About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Bismarck Chase

Encyclopedia : B : BI : BIS : Bismarck Chase

Atlantic Campaign
River Plate – Altmark Incident - SC-7 - HX-84 - HX-106 - Operation Berlin - Denmark Strait – The Bismarck Chase – Channel Dash – Laconia Incident - PQ-17 – Barents Sea – North Cape

The Bismarck Chase was a World War II naval engagement fought between the British Home Fleet and the German battleship Bismarck which had attempted to break out into the North Atlantic to destroy Allied merchant shipping.

Contents

Origins

Determined to avenge the sinking of Hood in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the British committed every possible unit to hunting down Bismarck. During the early evening of 24 May an attack was made by a small group of Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers of No. 825 NAS from the aircraft carrier Victorious. One hit was scored, but caused only superficial damage to Bismarck’s armoured belt.

For some time Bismarck remained under long-distance observation by the British. At about 03.00 on 25 May, the ship took advantage of her opponents' zig-zagging and performed an almost three-quarter clockwise turn behind her pursuers to escape towards the east and then south-east. Contact was lost for four hours; however, perhaps in awe of British radar capabilities, it appears that the Germans did not realize their good fortune. For reasons still unclear, Lütjens transmitted a half-hour radio message to HQ, which was intercepted thereby giving the British time to work out roughly where he was heading. However, a plotting error made onboard the King George V, now in pursuit of the Germans, incorrectly calculated Bismarck’s position and caused the chase to veer too far to the north. Bismarck was therefore able to make good time on 25/26 May in her unhindered passage towards France and protective air cover and destroyer escort. By now, though, fuel was becoming a major concern to both sides.

The British had a stroke of luck on 26 May. In mid-morning a Coastal Command Catalina reconnaissance aircraft from No. 209 Squadron RAF, which had flown over the Atlantic from its base on Lough Erne in Northern Ireland across a small corridor secretly provided by the Eire government, spotted Bismarck (via her oil-slick) and reported her position to the Admiralty. From then on, the German ship's position was known to the British, although the enemy would have to be slowed significantly if heavy units hoped to engage it out of range of German aircraft protection. All British hopes were now pinned on Force H, whose main units were the aircraft-carrier Ark Royal, the old battlecruiser Renown and the cruiser Sheffield. This battle-group, commanded by Admiral James Somerville, had been diverted north from Gibraltar.

At dusk that evening, and in atrocious weather conditions, Swordfish from Ark Royal launched an attack. The first wave mistakenly targeted the Sheffield that was by now shadowing the quarry. Although precious time was lost by this incident, it proved beneficial to the British in that the magnetic detonators on the torpedoes used against Sheffield were seen to be defective and for the following attack on Bismarck were replaced by those designed to explode on contact. In a final attack, almost in darkness at around 21.00, a "miracle" hit by a single torpedo jammed Bismarck's rudder and steering gear. This rendered her virtually unmanoeuvrable, able only to steam in a large circle in the general direction of King George V and Rodney, two frontline battleships that had been pursuing Bismarck from the west. The largest and most powerful warship yet commissioned had now been rendered a near sitting-duck by a single aircraft. After extensive efforts to free the jammed rudders, the fleet command finally acknowledged their by-now impossible position in several messages to naval headquarters. Lütjens promised that the ship would fight until its last shell was spent. Bismarck was still able to make way and achieve some steering by adjusting the relative speeds of the propellor shafts.

Throughout that night, Bismarck was the target of incessant torpedo attacks by the Tribal class destroyers HMS Cossack, Sikh, Maori and Zulu and the Polish Piorun. Neither side scored a hit but the constant worrying tactics of the British helped wear down the morale of the Germans and deepened the fatigue of an already exhausted crew.

The Sinking of the Bismarck

On the morning of Tuesday 27 May 1941 Rodney and King George V drew closer to Bismarck, with their enemy well illuminated by the morning sun in the background. Rodney steered to the north so that her gunfire would work the length of Bismarck, while King George V took the side. They opened fire just before 0900. Bismarck returned fire, but her inability to steer and her list to port severely affected her shooting capacity. Her low speed of seven knots also made her an easy target and she was soon hit several times, with heavy cruisers Norfolk and Dorsetshire adding their firepower. One salvo destroyed the forward control post, killing most of the senior officers. Within half an hour, Bismarck's guns were all but silent and she was even lower in the water. Rodney now closed to point blank range (approx 3 km) to strike the superstructure while King George V fired from further out. Bismarck continued to fly its ensign. With no sign of surrender, despite the unequal struggle, the British were loath to leave the Bismarck. Their fuel and shell supplies were low - a demonstration of how difficult it was for a battleship to sink a similar unit in a balanced engagement. However, when it became obvious that their enemy could not reach port, Rodney, King George V and the destroyers were sent home. Norfolk had used its last torpedoes, therefore Dorsetshire launched four torpedoes which may have hit the Bismarck at comparatively short range. Although the battleship's upper works were almost completely destroyed, her engines were still functioning and the hull appeared to be relatively sound; therefore rather than risk her being captured, Captain Lindemann gave the order to scuttle and then abandon ship. Most of the crew went into the water, but few sailors from the lower engine spaces got out alive. 
Bismarck went under the waves at 10.39 hours that morning. Unaware of the fate of the ship, Group West, the German command base, continued to issue signals to Bismarck for some hours, until Reuters reported news from Britain that the ship had been sunk. In Britain, the House of Commons was informed of the sinking early that afternoon. 	 

Dorsetshire and Maori stopped to rescue survivors but a U-boat alarm caused them to leave the scene after rescuing only 110 Bismarck sailors, abandoning the majority of the Bismarck's 2,200 man crew to the mercy of the water. The next morning U-74, dispatched to try and rescue Bismarck's log-book (and which heard sinking noises from a distance), and the German weather ship Sachsenwald picked up 5 survivors. 	 

After the sinking Admiral John Tovey said: "The Bismarck had put up a most gallant fight against impossible odds worthy of the old days of the Imperial German Navy, and she went down with her colours flying."



Ships involved

Nearly a hundred ships of all kinds were deployed to operate with, against, or because of Bismarck:






See also

Rheinübung the intended mission of the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen





 





From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.














Search Titles









0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?










E-mail this article to:



Personal Message: