I Sank The Bismarck (22 page)

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.