World War: AT SEA: End of the Bismarck

For three days last weekend, the brand new 35,000-ton German battleship Bismarck was mistress of the seas. Against seemingly heavy odds, she had blown to bits Britain’s largest warship, the 42,100-ton Hood; fought off one of Britain’s newest and mightiest, the Prince of Wales. The fight lasted only 300 seconds; took place last Saturday morning in Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland.

But 78 hours later the Bismarck went down fighting after the briefest and wildest career of any modern battleship. With all the available sea power of Britain mobilized to intercept her before she could get back to her base, Berlin announced just after midnight Tuesday morning that for four hours the Bismarck had been “again engaged in a heavy fight with superior British naval units.” Early Tuesday morning, the Bismarck radioed that she had been incapacitated, but “we will fight to the last hand grenade.” And the last message before the Bismarck sank at 11 o’clock Tuesday morning said: “Ship out of control. Will fight to the last shell. Long live the Fuehrer.”

It was not Britain’s battleships that sank the Bismarck. It was the fleet air arm. And so, paradoxically, the speedy sinking of the Bismarck gave little cheer to those who wish to believe that Britain’s navy is mistress of the seas. On the contrary, it was reserved for the pride of Hitler’s navy to prove for the first time that even the mightiest unescorted battleship cannot long withstand an aerial attack. And in the air, Germany has all the advantage.

Aerial reconnaissance warned the British last Thursday that the Bismarck and her escort, the 10,000-ton cruiser Prinz Eugen, had left the Norwegian port of Bergen for a dash for the open sea to raid the Atlantic convoys. Powerful units were at once mobilized to intercept them. At dawn Saturday, she was engaged by the Hood and the Prince of Wales. The Hood was destroyed “with very few survivors” by a lucky hit on her powder magazine at a range of more than 13 miles. But in the battle the Bismarck was slowed down by a hit on her bow. She was still further slowed by an aerial torpedo which struck her that afternoon.

In the fog and darkness Saturday night, the British warships lost contact with the raider but a long-range Catalina scouting plane (a twin-engine American-built flying boat from the Consolidated plant in San Diego) spotted her again Sunday noon making for the French ports. Monday afternoon, about 400 miles west of Brest, she was attacked by wave after wave of fleet-based bombers and planes from the Ark Royal. Two torpedoes struck her, one amidships and the other astern.

“This second torpedo,” said First Lord of the Admiralty A. V. Alexander, “apparently affected the steering of the ship, for not only was she reduced to very low speed but she continued making uncontrollable circles in the sea, in which condition she was attacked by our flotillas with two more torpedoes which brought her virtually to a standstill, far from help and far outside the range within which enemy bomber aircraft from the French coast could come upon the scene.”

This Tuesday morning at daylight or shortly after daylight the Bismarck was attacked by British pursuing battleships, including the Prince of Wales. Even in her crippled condition, the British battleships apparently had trouble sinking her with shell fire, for it was not until some 7 or 8 hours later that the coup de grace was delivered. If (as was at first reported) this was given by a torpedo plane, the Bismarck was the first modern battleship sunk from the air.

Said Mr. Alexander: “Great as is our loss in the Hood, the Bismarck must be regarded as the most powerful battleship in the world, and her removal from the German Navy is a very definite simplification of the task of maintaining an effective mastery of the northern seas and maintenance of the northern blockade.”

With the Bismarck gone, the German fleet now includes only three capital ships. These are the Tirpitz, 35,000-ton sister ship of the Bismarck, and two 26,000-tonners, the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst. Berthed at Brest, where they have been under steady attack by units of the Royal Air Force since mid-March, it is not likely that the latter two are in any condition to take a major part in the continuing Battle of the Atlantic.