Battleship Bismarck (24 page)

With her guns trained abeam, the
Bismarck
released a salvo in the battle off Iceland. (Photograph courtesy of Paul Schmalenbach.)

It now developed that the jolts caused by the firing of our big guns had put our forward radar out of action and, since the
Bismarck
was in the lead, our task force was blind to any threat from ahead. In order to overcome this disability and also to have the ship with the heavier guns near the shadowers astern, Lütjens ordered a “number change,” which meant that the
Prinz Eugen
, her forward radar intact, would take the lead. In the Kriegsmarine number changes were routine evolutions: the ship in the rear pulled out of the line and increased speed, while the leading ship slowed down until the overtaking one had taken her place at the head of the line. That was supposed to happen this time, but instead of a routine maneuver we had a little excitement. Lindemann happened to be inspecting my battle station and asking questions about this and that, when he received a report from a talker on the bridge. Hurrying forward, he was confronted with an
alarming sight: the
Bismarck
and the
Prinz Eugen
were on a collision course! Without waiting to get back to the bridge, he had his orders to the helm relayed—and the danger passed.

Thus the thing we most wanted to avoid, an encounter with British naval forces, had happened at the very beginning of Exercise Rhine. As I have probably emphasized enough already, such an encounter was highly undesirable because an undetected breakout was so important to the success of our commerce warfare in the Atlantic. We younger officers still did not know that Tovey was expecting us to be in this area and had strengthened his surveillance of the Denmark Strait two days earlier. Nor did we know that there had been no German aerial reconnaissance of the strait since a Focke-Wulf had flown over it four days before, on 19 May, and had not observed anything unusual. Not only being unaware of these things but counting on the fact that our departure from Norway was still a secret, this sudden encounter with British cruisers came as a shock to me, especially as it was reasonable to assume that there would be other enemy ships in these rather narrow waters. But at the same time, I regarded it as only the opening act, and naturally we were confident that we would be able to ward off the threat. Lütjens’s next moves were aimed at either shaking off our pursuers or sinking them.

Now, the
Suffolk
and the
Norfolk
were both maintaining contact with us from astern and at the limit of visibility—the
Suffolk
to starboard, where visibility was good; the
Norfolk
to port, where there were long stretches of fog. Most of the time, I had a good view of the
Suffolk
and occasionally could see them both. Since at least the tip of a mast was always visible on the horizon, it gradually dawned on us that these annoying hangers-on must have better means of maintaining contact than optical instruments.

Through dark gray seas and white wave crests, the pursuit continued. At almost 30 knots we sped through the half-light of the Arctic night, through fog banks, rain squalls, and snow squalls, every now and again adding to the cover the elements gave us by laying down smoke. In an attempt to shake off our pursuers, we changed course and sought the shelter of every patch of haze; but it did no good. The British cruisers were continuously informed of our position, course, and speed, which they radioed to Tovey. Their reports were intercepted by our B-Dienst team and in five minutes were laid before Lütjens. They read like a minute-by-minute account of the movements of his task force—this phase of his operation was an open book to Tovey. What a depressing beginning for Exercise Rhine!

Lütjens decided to take the offensive. Around 2200, under cover of a rain squall, he had the
Bismarck
make a 180-degree turn. He intended to surprise the
Suffolk
by suddenly running out of the squall and attacking her when she came into view, but when we emerged, there was no enemy to be seen. It looked as though the cruiser had seen through our maneuver in time; in any case, she had turned and moved away from us at high speed. For a while we pursued her, in the hope of getting her in sight. Then Lütjens gave up, not wanting to be drawn too far back to the east, no matter what the enticement. He ordered the
Bismarck
to turn back and resume her former position in the task force. The
Suffolk
eventually caught up with us, but Lütjens did not take the offensive again. He assumed that it would not turn out any differently, and he was undoubtedly correct.

We had another excitement when the word was passed, “Aircraft off port beam!” In the far distance, a Catalina flying boat, evidently from Iceland, was banking as it searched the area; then, apparently unsuccessful, it turned away and disappeared. We could see it clearly outlined against the sky, but for its crew the gray hulls of the
Bismarck
and
Prinz Eugen
probably blended into the leaden hue of the Arctic sea.

Shortly before midnight our task force was enveloped in a heavy snow storm, into which our followers soon ran. Visibility shrank to a nautical mile, and the cruisers’ signals ceased. On our bridge the atmosphere was tense: perhaps there would be no more. Were we to be lucky for once? But the respite lasted only three hours. Lütjens concluded that the British had an efficient long-range radar system, a conclusion that threw his whole concept of surface warfare in the Atlantic into a disturbing new dimension.

