The First and Only Mission of the Bismarck
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 7:00AM Over all the centuries of North Atlantic naval warfare, there had never been a warship as big and dreadful as the Bismark. Nor one as heavy-laden with expectations.
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 the Armistice (cease-fire) with between Germany and the allied powers ended the hostilities of World War I. Under the terms of that armistice the German naval fleet was to ordered to the British naval harbor of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands to await the decisions that would be made at the peace conference taking place in Versailles.
With virtually the entire German navy laying at anchor in the Orkneys, the Germans became afraid that the treaty that would emerge from Versailles would simply seize their ships and divide them up among the allied powers as spoils of war. To avoid that, the German admiral in command ordered all the German ships to be scuttled (intentionally sunk) by their own crews. On 21 June, 1919 they began to go down. British ships standing guard quickly realized what was happening and intervened, but 52 of the 74 German ships went down under the cold waters of Scapa Flow. Incidentally, a number were later raised and towed off for salvage, and those that remain are today popular sport diving wrecks.
Anyway, the Treaty of Versailles went on to impose restrictions on the number, type and size of navy that Germany was allowed to have going forward. It wasn’t allowed to have more than six armoured warships, six cruisers, twelve destroyers and twelve torpedo-boats, and none of them were to be larger than 35,000 tons, the size of the largest British and French ships of the time.
Needless to say, Germany resented these restrictions and Hitler rode these resentments to power in 1933. In 1936 the German navy began construction of what was to be the biggest and baddest battleship of all time. It would break all the size, weight and armament restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. It would be 251 meters (823 feet) and weigh over 40% more than than allowed. They named it after the “Iron Chancellor” who united Germany into a singular powerful state in the 19th century, Otto Van Bismark.
Hitler’s naval ambitions didn’t stop there. In 1939 he formulated “Plan Z,” and ambitous scheme to build a massive Nazi Navy that would challenge Great Britain for control of the seas, including aircraft carriers which could take the Luftwaffte’s M-109 and xxx aircraft within range of British -- and American -- cities. The Bismark was to the the flagship of the Plan Z navy.
But then war broke out, or more accurately, then Hitler started a war by invading Poland. All the sudden the massive cost of building a massive navy became a budget buster, and resources were redirected to building up the Luftwaffte and U-Boat wolf packs.
Which left the massive Bismark sitting in port in northern Germany. Both the Germans and Allies were aware of the awe-inspiring dreadnaught, and knew that it was a matter of time before it would be put to use.
In 1941 the German Navy decided to put the Bismark to use raiding allied supply convoys in the North Atlantic. Convoy raiding -- which depended on stealth and maneuver in the crowded North Atlantic -- wasn’t the purpose for which she was designed. Battleships of the era were to play a role in concert with with a fleet of other ships. In essence, they were massive artillery platforms that needed to be protected from aircraft and smaller, faster moving ships that could maneuver inside their range of their gun defenses. But the Plan Z budget cuts had left the Bismark without a proper fleet around her she was too big of an asset to leave on the sidelines.
And so on 19 May 1941 the Bismark left Gdansk Bay in Poland (now under German control, of course) on her first -- and last -- mission.
The German navy had intended to send a number of other warships to accompany her, but too many were beat up and under repair at that point. In the end, she only had one companion ship, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, and a destroyer escort that could only accompany her to the edge of the Atlantic. Interestingly enough, she was in such a hurry that she left harbor without a full tank of gas.
The Allies expected the Bismark to attempt a break-out from the Baltic Sea. Between human intelligence, aerial reconnaissance and naval observation -- not to mention that Bletchly Park was able to intercept and read German Ultra/Enigma code by that point -- the British Admiralty knew the Bismark was making her way along the coast of Norway.
Over the next two days the Bismark and the Prinz Eugen steamed west across the Norwegian Sea towards Greenland and the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland, the gateway into the Atlantic. Admiral Günther Lütjens, the German fleet commander on the Bismark’s bridge, was hoping for foggy weather which would let him slip into the open Atlantic and toward the Allied convoys unseen by British aircraft or ships.
;)
On Saturday, May 24, 1941 two British battleships, the Prince of Wales and the Hood, encountered the two German ships. Over the next thirty minutes a ferocious battle ensued, with all four ships maneuvering and firing at full speed around each other. The Battle of the Denmark Strait, as it has come to be known, ended when shells from the Bismark penetrated the Hood’s power magazine, resulting in a massive explosion and the instant loss of the ship -- flagship of the British fleet and pride of the Royal Navy -- and over 1,400 crew.
