiral Wake-Walker moved the ship back in front of Norfolk and Suffolk as they continued to chase Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. Admiral Lutjens then decided to make a maneuver that would free Prinz Eugen from the British trackers enabling her to head out after convoys. He ordered Bismarck to make a sharp turn to face and engage the British ships following them. Both Bismarck and Prince of Wales fired about 10-12 shots at each other during this maneuver but scored no hits. However, during the turmoil, Prinz Eugen was able to break out and go after shipping. Admiral Tovey, commanding the British Home Fleet, then ordered Victorious to launch an air strike at Bismarck that turned out to be unsuccessful. Prince of Wales pushed back into range and engaged Bismarck in another artillery exchange without either ship scoring a hit. The sea chase was now entering the open sea where German U-boats were operating against shipping. The British ships were forced to take a zig-zag course to confuse the submarines, but that slowed them down. While on the extreme end of the zig-zag turns, Norfolk and Suffolk fell temporarily out of reconnaissance range. At one of those turns Bismark attempted an encircling maneuver behind the British ships that fooled them, successfully enabling her to sail directly through the open sea towards the safety of the French coast without being tracked by the Royal Navy. Making matters worse for the British, most of the Home Fleet in the area that recently joined up in the chase had to pull out owing to low fuel supplies, leaving only Norfolk and Suffolk to track Bismark along with battleships Rodney and King George V. Having lost Bismark on radar, the British had no other choice but to attempt to make visual contact at first light the next morning.
Admiral Lutjens Big Mistake: Bismarck was now virtually home free having eluded her pursuers and gained substantial headway towards the coast of France. However, Admiral Lutjens soon committed one of the worst blunders of the entire Battle of the Atlantic. He mistakenly thought that he was still being shadowed by the British ships, and would lose nothing by sending several long radio messages to Naval Group West Headquarters in Paris. Since he had eluded his stalkers, he risked giving away his position. The signals were picked up by the British ships in the area, but were incorrectly plotted on the Home Fleet’s Flagship, King George V. As a result, Admiral Tovey believed that Bismarck was headed back to Germany, and kept the Home Fleet on the wrong course for seven hours until the error was discovered. The signals also were picked up by British Intelligence code breakers who narrowed the ship’s location down to a smaller radius in the general area south and east of Denmark Straight. The signals further indicated that Admiral Lutjens aimed to put in at Brest on the French Coast, and that air cover from the Luftwaffe would be required. By a stroke of good fortune, on May 26, a British Catalina flying boat that had joined the search in the area mapped out by British Intelligence, spotted the ship’s oil slick and soon spotted Bismarck now only 700 miles from the French coast. This meant that Bismarck would make the safety zone protected by U-boats and the Luftwaffe in less than one day unless something happened to intervene. Further, the British Home Fleet was still way out of position thanks to the plotting error.
More British Reinforcements: Another British squadron that was moving up the Atlantic from the Mediterranean picked up the pursuit of Bismarck at its newly discovered location. The cruiser HMS Sheffield closed in to track Bismarck by radar. Further, HMS Ark Royal, an aircraft carrier, launched torpedo bombers to attack Bismark, but the first wave did not pick up on the news that Sheffield was shadowing Bismarck and attacked her instead. No damage was done fortunately. But the second wave did attack Bismarck scoring two hits: one hit Bismark’s armor belt doing virtually no damage, but the other remarkably slammed into Bismark’s rudders! Both rudders were damaged—one was reparable, but the other was jammed into turn mode and couldn’t be fixed at sea. Worse, the ship was no longer maneuverable and was sailing in a turning arc directly into the oncoming British Home Fleet!
Bismarck’s Last Stand: Like a game of backgammon, the advantage changed back and forth suddenly and dramatically between each side in the chase until the stage was set for the end game. During the night six British destroyers kept Bismarck busy with torpedo attacks while the heavy ships closed in. On the morning of May 27th, the final battle began with King George V and Rodney attacking on both sides dividing Bismarck’s firepower. Bismarck’s guns were operational but the accuracy was slightly skewed by the rudder problem. Further, the ship could only make ten knots making it an easy target. The heavy British ships slammed Bismarck from long range early on and then, as the hits were taking their toll, closed in and fired at point blank range. Bismarck’s bridge, fire control, and much of the deck was demolished with Admiral Lutjens, Captain Lindemann, the fire control officer, and many crew members killed. After the Bismarck’s guns were silent, Dorsetshire and Norfolk also closed in joining the battle. Although virtually dead in the water, Bismarck was still afloat even after the British fired over 700 shells, hitting her over 400 times! The heavy British ships were also nearly out of fuel and had to pull out of the battle leaving it up to Dorsetshire to end it. Dorsetshire fired a spray of torpedoes to finish the job, but Bismarck’s executive officer had given the order to abandon ship setting off scuttling charges. Already listing to port, a short while later she slipped under the waves.
Conclusions: When Hood sank, only three out of over 1,400 crew members survived. Most of the dead were likely killed by the explosion itself, with any others who were thrown into the water dying from exposure to the icy seas. Out of a crew of 2,200 on board Bismarck, only about 100 were rescued and taken prisoner. Some of the German survivors reported horrific stories of the damage and carnage that took place on Bismarck’s deck from the naval gunfire. After the saga ended, the German high command discontinued the plan to use surface raiders to attack shipping sticking only with U-boats. It had to be an awful moment for Admiral Lutjens to watch his ship get blown apart knowing that his blunder was the reason for it. They were free and in the clear and headed for the safety of the French port of Brest until he sent a long series of messages that in its way told his enemy where he was.
Sources: Wikipedia, Battleship Bismarck.