In fact, only shortly before, the
Suffolk
had had a modern, traversable radar installed, by means of which she could reconnoiter up to 22,000 yards. It was blind only in a small sector astern of the ship, where its impulses were blocked by the ship’s superstructure. The
Norfolk
had to get along with an older and less efficient, non-traversable radar.

Although we continued to hope that somehow we would succeed in shaking off our shadowers, we were haunted by concern as to what other ships they might have called on to join them.

*
The chief wireless officer of the
Prinz Eugen
, Hans-Henning von Schultz, informed me in 1984: “The report intercepted and deciphered by the
Prinz Eugen’s
B-Dienst team at 1922 on 22 May of the sighting of the task force by the British cruiser
Suffolk
initiated a series of very exact contact reports that continued the whole night through. With surprise we had to conclude that this was possible only with the aid of shipboard radar, which on our part was not known to be aboard British warships. To the contrary, on the German side it was believed that the British were behind in this area. On the other hand, it was known that land radar installations had been built on the British coast.”

14    The Hood Blows Up

The early morning of 24 May brought radiantly clear weather and moderate seas. Steaming in the same order as the previous evening, the
Prinz Eugen
in the lead, the
Bismarck
in her wake, we were following a southwesterly course at a speed of 28 knots. Below, in the three turbine rooms, a warrant officer (machinist), two petty officers, and six stokers were on duty at all times. The warrant officer, the senior petty officer, and one stoker stood on the control platform, the second petty officer and the other five stokers tended the auxiliary engines and the fresh-water generator. Every lever and every control had to be examined again and again to make sure that the 150,000-horsepower propulsion plant was performing precisely as it should. Because of the high steam pressures at speeds such as we were then making, the slightest error in handling could have catastrophic consequences. And everyone on board sensed that the hours to come would bring great decisions.

The watch on the bridge and all the lookouts paid particular attention to the southeastern horizon, from which direction other enemy units were most likely to come. And we were certainly not disappointed.

Not long after 0500, the hydrophones in the
Prinz Eugen
picked up ship noises to port, and at 0509 Group North radioed that shortly before 0500 the
Suffolk
had again reported our position, course, and speed to Scapa Flow. It must have been around 0545, the rising sun having already lit up the horizon, when the smoke plumes of two ships and then the tips of their masts came into view on our port beam. General quarters was sounded on the
Bismarck.
Through my director, I watched as the masts in the distance grew higher and higher, reached their full length, and the silhouettes of the ships below them became visible. I could hear our first gunnery officer, Korvettenkapitän Adalbert Schneider, speaking on the fire-control telephone. His hour had come, and all our thoughts and good wishes were with that competent, sensible man. How was it that a young seaman in the
Bismarck
had summed up his own and his comrades’ feelings? “Next to the captain, the first gunnery officer, Korvettenkapitän Schneider, has all my respect and confidence!” Now I heard Schneider saying he thought the approaching ships were heavy cruisers and giving targeting information on the lead one; I heard our second gunnery officer, Korvettenkapitän Helmut Albrecht, who was in the forward control station, expressing first mildly, then definitely, doubt that the ships were heavy cruisers and saying that he thought they were battle cruisers or battleships. Then the turrets were trained, the 38-centimeter guns loaded, and all we needed was the Fleet Commander’s permission to fire.

The mighty
Hood
, whose elegant lines can be seen in this photograph taken in late April 1938, was the pride of the Royal Navy for two decades. In May of 1941 she looked much the same, except that her 5.5-inch guns had been removed, numerous antiaircraft weapons had been added topside, and she was painted a darker gray. (Photograph from Marius Bar, Toulon.)

Meanwhile, the enemy ships were rapidly closing their original range of more than 30,000 meters. I estimated that they were steaming at about the same speed we were, 28 knots. To approach nearly bow-on, as they were doing, appeared to me absolutely foolhardy; it reminded me of an enraged bull charging without knowing what he’s up against. But, since the British admiral obviously knew that, his impetuous approach must, I thought, have something to do with gunnery. Presumably, he wanted to close the range rapidly, so as to get out of the way of plunging fire.
*
But there was not time to ponder such considerations at this moment. Whatever the British tactic was, the exciting reality was that the ships were getting nearer and nearer to us.

Korvettenkapitän Adalbert Schneider, first gunnery officer of the
Bismarck
, who, from the foretop fire-control station, directed the gunfire that sank the Hood and damaged the
Prince of Wales.
(Photograph courtesy of Frau Ilse Schneider.)