Battleship Bismarck (22 page)

The fact that, in spite of the fighter cover we requested and were given during our day at anchor, a high-flying British reconnaissance plane photographed us and the
Prinz Eugen
has nothing to do with it. After all, Bergen and its surroundings were within reach of British short-range aerial reconnaissance.

*
The secret British radio transmission reported by B-Dienst headquarters had been intercepted and deciphered by the
Prinz Eugen’s
B-Dienst team around 0640 that morning. This signal furnished the first official confirmation that the German task force had been identified and reported by the enemy.

The execution of Exercise Rhine was seriously threatened thereby, for it was to be assumed that the British would use every available means in the attempt to prevent the task force from breaking out into the Atlantic. Thus the continuation of the operation from Norway had already become a great gamble.

*
Major, Army Medical Corps

*
A penciled note regarding this report in MGFA-DZ Ht M 307/5, “Preparatory Directives and Operational Orders of the Seekriegsleitung,” page 281, reads: “This visual reconnaissance must be very strongly doubted on the basis of
latei
knowledge. The manner in which it was relayed is not apparent to me. Should it have caused the fleet commander to attempt the breakthrough into the Atlantic, without pausing in the north, it can only be described as fateful. LNB MVO (signature illegible).” Later, in October 1942, the Naval High Command commented in its MDV 601 on the results of this Luftwaffe reconnaissance flight: “Subsequent determinations allow it to be taken for certain that the visual reconnaissance of 22 May, according to which four battleships lay in Scapa Flow, was in error.”

In his book Brennecke adds to the commentary of the Naval High Command in MDV 601 (p. 79) note 131, according to which the Luftwaffe had probably let itself be deceived by British dummy battleships at Scapa Flow. Accordingly, in note 132 he supposes that the “four battleships” mentioned in the partly visual reconnaissance of Scapa Flow on 22 May must have been the
King George V, Victorious
, and two dummy battleships. Kennedy advances a similar argument on pp. 50–51 of his book, where he goes into the presence of the dummy ships at Scapa Flow and reproaches the Luftwaffe for sloppy reconnaissance.

Kennedy’s remarks apparently go back to an article by the (since deceased) Professor Marder in Supplement 5 of the
English Historical Review
for 1972 on the question of dummy ships, which were built, upon Winston Churchill’s insistence, as they had been in the First World War. Dummy ships were in fact anchored in Scapa Flow from March 1940, but for only a few months. As they failed completely in their purpose of misleading the Luftwaffe, in August 1940 they were removed to Rosyth upon the recommendation of Admiral Sir Charles Forbes, then commander in chief of the Home Fleet, to remain there in “care and maintenance” status.

Hence, it can be asserted that, contrary to Brennecke and Kennedy, there were no dummy ships in Scapa Flow in May 1941.

†
Admiral Carls noted in the War Diary of Group North: “I gave this latter information to the fleet, not only because I expected its speedy appearance in the Atlantic to have the result indicated, but because the danger to ships in the north when they do not have the cover of darkness will increase with every delay. I also wanted to indicate that, if the Fleet Commander still had a choice between the Denmark Strait and a southern passage, the latter appeared preferable to me because it would be shorter and quicker.” But Lütjens did not really have a choice, because when he received this message he was already in the latitude of the Denmark Stait.

11    Alarm in Scapa Flow

As early as the beginning of May, the British noted an increase in German aerial reconnaissance in the far north and over Scapa Flow. The commander in chief of the British Home Fleet, Admiral Sir John Tovey, suspected that this activity portended another German surface operation in the Atlantic. His first precautionary measure was to instruct the cruiser
Suffolk
, which was patrolling the Denmark Strait, to keep a sharp watch for a possible German attempt to break out. At the same time, he ordered the cruiser
Norfolk
, flagship of the commander of the First Cruiser Squadron, Rear Admiral W. F. Wake-Walker, and then lying at a base in Iceland, to relieve the
Suffolk
as necessary.

In the early hours of 21 May, Denham’s report of the sighting of eleven German merchant ships, two large warships, three destroyers, and five escorting vessels on a northwesterly course in the Kattegat reached Tovey aboard his flagship
King George V
at Scapa Flow. He immediately attached great significance to this report and began speculating as to what ships were involved, what they were up to, and what was the purpose of the reported merchantmen.
*
The admiral thought of the
Bismarck
, of whose recent trials in the Eastern Baltic the British intelligence service had kept him advised. Naturally, he could not be certain that she was one of the “large warships” sighted, but it seemed wise to base his plans on the assumption that she was.
If it turned out that his assumption was false—well, so much the better!

Tovey and his staff worked out four possibilities as to what might be the mission of the reported combination of ships:

The warships were escorting a supply convoy to Norway, and when the latter reached its destination, they would return to Germany.

The warships were escorting the merchant ships to the north, in order to use them for replenishment during their own operations.

The warships were escorting the merchant ships northwards in preparation for a landing in Iceland or the Faeroes, for which they would provide cover.

The warships were escorting the merchant ships only as a secondary mission, their prime one being to get out into the Atlantic.

All these mental gyrations were brought on by our purely accidental meeting with some merchant ships at the entrance to the channel through the Skagerrak minefield!

