I Sank The Bismarck Read online

  Bismarck edged along the pack ice, zigzagging to avoid ice floes, when a radar operator sounded the alarm. He had a contact on the port bow, which was confirmed almost immediately by a sonar trace on the same bearing. They had come into contact with Suffolk. Suffolk had also seen Bismarck and signalled at 1922 on 22 May, 'One battleship, one cruiser in sight at 20 degrees, range seven miles, course 240 degrees.'

  An hour later, Bismarck spotted Norfolk and opened fire. Norfolk immediately withdrew into the mist, five 15in shells from Bismarck's main battery crashing around her. Luckily none of them hit the ship, and Norfolk quickly put some distance between herself and the German battleship. She took up a position abeam of Suffolk and both ships started their work of tailing the battleship, sending regular reports back to the Admiralty, and to Admiral Tovey in King George V. Bismarck's radar had been damaged by the salvo from her forward guns, which had been fired at Norfolk, and so Prinz Eugen had moved ahead of the battleship to probe for icebergs and other British warships. They drove ahead at high speed, through the murky twilight of the Arctic night, into squalls and fog banks, sometimes laying down a smokescreen to evade their pursuers. But the radar sets in Suffolk and Norfolk were working perfectly. These two cruisers stuck to the quarry's coat-tails, keeping on the very edge of Bismarck's horizon, and it dawned on the German officers that, contrary to their intelligence reports, some of our warships did have radar on board.

  In the middle of the night, Admiral Lutjens decided to confront his pursuers and ordered a 180-degree turn, but it was noticed by Suffolk and both cruisers avoided coming into close enough range. They had been waiting for this manoeuvre and were content to retreat, knowing that they would be able to re-establish contact in the very narrow waters that Lutjens had selected for his passage west.

  The signals from Suffolk and Norfolk had, of course, galvanized the Home Fleet – Hood and Prince of Wales, and Admiral Tovey in King George V, with Victorious and Repulse. They had known for several hours where Bismarck was, and were rapidly steaming to intercept her. Hood and Prince of Wales were closest, so would be the first to make contact. On the morning of 23 May, at 0545, lookouts on Bismarck saw two plumes of smoke appear above the horizon, followed by the masts and upper works of two warships. The crews of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen went to action stations; the main guns were loaded and the gun directors started training them on the shifting positions of the targets as they got closer and closer.

  Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland, in Hood, was also in command of Prince of Wales and had decided that he would not wait for the remainder of the Home Fleet under Admiral Tovey to support him. He steamed at full speed directly towards the German warships. His flagship, Hood, was an extremely well-known and highly regarded warship, which had toured the world flying the flag for Britain in the 1920s. She had once been considered the biggest and most powerful warship in the world, although technically she was a battlecruiser. She was designed to carry very large guns at great speed in pursuit of an enemy. She was therefore comparatively lightly armoured, particularly on her main deck, and Admiral Holland knew that she was vulnerable to shells dropping from a height. It would be better for his ship to close the distance quickly so that Bismarck's shells would have a flatter trajectory. Getting the targets into close range would also suit Prince of Wales, whose gunnery team had had little experience or training with their ship's systems. Bismarck, however, was built to stand and fight, with extremely thick armour covering her sides and decks, which even the 14in shells of Prince of Wales would find hard to penetrate. It might have been prudent for Admiral Holland to wait for Admiral Tovey's forces in order to overwhelm the German warships by sheer weight of numbers, but the Royal Navy has always expected its officers to join battle whenever the opportunity arises.

  Hood was the first to open fire, but Admiral Holland mistook Prinz Eugen, which was in the lead and had a similar silhouette, for Bismarck, so both British ships directed their fire at the smaller German cruiser. Captain John Leach, in Prince of Wales, realized their error and directed his second salvo towards Bismarck, but Hood continued to fire on Prinz Eugen.

