Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II. Len Deighton

the catwalks, dragging with it forty to fifty ratings who were struggling to man-handle it aft. But somehow by 8.30 am ten planes were ranged and ready to fly off on a broad fronted search to locate Bismarck. At 8.35 am the carrier reduced speed and swung into the wind. [Deck officer] Traill choosing his moment carefully, dropped his flag, and aboard both Ark Royal and Renown ship’s companies held their breath as the leading plane gathered way. Would she make it?

      As the flight deck tilted down, the take-off degenerated into a frantic, slithering glissade. It looked for one terrible moment as though the aircraft were plunging straight into the maw of an approaching wave. But Traill had timed his signal well. At the last second the deck swung up and the plane was flung off through the spume of a sixty-foot wave as it cascaded over the carrier’s bow. And the almost unbelievable thing was this. The miracle was repeated not once, but nine times, until the whole of the searching force was airborne.⁴

      The weather was foul, but the Swordfish made good radar contact from above cloud using ASV Mk II radar and launched a low-level attack that failed completely. The torpedoes were set to activate their magnetic pistols but most of them exploded as they hit the water; others dived and disappeared. This was just as well, for the ship they attacked was HMS Sheffield! ‘Sorry about the kippers,’ the attackers signalled the angry men aboard Sheffield as they flew back to their carrier. Three of the aircraft crashed on to the pitching deck.

      The pilots of the 15-plane second strike were prudently ordered to locate HMS Sheffield first and then go to attack the Bismarck. And this strike force did not try the magnetic pistols again; its torpedoes were set to ‘contact’ and they would run at ten feet. It was old technology but more reliable. Three planes attacked just as Bismarck went into an evasive turn. One torpedo ‘ripped a large hole in the stern structure beneath the steering room gear’. This probably weakened a weld aft of the transverse armoured bulkhead at Frame 10.⁵ The immediate effect was damage to the starboard propellers and steering gear and a jammed rudder.

      It was dark, late and overcast as the planes returned. All the Swordfish got back safely, although most of them had been damaged by gunfire and many were wrecked on landing. One plane had been hit 175 times. The aircrews claimed no strikes with the torpedoes. The failure of the airstrike was received with mixed feelings. Admiral Tovey in command had never had much faith in the torpedo planes, and the captain of nearby HMS Rodney personally took the microphone to tell his crew, over the ship’s loudspeakers, that the planes had failed.

      But the strike had not failed. The first indication of this was a surprising signal from Sheffield that said that Bismarck was doing a U-turn and reversing course. Admiral Tovey refused to believe the report and added a sarcastic remark about the Sheffield’s seamanship. But the men aboard Sheffield were right and Bismarck was in a desperate situation. With steering jammed, it could only go round in gigantic circles. An attempt to cut the rudder away with underwater equipment proved impossible in the heavy swell. A suggestion that explosives should be used was rejected because it would inevitably damage the finely balanced propellers.

      Now, in his final hours, Admiral Lütjens signalled to Germany ‘ship unmanoeuvrable’ and to Hitler ‘We shall fight to the end trusting in you, mein Führer.’ During the night, four destroyers, one of them Polish, attacked Bismarck with torpedoes. The German gunnery radar demonstrated its effectiveness in the hours of darkness, and none of the torpedoes scored a hit. No progress was made in mending the ship’s rudder.

      Afterwards there were those who thought that the melancholy Lütjens had some sort of death wish. At the start of the voyage he had chosen to go through the Kattegat (between Sweden and Denmark) where the gigantic battleship was sure to be noticed by the Swedes, instead of through the Kiel Canal; then, against the advice of his staff, he had chosen the Denmark Strait where pack-ice and a minefield left him only a narrow and predictable course; and after that he had failed to hammer the Prince of Wales and escape. When safe at last, he sent a radio message that endangered him. The survivors also remembered that, before leaving Norway, Lütjens had declined the chance to have the fuel tanks topped up.

      On Bismarck’s long last night afloat it was decided to catapult the three undamaged Arado Ar 196 aircraft and fly them to France with the ship’s log and other valuables. Men were invited to send mail home, and many last letters were written. Lütjens asked Berlin if his gunnery officer could be awarded the Knight’s Cross for his successful sinking of HMS Hood and the ceremony took place at 4 am. When daylight came, and the first Arado plane was loaded with mail, it was discovered that none of the planes could be launched because the catapult had been damaged beyond repair. That morning, at 7 o’clock, a doleful radio message from Lütjens asked for a U-boat to collect the log-book but the vessel (U-556) assigned to this task was submerged and didn’t get the order until 10 o’clock, by which time the battleships Rodney and King George V (sister ship of Prince of Wales) were on the scene. One of the first shells fired by the British destroyed the admiral’s bridge and killed Lütjens. Shelling Bismarck at point-blank range, Rodney fired broadsides from her nine 16-inch guns, instead of the more usual four-or five-gun salvoes. This failed to sink Bismarck, yet sheared so many of Rodney’s rivets, and damaged the foretower so badly, that the vessel had to go to the Boston navy yard for repairs.⁶

      At 9.25 am, planes were launched from Ark Royal in order to sink Bismarck with torpedoes, but when they flew over their target the men in the RN battleships would not pause in their firing, making a low run-in impossible. The airmen sent a signal asking Admiral Tovey to cease fire while they attacked. The only response to this was for King George V to fire its anti-aircraft guns at the planes.⁷ It would seem that the battleship admirals were determined that Bismarck would not be sunk by airmen, even naval airmen.

      More ships gathered and more torpedoes were fired at Bismarck but she did not sink. At 10.44 a signal from the C-in-C desperately commanded: ‘Any ships with torpedoes are to use them on Bismarck.’ Finally the Germans aboard decided to finish the job themselves. They exploded charges and all became ‘a blazing inferno for the bright glow of internal fires could be seen shining through numerous shell and splinter holes in her sides’. Only then did Bismarck die. ‘As it turned keel up,’ said a proud German survivor who was in the water, ‘we could see that its hull had not been damaged by torpedoes.’ The Germans never lowered their colours. At 11.07 HMS Dorsetshire made the signal: ‘I torpedoed Bismarck both sides before she sank. She had ceased firing but her colours were still flying.’ The Swordfish aircraft, which had not been permitted to participate in Bismarck’s end, now had to jettison their torpedoes, as it was too dangerous to land carrying them.

      Despite the concentration of so many British warships, the U-74 was determined to get to the scene in order to assist Bismarck, or take its log-book back to Germany. But the submarine arrived too late. Bismarck had sunk and the water was covered in its fuel oil, its debris and its men. The U-boat periscope was spotted by a lookout on one of the RN ships during the time it had stopped to pick up survivors. Immediately the warning was given, the British ships moved off leaving many Germans to drown. The U-74 rescued three men, and the RN saved 107. Another German ship, Sachsenwald, retrieved two more of the crew. Of a complement of about 2,400 men, all the others perished.

      At 1.22 pm German signallers at Naval Group Command West told Bismarck: ‘Reuters reports Bismarck sunk. Report situation immediately.’ But by this time Bismarck was resting upright on the sea bed 15,317 feet below water.

      Prinz Eugen reached Brest safely on 1 June. Bismarck’s fate convinced the German navy – and Hitler, who needed far less convincing – that the Atlantic was fast becoming an Anglo-American lake in which submarines might survive but surface raiders could not. In future all German shipbuilding facilities were to give priority to enlarging and repairing the U-boat fleet.

      The Royal Navy, ably supported by Britain’s Ministry of Information,