Battleship Bismarck (52 page)

In his final report on Exercise Rhine, Tovey wrote: “She [the
Bismarck
] put up a most gallant fight against impossible odds, worthy of the old days of the Imperial German Navy, and she went down with her colours flying.”

How effective was German gunnery, at least at the beginning of the
Bismarck’s
last battle? “No casualties or damage to any of our ships during the action on 27 May,” wrote Tovey in the above-mentioned report. This outcome may seem surprising in view of Schneider’s incredibly accurate straddling fire in the first few minutes of the action, between 0850 and 0900. But it must be remembered that the crippled
Bismarck
could not steer a straight course. She kept on heeling to port and turning unpredictably, whereas the
Rodney
, being maneuverable, could take action to avoid the
Bismarck’s
registering salvos while the latter was adjusting her fire. And then at 0902, less than fifteen minutes after we opened fire, Schneider’s control station in the foretop and our two forward main turrets, Anton and Bruno, were put out of action. Apparently, Albrecht’s forward fire-control station was also put out of action, at least temporarily, at about the same time. This meant that we had been in the fight only a quarter of an hour when two of our four main batteries and, with the foretop, the “brain” of our gunnery were knocked out. The
Bismarck’s
main fire-control station was not well enough protected, a defect common to foretop control stations on all battleships of the time: in the interest of stability, heavy armor could not be installed at that height.

After 0910 I was able to fire only four salvos from the after turrets, Caesar and Dora, before my own control station was put out of action. That happened just as I had registered on my target, the
King George V.
Thereafter Caesar and Dora went on firing under local control, lay well on target, but without the help of a fire-control apparatus could not score any hits.

There is no doubt that the
Bismarck
had an outstanding gunnery system, and it was very efficiently directed by Schneider and Albrecht. But, because of the number of ships she was up against, their threefold superiority in weight of shells, and the constantly closing range, the decisive blows she suffered were delivered quickly and almost simultaneously.

To be sure, Tovey’s formulation “no damage to our ships” hid the fact that the
Rodney
suffered not inconsiderable damage from her own fire. The blast pressure from her 40.6-centimeter guns, which were at maximum depression for the concluding portion of the cannonade, severely damaged deck structures and several guns jumped their cradles. Her guns were depressed to maximum depression at times because the ship’s command wished to score hits at or below the
Bismarck’s
waterline (these experiences soon led to improvements in the construction of British battleships). A further indication of the condition of the
Rodney
after the battle reached me through a U.S. citizen, George C. Seybolt, who wrote to me in July 1982. As a lieutenant (junior grade), USNR, Seybolt was assigned in 1943 to the Intelligence Volunteer Special Service in London, where he heard that as a result of her sustained firing of full salvos, the
Rodney
was badly racked and even her keel had been driven out of alignment. It was understood that either the
Rodney
was not designed to fire broadsides or had failed under that punishment. As Seybolt’s statement has never been confirmed by another source, however, I am inclined to regard it with considerable doubt. In any case, in June 1941 the
Rodney
entered the U.S. Navy yard in Boston, Massachusetts, for an overhaul and repairs. Her arrival there was observed by a then sixteen-year-old American, John Love, who wrote to me in 1983 that, although apparently the ship had not sustained a direct hit, she showed what appeared to him to be battle damage on her starboard side, presumably from the blast of her guns firing at full depression.

If any questions remain on our troubled conscience, it is the reason why Lütjens did not attempt to end the terrible and ultimately futile slaughter of the final battle by signaling Tovey, Cease fire, the
Bismarck
is scuttling herself, save our survivors. How Tovey would have reacted, I must leave open. To understand the conduct of a German warship captain or task force commander in battle it is necessary to recall the edict issued by Raeder on 22 December 1939 in reaction to the scuttling of the battle-damaged pocket battleship
Admrial Graf Spee
off Montevideo. This read in part: “A German warship will fight with utmost force until she is victorious or goes down with colors
flying.” Such wording virtually precluded showing the white flag, as the light cruiser
Emden
had done at the end of her engagement with the Australian cruiser
Sydney
in November 1914 without diminishing her historical renown. And it was wording to which Lütjen’s signal of 2140 on 26 May corresponded almost exactly. In principle, Raeder’s directive was as binding as it reads, but, in the final analysis, whether or not it was carried out to the letter depended upon the personality of the on-scene commander. I incline to the assumption that Lütjens was not the man to rise above it, but I cannot and will not say so for certain. In the absence of information about the exact time that the fleet commander was killed or possibly wounded, I do not know whether he was physically in condition to have contributed to ending the battle in this manner. Furthermore, if the fleet commander was incapacitated, I do not know how quickly Lindemann learned of it so that he could take over. Viewed as a whole, too many aspects of this complex question remain factually unclear, so I must let it pass.

The enemy’s detection of the beginning of Exercise Rhine and his almost continuous contact with our task force thereafter resulted in all our encounters being with heavy British warships, in the
Bismarck’s
spectacular sea fights, her lightning victory over the
Hood
on 24 May, and her lonely, tormented death on 27 May. Given the drama of what took place, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the destruction of enemy warships was not the primary aim of German surface forces in the Atlantic, and that, viewed strategically, Exercise Rhine was a failure from the moment we left Norway. The
Bismarck
did not even come close on one single occasion to carrying out her principal mission of commerce warfare.

It is worth taking a look at the overall risk the Seekriegsleitung took in sending the
Bismarck
out and the individual risks Lütjens took in the course of the operation.