But Bismark took three critical hits from the Hood during the exchange, and now water was leaking into some of it’s fuel tanks, making the decision to leave the Baltic without a full load of fuel an ominous one. Admiral Lütjens ordered the Prinz Eugen to continue the convoy-raiding mission, while Bismark sought to turn east and steam back -- at reduced speed to conserve fuel -- toward the northern French coast to seek repairs.
The British were stunned and angry, but mostly angry at the loss of the Hood. To lose their flagship in less than thirty minutes and have another battleship damaged and turned away was unthinkable. When the news reached Winston Churchill he ordered the British navy to use whatever force necessary to pursue and “Sink the Bismark!”
An epic chase began: the Bismark alone about 300 miles off the coast of Ireland running as fast as it could -- which wasn’t full speed -- to shoot to the south of Britain and make for repairs in the dry-dock in Saint-Nazaire, France while the entire British Navy snapping at her heels with avenging fury.
That night a few biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier Victorious attacked the Bismark and caused some damage, but her wounds were taking their toll. She further reduced her running speed to sixteen knots.
The chase continued for the next 36 hours, with the Bismarck attempting maneuvers to throw off the chase. The British did lose contact for a few hours, but reacquired the Bismarck and began to organize their attack.
On the morning of the 26th a Royal Air Force reconnaissance plane based in Ireland spotted the oil slick trailing behind the Bismarck. The race was now one of vectors and velocity: a group of British heavy warships was charging north-east from Gibraltar, trying to intercept the Bismarck before she could get close enough to the French coast to have protective aircover from the Luftwafte based there.
That night, around dusk, the battle was joined as the British task force from Gibraltar intercepted the Bismarck. British torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier in the group scored a direct hit on the Bismarck’s rudder and she lost all steering. From that point on, listing to port, all she could do is steam in a circle. Admiral Lütjens radioed back to Nazi command that the situation was hopeless, but that the Bismarck would fight on until it was out of ammo.
More and more British ships gathered around the wounded Bismarck. Throughout that night they pounded it and British aircraft made repeated attacks. What the British didn’t realize was that a German U-Boat, returning from convoy-raiding, had come into the area and was shadowing the British capital ships. Fortunately for the British, it had used up all its torpedos before arriving and could do nothing but observe and direct other U-Boats into the area.
The next morning, in rough seas and low visibility, the British battleships surrounded the Bismarck and commenced heavy firing from 20 nautical miles away. They raked her decks with heavy bombardment, destroying her guns and their ability to fire back. The Bismark was mortally wounded, dead in the water.
At this point naval protocol would have been for Bismarck to lower its flag. The British officers watched, waiting for any sign of surrender, but none came. The chase had left them also low on fuel and ammunition, and they felt that they couldn’t leave the area with the Bismarck intact, lest it find a way to limp back to within range of the Luftwafte. The British launched three torpedos at close range. They hit, and the ship began to sink lower and lower into the water.
Afterwards, German survivors claimed that onboard the Bismarck the order was given to scuttle the ship. True or not, at 10:39 am on May 27, 1941 the Bismarck sank beneath the waves.
Two of the British ships attempted to rescue survivors, but U-Boat alarms caused them to break off operations after rescuing only 110 survivors. The next day a German U-Boat and a German weather ship picked up 5 more the next day. All told, 2,200 Germans went down with the Bismarck.
In 1989 Robert Ballard, the guy who found the Titanic, used his underwater robots to find the Bismarck. When she sank, she landed on the slope of an extinct volcano, triggering a 1.25 mile underwater landslide. She slid down the volcano’s slope, coming to rest upright more than 15,000 feet below the surface, 400 miles west of Brest, France. [about 250 miles south of SM]
Here's an interesting audio clip of First Sea Lord A V Alexander announcing to Parliament that the Bismarck had been sunk:
This video summarizes the story has some great photos and newsreel shots:
Reader Comments (4)
YEY Down wit the nazi"s
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The hood was due for a dec upgrade before the encounter. altho it would of made her sit too low in the water.
Yeah Mr Aero I heard that as well a two inch thick plate upgrade, apparently it would cause the sea water to flow more freely on and over the decks thus causing a faster rate of decay of the superstructure.