It’s a dark, foggy morning on May 24th, 1941, off the coast of Iceland.
Task Force Commander Günther Lütjens stares out the bridge into the darkness.
He is an experienced officer; strict and calculating.
A man of few words yet effective leadership,
but today under his hard shell, fear and concern for his men is ever present.
He has orders to reach the Atlantic and raid cargo vessels headed for Britain,
for this task he has the most feared ship in Europe under his command.
The flagship of the Navy, the terror of the seas;
the Bismarck.
if anything it only made him more tense.
She is mighty, but the Royal Navy has the numbers.
With less than half the force initially intended for this mission,
Lütjens was feeling very much vulnerable.
A tense atmosphere hangs over the bridge,
they know their hopes of reaching the Atlantic undetected were all but shattered
after two brief encounters with enemy vessels.
Hydrophones now report hearing heavy ships,
it seems it no longer is a matter of if they’ll be intercepted,
but when.
Lütjens watches the horizon with his binoculars when the Signal Officer calls his attention.
“Smoke trails spotted on the Horizon, Sir.”
Lütjens looks out the window, the dreaded fight had come.
“Call the crew to battle stations,” he orders.
Alarms ring in both vessels and the crew scramble to their posts
as two battleships the HMS Prince of Wales and the mighty HMS Hood
appear over the horizon.
The range is 26km meters and closing
when the first muzzle flash from the enemy vessels pierces the morning darkness, signaling the incoming shells.
Lütjens simply watches as massive towers of water
rise in front of the Prinz Eugen, the shells falling short.
Bismarck’s Captain, Ernst Lindemann, calls to Lütjens. “Permission to open fire?”
He receives no response.
Lütjens is weighing his options.
He knows Bismarck is quick and engaging the Royal Navy is the last thing he wants with his reduced force.
Maybe there’s a chance he can outrun them.
More shells fall around the vessels.
“Permission to open fire?!” repeats Lindemann, increasingly agitated.
The enemies are getting closer, there is no outrunning this.
Lütjens relents. “Open fire.”
The thunder of the guns reverberates throughout the ship
as they propel the massive 15-inch shells across the sky and screaming towards the Hood,
they miss and impact the sea.
The flagship of the Kriegsmarinne and the pride of the Royal Navy trade blows.
The HMS Hood is hit by the Prinz Eugen,
starting a fire that is quickly contained.
A massive bang reverberates through the Bismarck.
“We’ve been hit!” An officer reports. Lütjens doesn’t react.
Bismarck fires its fifth salvo, and it strikes the Hood.
A fateful shot to send shockwaves throughout the British Empire.
A column of fire lights up the night sky,
rising from the deck like a blowtorch before a catastrophic explosion
tears the ship in half.
In a final act of defiance a single shot is fired from the doomed ship
before it sinks under the waves.
Relief washes over the Bismarck crew,
some allowing themselves a brief cheer as the battle turns in their favor.
Lütjens, however, is unmoved and in his characteristic cold demeanor
he orders to immediately focus fire on the Prince of Wales.
The turrets swing to the new target, and they fire,
ending eight 1760 pound shells
streaking across the sky towards the remaining enemy.
Lookouts report multiple hits on target as the fight progresses
but the HMS Prince of Wales soldiers on,
the Bismarck is struck two more times herself until the Prince of Wales finally retreats from the battle.
“Let’s chase them down,” suggests Lindemann,
sticking to his orders of engaging the Royal Navy as little as possible.
He orders to continue on instead.
Bismarck has suffered damage on the floatplane crane, torpedo bulkhead, and on the forecastle.
She begins to flood and oil leaks into the ocean.
As the damage reports come in Lütjens learns repairs are badly needed,
despite this, he refuses to slow the ship to get them done
as he knows at least two heavy cruisers are shadowing him,
they need to get some distance first.
What is clear is that Bismarck is too wounded to continue the mission,
they need to get back to port.
Prinz Eugen is undamaged,
so Lütjens decides the Prinz Eugen will detach from the Bismarck
and continue the mission alone while Bismarck heads to Saint-Nazaire for repairs.
With some breathing room Lütjens sends a report to the OKM… the Naval high command:
“Battlecruiser, probably Hood, sunk. Another battleship, King George V or Renown, turned away damaged.
Two heavy cruisers maintain contact.”