  Admiral Lutjens did not make the same mistake: Bismarck's guns were aimed squarely at Hood. With the third salvo, the shells found their target. Bismarck's heavy guns split open the grey light of early dawn with a blinding flash, leaving a cloud of black smoke in her wake that rose as high as the mast before being snatched by the wind. After the firing had continued for a few minutes, the gunnery officer in Bismarck reported that he saw a fire on the deck of Hood. Four minutes later he saw another bright flash, larger than the previous ones, and then Hood exploded in an enormous fireball. A giant column of black smoke rose into the air. A ship 840 feet long and built by thousands of shipyard workers from 42,000 tons of iron and steel was torn apart in seconds. Bismarck's navigator described the explosion as like being in a hurricane, with every nerve of his body feeling the pressure. A huge fireball blinded him. Enormous pieces of metal, some as large as a complete gun turret, were thrown through the air like toys. The navigator said afterwards that he never wanted his children to see a sight like it. Fourteen hundred men were killed in the blast, or drowned as the pieces of Hood sank beneath the sea. There were three survivors.

  There was jubilation in Bismarck, but the officers quickly quietened the men. The ship was still being fired on by Prince of Wales and her 14in shells were finding their target.

  Now Bismarck joined Prinz Eugen in targeting the last British warship still holding the field. Prince of Wales had been ordered to remain close to Hood, so it was relatively easy for the German gunnery officer to shift his aim. Prince of Wales was hit by four 15in shells from Bismarck and three 8in shells from Prinz Eugen. One of Bismarck's shells hit the bridge; it didn't explode until it had passed through it, but it killed everyone except Captain Leach and the signals chief petty officer. Another hit her fire-control turret for the 4.5in guns, and a third exploded against her aircraft crane. The fourth penetrated the hull but did not explode. Two 8in shells from Prinz Eugen had hit the stern and caused flooding in some after compartments, while a third had penetrated a shell-handling room of one of Prince of Wales's 4.5in guns, but had also miraculously failed to explode.

  This major piece of good fortune was naturally overshadowed by the greater disaster of the day. Hood had literally gone, just six minutes after opening fire on her German opponent. Prince of Wales was badly damaged, taking on water, with her main armament now proving to have some serious mechanical problems that prevented her from firing a full broadside. Bismarck had her range, as did Prinz Eugen. She could not survive for much longer, so, laying a thick smokescreen, Captain Leach ordered his ship to turn away.

  Bismarck had not come out of the battle unscathed. The 14in guns of Prince of Wales had proved accurate before the turret mechanism started jamming, and Bismarck had received a hit through the bow, which passed completely through the ship just above the waterline, causing 2,000 tons of seawater to flood into the hull.

  A second shell had hit below the waterline and flooded a generator room, buckling a bulkhead between that room and a boiler room on the port side. It also ruptured a fuel tank in the hull. The third shell hit a boat on the boat deck but did not explode. The damage caused by the shells had not threatened the integrity of the hull, but inspection by damage-control parties revealed the uncomfortable fact that 1,000 tons of fuel oil was leaking from the ruptured tank and could not be salvaged. The forward bulkhead next to the hole in the bow needed to be shored up and the speed of the ship needed to be reduced to a maximum of 28 knots to prevent it collapsing further.

  Needless to say, I had known none of this on Ark Royal, but around eight o'clock next morning signals were picked up that the cruisers shadowing Bismarck had seen the battle between the German warships and Hood and Prince of Wales, and they had seen Hood blow up. As the news went round the ship the men were stunned. I was told about the loss of Hood when I returned from a patrol and saw how it affected some
of my colleagues. Some knew sailors on board the battlecruiser, or had once served on her. Percy North, the 818 Squadron writer, was a regular navy man from Portsmouth and the sight of the mighty Hood in harbour when he was a young boy had been one of the reasons why he had signed up. He was very shocked. We all accepted, I think, not only that the loss of Hood was a grave blow to the navy, but that there was now a very powerful enemy battleship on the loose, which might well prove invincible. The situation as it looked to us was that the two enemy ships were steaming at 25 knots into the North Atlantic. They were still being shadowed by the 8in cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk, while the commander in chief of the Home Fleet Admiral Tovey on board King George V, with Rodney, and the carrier Victorious were about 200 miles away. There was a large convoy steaming into trouble from the south, escorted by another 8in cruiser, HMS Dorsetshire.

