Battleship Bismarck

BATTLESHIP    

BISMARCK

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Bundesarchiv, Koblenz

Kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann

New and Expanded Edition

BATTLESHIP

BISMARCK

A Survivor’s Story

By Burkard Baron von Müllenheim-Rechberg

Translated by Jack Sweetman

BLUEJACKET BOOKS

Naval Institute Press
Annapolis, Maryland

This book has been brought to publication by the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

© 1980, 1990 by the United States Naval Institute All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book was originally published in German by Verlag Ullstein. The English translation of the first edition was published in 1980 by the Naval Institute Press. This 1990 edition is a translation of a new and expanded edition first published in German in 1987 by Verlag Ullstein.

First Bluejacket Books printing, 2002

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Müllenheim-Rechberg, Burkard, Freiherr von, 1910– [Schlachtschiff Bismarck. English]

Battleship Bismarck: a survivor’s story / by Baron Burkard von Müllenheim-Rechberg; translated by Jack Sweetman.

p. cm. – (Bluejacket books) Originally published: Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 1980.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61251-294-5 (e-book) 1. Müllenheim-Rechberg, Burkard, Freiherr von, 1910– 2. Bismarck (Battleship) 3. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, German. 4. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations, German. 5. Germany Kriegsmarine—Biography. 6. Sailors—Germany—Biography. I. Title. II. Series.

D772.B5 M8313 2002

940.54’5943—dc21

2002070334

In honored memory
of the
German Resistance
1933–1945

Contents

Foreword

Preface to the First Edition

Acknowledgments

Table of Equivalent Ranks

Table of Equivalent Deck Designations

1
     
The
Bismarck
and Her Captain

2
     
The
Bismarck
Joins the Kriegsmarine

3
     
Sea Trials and Battle Practice

4
     
Plans for Commerce-Raiding

5
     
Operation Orders for Exercise Rhine

6
     
Another Postponement and Last Liberty

7
     
Hitler Comes Aboard

8
     
Departure from Gotenhafen

9
     
A British Naval Attaché in Stockholm

10
     
Grimstadfjord and the Journey North

11
     
Alarm in Scapa Flow

12
     
Lütjens’s Operational Decisions

13
     
First Contact with the Enemy

14
     
The
Hood
Blows Up

15
     
Lütjens’s Alternatives

16
     
Parting with the
Prinz Eugen

17
     
Direct Course for St. Nazaire

18
     
Attack by Swordfish Torpedo Planes from the
Victorious

19
     
The Admiralty Steps Up the Pursuit

20
     
Contact Shaken Off

21
     
The British Compute the
Bismarck’s
Position

22
     
A Fateful Sunday

23
     
The
Bismarck
’s Dummy Stack

24
     
Catalinas from Northern Ireland

25
     
The
Bismarck
Is Rediscovered

26
     
Tovey’s Hopes Are Pinned on the
Ark Royal

27
     
The Mortal Hit

28
     
Destroyers Ordered to Tovey’s Support

29
     
The Last Night on Board the
Bismarck

30
     
Attempts to Save the Fleet War Diary

31
     
A Last Visit to the Bridge

32
     
Tovey Sets the Time of the Final Action

33
     
The Last Battle

34
     
The
Bismarck
Sinks

35
     
Survival

36
     
Exercise Rhine in Retrospect

37
     
Cockfosters

38
     
An Outing in London

39
     
Shap Wells

40
     
Transport to Canada

41
     
The Battle of Bowmanville

42
     
Crisis in Camp

43
     
Whites, Grays, and Blacks

44
     
Featherstone Park Camp

45
     
End of a Nightmare

Afterword

Epilogue

Appendix A
The Seekriegsleitung’s Operation Order for Exercise Rhine

Appendix B
General Orders for the Atlantic Operation

Appendix C
British Forces Deployed Against the
Bismarck
During Exercise Rhine

Appendix D
The Rudder Damage: Were All Possibilities of Repair Exhausted?

Appendix E
Record of the Action Between the
Rodney
and the
Bismarck
on 27 May 1941

Appendix F
A Break in the Code?

Bibliography

Index

Foreword

When I lived through the opening days of September 1939, the war that was so suddenly at hand and would later limit the operational life of the battleship
Bismarck
to only nine days, appeared to me as nothing less than a natural catastrophe, a fateful, somehow “outbroken” war. And yet much less than one which had been forced upon us from without, as the Reich’s propaganda loved to pretend. I immediately regarded it as Hitler’s war—his very own, coddled creation, something he had long planned and pursued in a skillful deception of German and world opinion from January 1933 to August 1939.

If and when the individual German understood Hitler’s lust for war, whether sooner or later, naturally varied from person to person. A tiny, politically insignificant minority had seen through Hitler even before he took power; yet there are those who until today have not and will not see this unscrupulous warmonger for what he was.

But for those who took a critical perspective and from the beginning understood the war as one cynically unleashed by Hitler out of racial fanaticism and megalomania to enslave the continent of Europe, the very first German projectile would appear as having been fired in the service of a politically reprehensible and nationally ruinous goal. To feel this way was purely a question of individual perception that on its part became the impetus of the wish to see the “Führer” disappear in the best interests of the nation, and the sooner the better. Because of the impossibility of escape from the wartime situation, the growing doubts I had felt soon after Hitler’s emergence,
which during the thirties increased to a passionate rejection, gave rise to a more painful inner conflict than ever before, a deadly dilemma. I was torn between the spoiler of the Reich, who demanded my loyalty, and my country, to which I owed it. How else could this inner conflict find an end than with the destruction of the Brown dictatorship?
*

The first edition of the life and death of the battleship
Bismarck
and the majority of her crew appeared in 1980. In accordance with the interests of my publisher, the United States Naval Institute, it was limited to the maritime aspects of these themes. I dedicated it to the memory of those who—presumably without exception—had risked their lives in naive faith in Hitler, who seemed to them to be the incarnation, the living spirit of Germany. The book was published in ten languages, sometimes in several printings, and provoked a friendly, almost worldwide response. Among the numerous letters received from readers were many from Germans and others who from their own knowledge or experiences provided interesting additions to the contents in my story. Among the foreigners I must mention by name is first of all the Briton Donald C. Campbell. During the final phase of the battle on 27 May 1941 Campbell was a senior lieutenant and air defense officer on HMS
Rodney.
His personal narrative makes fascinating reading. Others furnished details regarding various phases of the
Bismarck’s
operations, such as, for example, our meeting with the Swedish aircraft carrier
Gotland
in the Kattegat on 20 May 1941, the voyage up the Norwegian coast, the dummy ships intended to deceive us in Scapa Flow, the location of the
Bismarck
by British direction finding after the loss of contact on 25 May, and the British destroyer attacks on the
Bismarck
the night before the last battle. As for Germans, there appeared for the first time the only survivor from the forepart of the ship, whose battle station was in the damage-control center adjacent to the First Officer’s command center: Maschinengast Josef Statz. Towards the end of the battle Statz succeeded in reaching the platform of the devastated forward conning tower through a communications shaft and, in the last phase of the ship’s life, gathered sensational impressions. Thanks are due to all these correspondents for allowing me to work their valuable contributions into the present narrative. It is my final account as a participant in the operation.