Meanwhile, far above, a British Sunderland flying boat follows Bismarck’s oil streak
until spotting the ship.
They report her position and the British gather all available warships to hunt her down.
With the weather worsening Lütjens decides it’s a good moment to detach Prinz Eugen,
the two ships part ways, seeing each other for the last time.
The darkness falls upon the Atlantic when an officer alerts Lütjens.
“Lookouts report incoming planes, Admiral!”
Lütjens orders the men to battle stations
and the secondary guns to be turned to maximum depression on the direction of the planes.
Alarms sound in Bismarck.
The sky is lit up with anti-aircraft fire as the Swordfish torpedo bombers line up their passes.
Lütjens orders to fire the secondary guns into the sea in front of the path of the planes,
the splash of the shells creats pillars of water they must evade, but it’s of no use.
The torpedoes are away, and the planes successfully escape, not a single one shot down.
Lindemann orders evasive maneuvers, but despite them
just one of the nine torpedoes impacts the armor belt,
it does little damage but the abrupt direction change
and maneuvers loosen the collision mats covering the hole from the previous battle,
Bismarck starts to flood one more time and is forced to slow down to fix the repair,
giving the British much needed time.
The Bismarck is given some luck as the British lose track of her while trying to avoid German submarines.
Lütjens, meanwhile, continues to send reports back to shore.
Believing he is being shadowed he sees no point in maintaining radio silence.
Unbeknownst to him, the messages are being used by the British to continue the chase even beyond the radar range,
but they make yet another mistake, and the closest pursuers sail the wrong way.
Time was running out though for the Germans
and in the morning of May 26 a Catalina finds the battleship.
That night, another Swordfish raid swoops upon the Bismarck.
Alarms blare one more time and the crew repeat the strategy of the morning.
Anti-air fire lights up the night sky as the torpedo bombers approach,
the seemingly obsolete Swordfish are flying so low and slow
Bismarck’s fire control predictors built for newer planes have a hard time giving accurate predictions,
and heavy AA guns struggle tracking them.
Even when hit, the German fire passes through the old stringbags.
The plooms of water made by the secondary guns, while ingenious,
proves little more than a nuisance for the attackers.
The bombers drop their payloads and the fish are away.
Lindemann orders evasive maneuvers but it’s too late.
A torpedo impacts amidships and does little
but a second explodes right on the rudder, jamming it.
The swordfish fly away, leaving the vessel alive, but wounded.
Repairs are attempted and they successfully fix one of the two rudders,
but despite their best attempts it’s not enough.
An hour later Lütjens reports the ship is un-maneuverable.
It is now stuck at sea, sailing in circles,
what little maneuverability they have left results in little more than wobbles.
Mood on board darkens quickly as the realization of their likely fate sets in.
At 1 AM of May 27th, Lütjens transmits for the final time:
“We will fight to the last, believing in you my Fuhrer and with rock-hard trust in Germany’s victory.”
The ship is harassed throughout the night by enemy destroyers,
but the true danger wouldn’t come until the morning
in the form of HMS Rodney and HMS King George V.
Alarms sound on board as the crew board their battle stations, determined to fight till the end.
Muzzle flashes shine from Rodney and water splashes fall short of the Bismarck,
Lütjens orders to open fire. Bismarck fights back,
but the unsteady course makes it difficult to find range and fire accurately.
Lütjens can do little but watch as the enemy shells land closer and closer with each shot.
Then, Rodney fires a salvo, and everything goes dark.
The shell impacts right on the forward superstructure, decimating the bridge.
All the top command die in the blast.
Bismarck continues to fight under the command of lower officers but its of no effect,
the unstable ship doesn’t allow the remaining sailors to fire a straight shot
and Rodney continues to punish the vessel mercilessly.
Fire consumes the ship, and the guns are put out of action one by one.
By 9:30 Bismarck has fired for the final time.
The British ships close in, continuing to fire unopposed.
The vessel has fallen under command of the Chief of Damage Repair Stations,
who reluctantly orders to set scuttling charges and abandon ship.
By 10am Bismarck has been reduced to a floating, burning wreck.
The charges set off 20 minutes later
and Bismarck, the pride of the Kriegsmarine, sinks into the ocean.
Out of the 2200 young men on board serving,
only 114 are pulled alive from the water.
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