  The situation did not look hopeful. We had very little information about the scale of the battle and had no idea what efforts Hood had made before she was destroyed. Even if Admiral Tovey managed to intercept Bismarck, would his battleship, which we knew had smaller guns than Hood, be able to make any impression on this German behemoth? We talked about the situation in the wardroom, but I didn't personally think that we would get involved. It was serious, but we had lost ships before, and it was still some way away from us.

  All through that day the wind was from the north-west, and it continued to strengthen; it looked as though a tough storm was brewing. The destroyers that had escorted us from Gibraltar started to take in seas over the bows. They could not keep up, so turned for Gibraltar. We continued to press ahead. That night, around 2200, we heard that Victorious had launched a Swordfish strike against Bismarck.

  Victorious had been sent ahead by Admiral Tovey in the hope that her Swordfish might be able to do something to slow Bismarck down. He was still 200 miles from the German warships and unsure about their intentions. He was ignorant of the fact that Prince of Wales had inflicted enough damage on Bismarck to make Lutjens cut her speed and reduce her usable fuel supply. His overriding concern was to prevent Bismarck from continuing her course to the south-west and getting at the convoys. Victorious launched nine Swordfish from 825 Squadron when she was still 120 miles from the known position of the German battleship. The attack was lead by Lt Commander Esmonde, a civilian airline pilot in peacetime who had volunteered for the Fleet Air Arm at the outbreak of war. An experienced and mature pilot, he led a group of young men who for the most part were on their first combat mission. Their navigation was good and they had three Swordfish fitted with air-to-surface-vessel radar, which helped them locate their target. They made visual contact when Bismarck was 16 miles away, but unfortunately lost it again. However, they identified the cruisers that had been trailing the battleship for over twenty-four hours, and Norfolk sent a visual Morse signal to Esmonde's observer giving a heading and distance to their quarry.

  They flew on for another 14 miles, descended from cloud and started their glide towards the target. Bismarck was still 6 miles distant and they had lost the element of surprise.

  Admiral Lutjens in Bismarck had been faced with a number of decisions following his victory over Hood. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen could have pursued the damaged Prince of Wales and could probably have finished her off. However, Lutjens chose immediately not to do this. His mission, his personal orders from Hitler, had been to wreak havoc amongst the convoys crossing the Atlantic. While Prince of Wales might eventually have been sunk by his two ships, she had already inflicted some damage on Bismarck and might have created much more before any conflict was over. In the hours that followed, it had become clear to him that the two cruisers that had hung on to him like leaches throughout the course of the battle had very good radar and were not going to be shaken off. They had now been joined by Prince of Wales, which was keeping its distance on the horizon. Bismarck was down at the bows and Lutjens had finally accepted that the 1,000 tons of oil in the damaged tank could not be pumped to another one. Moreover, the oil was leaking into the sea and helping to reveal his position. The original mission was now in jeopardy and Lutjens had to decide what to do. He could retrace his steps, returning to Norway via the Greenland Straits or, like Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, head for a French port, Brest or St-Nazaire, where his ship could be repaired. It must have been clear to him that the Admiralty would be mobilizing all its resources to catch and sink him, but he was ignorant of the exact disposition of our ships. The safest course was to head to the west coast of France, where he could get some support from German U-boats that might be sent out to meet him, and he would be within range of German aircraft.

  Lutjens decided that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen should separate, allowing Prinz Eugen to continue the mission to attack the British convoys in the Atlantic. He hoped that this separation would also allow him the opportunity to confuse his pursuers and break contact with them. At three in the afternoon of 24 May, when the German ships entered a fog bank, Lutjens gave the order to separate and Bismarck executed a 360-degree turn to starboard, bringing her on to a heading towards Suffolk. The massive 15in guns of her two forward turrets belched fire and smoke, and Suffolk sheered away, laying a thick smokescreen. Prince of Wales now also opened fire, and Bismarck shifted her aim to the British battleship. Both ships were firing at the limits of their range and neither scored any hits, but the ploy had served its purpose. Prinz Eugen slipped away unnoticed. Bismarck completed her wide turn and continued on her course to the south.