Concerning the former, the best source is the highest professional witness, Grossadmiral Raeder, commander in chief of the Kriegsmarine, who wrote:

Whether or not to send the
Bismarck
out presented me with an extraordinarily difficult decision. Some of the conditions on which the Seekriegsleitung based its original thinking on the subject no longer pertained. The sortie of the
Bismarck
was to have been part of a broad operational plan, but now, if she went out, it would be an individual undertaking and there was the possibility that the enemy would concentrate all his forces against her. That seriously increased the risk. On
the other hand, the military situation was such that we could not afford simply to conserve such a powerful combatant. Postponing the operation until the
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
were again ready for sea, might mean that we would never be able to use the new battleships for offensive operations in the Atlantic. It was almost impossible to predict when the
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
, which were in port in northern France and constantly exposed to attacks by the Royal Air Force, would be combat-ready. In fact, neither ship got to sea until they both escaped in February 1942. Postponing the operation still further, until the
Tirpitz
was operational, would result in at least half a year of inactivity—a period during which the enemy would not be inactive and the situation in the Atlantic would probably deteriorate because of the attitude of the United States, if for no other reason.

An extremely strong psychological ground for my decision was the confidence I had in the leadership of Admiral Lütjens, an officer who understood sea warfare and its tactics inside and out. Even as a young officer in the First World War he commanded a half-flotilla of torpedo boats off Flanders. He later became a flotilla chief, cruiser commander, and Commander in Chief, Torpedo Boats, and was for a long time engaged in staff work. It was when he served as my chief of personnel that he won my special confidence. At one time during the Norwegian campaign he replaced the ailing Fleet Commander in command of the heavy striking forces, and finally demonstrated his great ability during the Atlantic sortie of the
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau.

The decision to give the final order to execute the operation was made very much more difficult for me by Hitler’s attitude. When I informed him of my plans, he did not reject them, but it was evident that he was not in complete agreement with them. However, he left the decision up to me. At the beginning of May he had a long conversation in Gotenhafen with Admiral Lütjens, who described his experiences during the Atlantic cruises of the
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
and explained his intentions regarding the tactical deployment of the
Bismarck.
The Fleet Commander also pointed out that enemy aircraft carriers could be a serious danger for the battleship.

After carefully weighing all the circumstances, I gave the order to execute.
*

It was undoubtedly his awareness that the risks would be far greater if the
Bismarck
were sent out alone that led Lütjens to express certain reservations to Raeder in Berlin on 26 April. At that time he suggested that it might be better to postpone the operation until the
Schanihorst
had been restored to combat-readiness or even until the
Tirpitz
was operational. Granted, he reverted on his own to the original idea of Exercise Rhine, that the sortie of the
Bismarck
and
Prinz Eugen
should not be delayed. Both of his immediate predecessors as Fleet Commander were relieved of that command because of disgreements with the Seekriegsleitung.
*
So I think his desire to be in accord with Raeder and the Seekriegsleitung was responsible for his reversal because that was so very obviously what they were striving for. As I interpret Lütjens’s conduct, he was going against his better judgment in agreeing to immediate “teaspoon” deployment of our battleships, which could only diminish their chances of accomplishing anything in the Atlantic. Later, the British saw it just as he had. Russell Grenfell wrote: “But happily for us, the Germans decided to expend their capital ships in penny packets.”
†

Reader continued: “I bear responsibility for the deployment of the newest German battleship, just as I do for all naval deployments made during my time as commander in chief of the Kriegsmarine. I alone bear it. No one forced me to carry out the operation. My decision was based solely on the necessity to fight the enemy in war with every available means and according to all the rules of the military art, and that entails committing one’s own forces.” To be sure, Raeder had not drawn a personal lesson from this so keenly felt responsibility.

In chronological order, the risks that Lütjens accepted or could not avoid are detailed below.

At the end of April 1941 British intelligence learned that the
Bismarck
had requested Fleet Headquarters to forward charts—not available in Gotenhafen—for the prize crews she carried. This news strengthened the suspicion that the
Bismarck
was about to undertake an operation in the Atlantic.

British intelligence obtained this information by decoding the radio signal by which the
Bismarck
requested the charts. It had recently gained the ability to do so when, during a raid on the Lofoten Islands, the British disabled and captured the German armed steam trawler
Krebs
, aboard which was a German Enigma cipher machine and supporting material. As a result, British intelligence was able to decode a number of previously intercepted German signals, including this one.

The transmission of an Enigma-encoded radio signal from a ship at sea was a normal occurrence. That in this case, owing to the capture of the
Krebs’s
code material, the British could read the signal requesting the charts was an exceptionally unfortunate development which Lütjens could hardly have anticipated. Therefore he could not avert the risks it involved.

In the second week of May 1941 the British noticed a significant increase in German aerial reconnaissance over Scapa Flow and as far west as the Denmark Strait. They also deduced from a few Luftwaffe radio signals that they decoded that a breakout by the
Bismarck
was imminent. Admiral Tovey directed the cruisers
Suffolk
and
Norfolk
to conduct intensive surveillance of the Denmark Strait.

This was an unavoidable risk, and the Seekriegsleitung had to live with it unless it was prepared to give up the idea of breaking out into the Atlantic. Lütjens must have been aware that our intensified aerial reconnaissance would not go unnoticed by the British, who therefore had some warning.

The Seekriegsleitung had known since at least the middle of April that by March 1941 the British naval attaché in Stockholm, Captain Henry W. Denham, had built up an organization to monitor the traffic passing through the Great Belt.

Whether Lütjens knew of this risk, I cannot say. So far as I know, nothing that might prejudice our chances of conducting war at sea happened during our passage through the Great Belt on the night of 19 May. Either we were lucky or the enemy’s organization was not foolproof.