Since the last of the four hypotheses would be the most threatening to him and at the same time the one the Germans could most quickly implement, that is what Tovey prepared for. He reckoned that any measures he took to counter that threat would be hound to serve as some defense against a landing in Iceland or the Faeroes, if that was what the Germans intended. But which of the five possible routes to the Atlantic would they choose this time? There was the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland, which, in May, was narrowed by pack ice from 200 nautical miles wide to probably 60 nautical miles; the passage between Iceland and the Faeroes, 240 miles wide; the passage between the Faeroes and the Shetlands, 140 miles wide; the Fair Island Channel between the Shetlands and the Orkneys; and the narrow Pentland Firth, between the Orkneys and the coast of Scotland, which for practical purposes could be counted out.

After carefully weighing the pros and cons, Tovey concentrated on the Denmark Strait, but did not ignore the three more southerly routes. At his immediate disposal were the battleships
King George V
and
Prince of Wales
, the battle cruiser
Hood
, the heavy cruisers
Suffolk
and
Norfolk
, eight light cruisers—including the
Galatea
, flagship of the commander of the Second Cruiser Squadron, Rear Admiral A. T B. Curteis—and twelve destroyers. Upon receipt of Denham’s report, the Admiralty also assigned him the aircraft carrier
Victorious
and the battle cruiser
Repulse.
The
Prince of Wales
and
Victorious
had been in commission for only two months and were not fully combat-ready.

Tovey at once deployed his ships to meet the situation. He ordered the
Norfolk
and the
Suffolk
to patrol the Denmark Strait together, rather than alternately, sent three cruisers to watch the passage between Iceland and the Faeroes, and divided the rest of his force into two task groups: the
Hood
and the
Prince of Wales
under the command of Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland; the
King George V
, the
Repulse
, and the
Victorious
under his own command.

In the midst of all this planning, the interpretation of Suckling’s photography arrived; so it was the
Bismarck!
She and a
Hipper-class
cruiser in the fjords near Bergen. Tovey’s hunch had not played him false. The same evening he sent Holland’s task group and six destroyers to watch the passages into the Atlantic, especially those north of 62° latitude. In order to avoid wasting fuel on superfluous searches, he decided not to take his own group to sea until it had been determined that the
Bismarck
and her accompanying cruiser had left Norway. He then had almost twenty-four hours of anxious waiting because the bad weather of 22 May was as great a handicap to British aerial reconnaissance as it was an advantage to the German ships, which that day were steaming across the Norwegian Sea. Late in the afternoon of 22 May a plane left the Orkneys on a daring, low-level, reconnaissance flight across the water and over the hilly coast of Norway. That evening Tovey got the report he wanted: the German ships had left Norway. At 2200 he put to sea on a northwesterly course to cover the breakout routes south of the Faeroes.

Winston Churchill cabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt:

Yesterday, twenty-first,
Bismarck, Prinz Eugen
, and eight merchant ships located in Bergen. Low clouds prevented air attack. Tonight [we find] they have sailed. We have reason to believe a formidable Atlantic raid is intended. Should we fail to catch them going out, your Navy should be able to mark them down for us.
King George V, Prince of Wales, Hood, Repulse
, and aircraft-carrier
Victorious
, with ancillary vessels, will be on their track. Give us the news and we will finish the job.
*

*
Since Denham’s message made no mention of merchantmen, Tovey was probably told about them in a separate message.

*
Winston Churchill,
The Second World War
, Vol. III, p. 272.

12    Lütjens’s Operational Decisions

At midnight on 22 May, as British and German forces converged on the northwestern passages into the Atlantic, it is interesting to compare the premises on which the two commanders were basing their actions.

Tovey had had the German task force identified, knew it had left Norway, and anticipated that it would try to enter the Atlantic through the Denmark Strait.

Lütjens knew that the opening stage of Exercise Rhine had become known to the enemy. The several signals he received from Group North on 22 May, however, led him to believe that his northward passage had not been detected and that most of the British Home Fleet was still concentrated at Scapa Flow.

It should here be pointed out that Lütjens, his staff officers, and the diaries of both the fleet and the ship having been lost in the
Bismarck
on 27 May, the considerations and estimates that determined tactical decisions after we left Grimstadfjord on the evening of 21 May cannot be known for certain. Neither the surviving turbine engineer, Kapitänleutnant (Ingenieurwesen) Gerhard Junack, nor I, in charge of the after fire-control station, knew what was going on in the minds of the fleet and ship commands. Like everyone else, we could follow closely only the events that took place in the immediate vicinity of our duty stations. All we knew about Exercise Rhine was what Lindemann had told the ship’s company over the loudspeakers on 19 May. Even such basic matters as the route we were planning to take and where we might stop, being components of a secret operational plan, were not made known to the junior officers ahead of time. Fähnrich (B)
*
Hans-Georg Stiegler, who was doing a petty officer’s duty in the engines’ internal command and communications post and assigned to the after E-Group,
†
received his own sample of secrecy. On an off-duty stroll around the ship during the passage through the Kattegat, he reached the charthouse, where his classmate Friedrich-Wilhelm Dusch was in process of tracing the ship’s course, “just don’t look at the chart,” Dusch shouted at him, “that’s all secret!” But Stiegler had already noticed that the ship’s course was plotted to the Norwegian fjords and thus obtained information that far exceeded his need to know, but resolved to keep it strictly to himself.