  When Lutjens had signalled his intentions to his superiors, they had replied acknowledging that both St-Nazaire and Brest were being made ready to receive him. In addition, six U-boats were being positioned on his route to the French ports. There was little more to do except wait for nightfall and attempt once more to throw off the pursuing cruisers and Prince of Wales.

  Then, in the quasi-twilight of a northern night, the lookouts in Bismarck reported approaching aircraft. They had spotted the Swordfish from Victorious. Apart from the 15in-calibre main armament, every gun on Bismarck opened fire. Esmonde's plane was hit when he was still 4 miles from the target. The barrage was so heavy that the second and third flights of three aircraft broke away and turned to port. Reforming, each flight attacked from three different angles on the port side, with a lone aircraft coming in from starboard. Bismarck was being steered from her open bridge and manoeuvred to avoid the torpedoes that seemed to be coming from all directions.

  Some Swordfish flights turned round and made a second approach, some of them only 2–3 metres above the sea. All the torpedoes were dropped at close range. Only one torpedo hit the target, however, and it sent up a huge column of water, followed by thick black smoke. Unfortunately, it exploded against the thickest part of Bismarck's belt armour, at the waterline, and caused no structural damage to the ship at all. A seaman in the compartment next to the detonation, however, was thrown against a bulkhead and killed by the impact. This was the first casualty to be suffered by Bismarck's crew. All the Swordfish survived the attack and made for their carrier. But it was a long way back and the dark had now finally descended. Victorious shone a searchlight vertically into the sky as a beacon for her returning aircraft and they all managed to land on safely. It was a gallant attack made by a squadron that had barely completed its training, but they had not succeeded in their aim of slowing Bismarck so that Tovey could catch her. The great battleship was unscathed.

  At this point, it seemed that it must only be a matter of time before Bismarck succumbed to the superior numbers of the Royal Navy. Warships were diverted from their escort duties all over the North Atlantic and were converging on Bismarck's position, which was being continually updated by reports from Suffolk. Individually, none of the battleships or battlecruisers was a match for Bismarck, and there was no doubt that one or two would be severely damaged, if not sunk, but it would be impossible for Bismarck to defeat all the ships that were descending on her. Later that night, however, fortune confounded Admiral Tovey and the Admiralty in L
ondon.

  Admiral Wake-Walker had allowed his three ships, Suffolk, Norfolk and Prince of Wales, to take up a position to the east of Bismarck, so that as she headed south they were on her port quarter. They were sailing in a zigzag pattern as a defence against any U-boat attacks, and every now and then Suffolk would lose radar contact with Bismarck, but establish it again on the next leg of the zigzag. Two hours after midnight, Lutjens ordered an increase in speed and turned the giant battleship on a new course to the west. Gradually, over a period of an hour, Bismarck completed a circle, moving behind Suffolk and Norfolk, then set a new course of 130 degrees, heading south-east for St-Nazaire. On board Suffolk there must have been the assumption that Bismarck would shortly appear again on their radar screens, but this time there was no trace. Suffolk continued on her course for some time, but there was still no sign. An hour after Bismarck started her manoeuvre, Suffolk radioed that she had lost contact with the enemy. The error was compounded when Rear Admiral Wake- Walker continued on his course to the south-west, assuming that that was the direction that Lutjens had taken. Prince of Wales continued to head south, under orders to join forces with Admiral Tovey, and she too sailed away from Bismarck.

  On board Ark Royal, as dawn broke on 25 May, we heard that contact had been lost. It was not going to be easy to locate her again. Visibility was decreasing and a gale was blowing. Renown was taking seas solidly over her forecastle and speed had to be reduced to 21 knots. Anti-submarine patrols took off when it seemed that visibility would be lifting and the crews would be able to see something. Twice during the day Swordfish had to be recalled because of low visibility. I didn't fly that day: my scheduled patrols were both cancelled because of the weather. Heavy rain clouds came down at a speed of 50 miles an hour, blotting out the horizon over wide arcs. At times the rain squalls were so bad that returning Swordfish could not see the flight deck and had to circle, hoping for a break in the weather for a few minutes so that they could put down. It was an outstanding test of endurance and skill on the part of the pilots.