The Bismark, Pride of the Germans During Wwii

The German battleship Bismarck is one of the most famous warships of the Second World War. Named after the 19th century German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Bismarck's fame came during the Battle of the Denmark Strait in which the flagship and pride of the British Royal Navy, the battlecruiser HMS Hood, was sunk in May 1941, and for the subsequent relentless pursuit by the Royal Navy which ended with her loss only three days later.

History

Design of the ship started in the early 1930s, following on from Germany's development of the pocket battleship Deutschland class cruisers and the Gneisenau class "battlecruisers". Construction of the second French Dunkerque class battleship made redesign necessary, and Bismarck's displacement increased to 42,600 tons, although officially her tonnage was still only 35,000 tons to suggest parity with ships built within the limits of the Treaty of Versailles. Fully laden, Bismarck and her sister-ship Tirpitz would displace more than 50,000 tons. The prototype of the proposed battleships envisaged under Plan Z, Bismarck's keel was laid down at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg on 1 July 1936. She was launched on 14 February 1939 and commissioned on 24 August 1940 with KapitÐ"¤n zur See Ernst Lindemann in command.

This formidable ship was intended primarily as a commerce raider, having a broad beam for stability in the rough seas of the North Atlantic and fuel stores as large as those of battleships intended for operations in the Pacific Ocean. Still, with eight 15-inch main guns in four turrets, substantial welded-armour protection and designed for a top speed of not less than 29 knots (she actually achieved a very impressive 30.1 knots in trials in the calmer waters of the Baltic), Bismarck was capable of engaging any enemy warship on at least equal terms. Her range of weaponry could easily decimate any convoy she encountered. Should Bismarck break through into the spacious waters of the North Atlantic, where she could refuel from German tankers and yet remain undetected by the British, the Allied convoy network could be in peril for months on end.

Combat history

Breakout into the Atlantic

Stern view of Bismarck, c. 1940.Bismarck sailed on her first and only mission, codenamed RheinÐ"јbung, on 18 May 1941, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. Other German capital ships that were to have participated in the sortie were unavailable because of mechanical problems and war damage, but the mission went ahead under the command of Admiral GÐ"јnther LÐ"јtjens. The Germans had various objectives: destroy as much Allied shipping as possible and force the British to suspend convoys, even temporarily; compensate for their weak submarine presence in the Atlantic; divert British naval forces from the Mediterranean to reduce the risks of the planned invasion of Crete and to allow Rommel and his forces to cross to Libya.

The British Admiralty had already suspected that a breakout was likely and Bismarck's departure was confirmed for them from a combination of Ultra intelligence (deciphered Enigma code messages), a report from a Swedish cruiser that had sighted the battleship and the Norwegian resistance. Three days later, she was photographed by a Spitfire reconnaissance aircraft while resting in a Norwegian fjord (Altenfiord). A subsequent bombing raid by the RAF proved fruitless as the Germans had already left. Royal Navy cruisers and other warships were deployed to watch the various routes she could take into the Atlantic.

Heading north, then north-west, the German fleet made good and largely uneventful progress across the Norwegian Sea towards Greenland and the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland, the gateway into the Atlantic. While in waters to the north of the Arctic Circle, it remained undetected by British air reconnaissance, which was too far south. With a mind on convoy-raiding, LÐ"јtjens was hopeful of an easy breakout into the Atlantic, aided by foggy weather, but his plans were to be frustrated. On the evening of 23 May, his force was detected by the radar-equipped heavy cruisers HMS Suffolk and Norfolk, that had been patrolling the Denmark Strait in the expectation of a German breakout. The rival ships exchanged fire but the British cruisers sensibly retired to a safe range and shadowed the enemy while their own heavy units drew closer.

Battle of the Denmark Strait

At approximately 05.30 on Saturday 24 May, as the German squadron was about to leave the Denmark Strait, Prinz Eugen's hydrophones detected the presence of two additional ships some distance to port. By 05.45 both were in sight, although the German fleet had not yet identified the enemy force. In reality, it was a British battle-group comprising the new battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Hood, under the command of Rear Admiral Lancelot Holland. Prince of Wales had only recently been completed and was still being worked up (indeed, she sailed to meet Bismarck with dockyard workmen still on board completing her fitting-out). Hood had been built as a fast battlecruiser and modified to give her protection more like a battleship, but still had relatively weak deck armour. That other British ships had detected them was not unexpected by the Germans but that they would turn out to be capital ships was a nasty surprise.

At 05.49 Holland ordered fire to be concentrated on the leading German ship, Prinz Eugen, believing it to be Bismarck. Fortunately for the British, the captain of Prince of Wales was soon to realize the error and changed his target. Holland amended his order on the correct ship to be engaged but this did not reach Hood's gunnery control before the first salvo. Hood fired first at 05.52, in daylight, followed very soon afterwards by Prince of Wales. The range to the German ships was c. 12.5 miles. More than two minutes went by as Admiral LÐ"јtjens hesitated to respond, before Captain Lindemann took the initiative and ordered fire to be returned on the lead British ship, the Hood, which the Germans had identified when the British ships made a turn towards them at 05.55, having fired several salvoes. This manoeuvre was undertaken, it appears, in an attempt to place themselves in the "zone of immunity". Closer in, the Hood would be less vulnerable to plunging fire and the advantage of superior German gunnery control would be lessened. The disadvantage was that, during the dash, eight of the eighteen British heavy guns could not be brought to bear and speed and spray severely hampered fire control.

Both Bismarck