The Sinking of the Bismarck (2 page)

The North Atlantic Ocean and surrounding land areas, showing the four routes by which the
Bismarck
might emerge from her Norwegian refueling station.

North of this was a wider channel of 150 miles between the Shetlands and the Faroes Islands. Still farther north was the 240-mile-wide channel between the Faroes and Iceland. And between Iceland and Greenland was the Denmark Strait.

The Germans had previously always used the Denmark Strait. Its low clouds and frequent snowstorms provided good cover. And it was farthest from the British naval and air bases. But it had one disadvantage. Though the Strait was some 200 miles wide, an ice pack stretched out from the coast of Greenland toward Iceland. The ice pack narrowed the passage to about sixty miles of navigable water at this time of year. And at the Strait’s northeastern end, the British had sown a mine field stretching out for about fifty miles from Iceland’s northwest coast.

Admiral Tovey believed the
Bismarck
would probably head for the Denmark Strait. But he could not be sure. He had to guard the other three channels as well. As the morning of May 22 dawned, he did not even know whether the
Bismarck
was still at Bergen or not. Because of the weather, British reconnaissance planes could not find out.

As the day passed, Tovey’s anxieties grew. By afternoon, twenty-four hours had gone by since the German battleship was last spotted in Grimstad Fiord. By this time, for all Sir John knew, the enemy might be approaching the Denmark Strait or slipping through one of the more southerly passages, hidden from sight in the foul weather.

Or the
Bismarck
might be still at Bergen. In this case the British warships already searching for her around Iceland would be wasting their fuel. The problem of conserving fuel oil, as we shall see, was to be a vital one for both sides.

Finally, at 4:30
P.M.
, with the Coastal Command planes of the Royal Air Force still grounded by bad weather, the navy got off one of its own aircraft in a desperate search for the
Bismarck
. This was an American Maryland bomber which had been used by the fleet for target towing. It had no proper navigation instruments or facilities for taking photographs. Nevertheless it made its way through the clouds to the Norwegian coast, and at twilight swept down through an opening over Grimstad Fiord.

The German ships were no longer there! Just to
make sure, the plane flew low over the nearby port of Bergen through a hail of German anti-aircraft fire. It found no trace of the
Bismarck
and her cruiser there either. Fearing that he might be shot down any moment, the pilot got off an urgent radio message to Scapa:

“Battleship and cruiser have left!”

On receipt of this message Admiral Tovey lost no time. His Home Fleet weighed anchor at Scapa at ten o’clock that night—as soon as the ships could get up steam. Tovey’s flagship, the
King George V
, sailed out in the van, followed by the aircraft carrier
Victorious
. This also was a new ship whose planes had been taken on only the day before. None of her pilots had in fact ever landed on a carrier deck before. They had intended to practice while escorting the convoy of troops to Egypt.

During the night Admiral Tovey’s squadron picked up the battle cruiser
Repulse
, which had also been detached from the convoy. The Commander in Chief sent out new orders to the
Hood
’s squadron, already approaching Iceland. He also radioed the cruisers
Suffolk
and
Norfolk
, under the command of Rear Admiral W. F. Wake-Walker, to
increase their vigil in the icy Denmark Strait, where they were already on patrol.

A powerful British armada was now at sea. The search for the
Bismarck
had begun!

Chapter Two

The Shadowing of the
Bismarck

The Germans had a secret code expression for the mission of the
Bismarck
. They called it the “Rhine Exercise,” after the river Rhine.

The confidential German naval records, captured at the end of the war, reveal the
Bismarck
’s sailing orders. She was to destroy British merchant shipping in the Atlantic and to avoid, if possible, engagements with a strong enemy fleet. But if cornered by British battleships, the
Bismarck
was to fight with all she had.

The German naval command did not believe the
Bismarck
would be caught. She was too fast for the British battleships. There was some danger, of course, that the big warship might be observed
breaking out into the Atlantic north or south of Iceland. But the chances of that, it was believed in Berlin, were slim. The top command of the German navy was convinced that the British warships did not yet have radar as the
Bismarck
had.

This was a costly mistake. Radar enables a ship or plane to see through fog or clouds. It bounces an electric impulse against a distant object and retrieves it. A screen reveals the location of the object, its distance, speed and direction. Some of the British warships hunting for the
Bismarck
had radar too, and it was to play a key role in what now ensued.

The mighty
Bismarck
, as we know from the secret German records, sailed from the Baltic port of Gdynia on the evening of May 18, 1941. She was accompanied by the new heavy cruiser (14,000 tons, 8-inch guns)
Prinz Eugen
. They were supposed to have sailed a month earlier. This would have given them the advantage of having dark nights in which to slip past Iceland into the North Atlantic. But the
Prinz Eugen
had hit a British magnetic mine in the Baltic, and been slightly damaged. The repairs had delayed the venture by
nearly a month. Now in the arctic waters, close to the midnight sun, there would be no completely dark nights. The delay was to prove costly.

Still, Admiral Guenther Luetjens on his flagship
Bismarck
was confident as he put out to sea. He was a hard-bitten, stern, somewhat sour naval officer. The crews nicknamed him the “Black Devil.” He had already enjoyed dizzy success. It was he who had commanded the battle cruisers
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
a few months earlier when they had sunk twenty-two British merchant ships. With the more powerful
Bismarck
, Luetjens was confident that he would be even more successful.

Two German supply ships and five tankers had put out to sea many days before. If Admiral Luetjens needed to refuel at sea or replenish his ammunition stocks, he could depend on them. All of them had slipped through the British and were now at a secret rendezvous in mid-Atlantic. Four submarines were also gathering there to aid him if necessary.

The German admiral put into Grimstad Fiord just south of Bergen, Norway, at 9:00
A.M.
on May 21. He refueled his two ships. There, taking advantage
of the low cloud cover, he put out to sea at eleven o’clock that evening. He did not know that a speedy enemy Spitfire reconnaissance plane had spotted and photographed his ship shortly after noon. The plane had not been seen by the ships’ lookouts.

But that night, as his squadron sailed north for the Iceland passage, he was informed by Berlin that the British had discovered his leaving the Baltic. The German naval command did not believe the British knew more than that. German reconnaissance planes flew over Scapa Flow on the afternoon of May 22 and reported that the British Home Fleet had not budged from its base. This was good news to the German admiral aboard the
Bismarck
. It meant that the enemy’s Home Fleet could not catch up with him now.

Unfortunately for Admiral Luetjens, the report was not accurate. As we know, one squadron of the Home Fleet, including the
Hood
and the
Prince of Wales
, had sailed from Scapa Flow the night of May 21. Through the stormy arctic waters around Iceland it was converging on the German ships. Neither Vice-Admiral Holland aboard the
Hood
nor Admiral Luetjens on the
Bismarck
knew this. Each had no idea where the other was. But they were soon to learn.

***

Where is the
Bismarck
?
That was the question uppermost in the minds of the British naval commanders at sea as the day of May 23 dawned. No trace of her had yet been found.

Normally, scouting planes ranging over the passage routes would have been able to pick her up by now. But low clouds and fog and—in the Denmark Strait—snowstorms had greatly curtailed their work. Most planes had not even been able to take off.

All day long Admiral Tovey on his flagship
King George V
, plowing northwest toward Iceland, waited impatiently for news of the sighting of the
Bismarck
. None came. Toward evening he calculated that the German ships might well have slipped through the Iceland-Faroes channel. It was 240 miles wide and he did not have enough ships to cover it all in the bad weather. As evening came on May 23, Tovey’s spirits were none too high. No news about the
Bismarck
was to him bad news.

Shortly before 7:00
P.M.
the British heavy cruiser
Suffolk
, on patrol in the Denmark Strait, reached the top of the mine field off the northwest coast of Iceland and turned around. She had been ordered the day before to look for the
Bismarck
entering the Strait between the mine field and the ice pack that stretched out to sea for a hundred miles from Greenland toward Iceland.

The customary savage weather of these northern waters—gales, snowstorms, heavy mist and bitter cold—somewhat subsided toward evening. There was actually clear weather over the ice and for some three miles off it. But to the southeast, toward Iceland, mist and fog still enshrouded the sea.

When Captain R. M. Ellis, commander of the
Suffolk
, turned about, he deliberately steered over from the ice to the edge of the mist. He did not want to be caught in the open by the big guns of the
Bismarck
, should she suddenly appear from the northeast. It would be more difficult to see her from the stern of his ship on the southwest leg of his patrol. Therefore he kept the
Suffolk
close to the edge of the mist so that at any moment she could dive quickly into it and out of sight. In the fog bank he could still get a fix on the enemy ship
if she should approach. For unknown to the Germans, Captain Ellis had the latest model radar installed on his cruiser. He had made a study of its use. This study was now to prove its worth.

Fifteen miles south of the
Suffolk
, deep in the mist, was a second heavy cruiser, the
Norfolk
, under the command of Captain A. J. L. Phillips. Also aboard the ship was Rear Admiral Wake-Walker, who commanded the two cruisers on patrol.

The radar on the
Norfolk
was of primitive make and not of much use in the search. Admiral Wake-Walker had therefore ordered the ship to keep fifteen miles south of the
Suffolk
and well under cover of the mist and fog. To the
Suffolk
, with her new radar gear, he assigned the main job of finding the
Bismarck
should she try to slip through the Denmark Strait.

Having turned about, the
Suffolk
was edging southwest just clear of the line of mist when at 7:22
P.M.
a lookout on the starboard aft cried out: “Ship bearing Green 140 [degrees]!” A moment later came a second cry: “Two ships on the same bearing!”

Captain Ellis raced to the starboard side of the
bridge. Through his binoculars he saw the outline of the
Bismarck
, followed by a heavy cruiser. She was only 14,000 yards away. Even at 40,000 yards, he knew, the
Bismarck
’s 15-inch guns could blow his ship to bits in an instant.

He immediately gave the order: “Hard a-port!” The
Suffolk
turned sharply toward the mist. But a couple of minutes passed before she reached cover. Each second seemed an eternity to the crew. Finally the British cruiser disappeared into the protective fog. Apparently the lookouts on the
Bismarck
had seen nothing.

Captain Ellis was in a happy but ticklish position. He had found the
Bismarck
. But he had been forced to steer into the midst of his own mine field to escape her. And he feared that the
Bismarck
’s radar might have discovered him. If so, the radar could also give the German battleship the range, and that would be the end of the
Suffolk
. Frantically—before it might be too late—the Captain sent out a radio message that he had sighted the
Bismarck
. Further messages in rapid succession gave her position, course and speed.

Captain Phillips on the
Norfolk
was just having
dinner when a signal petty officer broke into his cabin in high excitement.

“
Suffolk
’s got ’em, sir!” he cried.

The electrifying news crackled over the air waves to the other ships of the navy and to the Admiralty in London. The
Bismarck
had been found! The next job for the British was to engage her and sink her.

***

Back in the mist Captain Ellis aboard the
Suffolk
watched the
Bismarck
and her companion cruiser on his radar screen. He let them pass him and then, at a distance of some fifteen miles, emerged from the fog and began shadowing them. The
Norfolk
also changed course to join in the chase. But when the British cruiser suddenly emerged from the mist her captain saw the German battleship and cruiser only six miles away, steering directly for him. Captain Phillips turned sharply to starboard and immediately made a smoke screen to hide behind while speeding for the protection of the fog.