‘It looks like a battleship,’ Smith said.

Briggs believed it was an enemy warship. ‘We will have to take a closer look,’ he said. ‘A British battleship would be surrounded by escorting destroyers.’

‘Definite recognition was impossible at the time due to visibility,’ Smith wrote later in his report. ‘I immediately took control from ‘George’ (automatic pilot); started slow climbing turn to starboard, keeping ship sited to Port, while the British officer went aft to prepare contact report.’

Smith intended to approach the ship by taking advantage of the cover provided by the clouds, allowing observation at short range. Hopefully it would permit as firm an identification as possible. If it was the Bismarck, the Catalina would shadow it at a safer distance. However, he misjudged the distance and turned up too close. Suddenly he realized that his aeroplane was right above the ship, in an opening between the clouds.

‘Upon reaching 2000 ft’ Smith wrote, ‘we broke out of a cloud formation and were met by a terrific anti-aircraft barrage from our starboard quarter.’³⁷⁸

Briggs quickly finished the message and handed it to the wireless operator. When the Catalina took off from Lake Erne, it had as a matter of routine been armed with depth charges. In haste, Smith released them and tried violent evasive actions to avoid the enemy anti-aircraft fire. The Catalina was almost shot down. One crew member had been asleep, when the blast from an exploding shell abruptly threw him off the bunk.

Briggs quickly returned to the cockpit. He had just reached his seat when a splinter smashed through the floor and continued through the roof. Another crewmember, the flight engineer, appeared and reported, needlessly, that the plane had been hit by several splinters. Smith turned back and forth to present a more difficult target to the enemy gunners and during one of the turns he could clearly see the ship below. ‘I saw it was a battleship and that it was the Bismarck,’ he wrote. ‘She had made a 90 degree turn to starboard and fired broadsides at us. The fire continued until we were out of range and concealed by the clouds.’³⁷⁹

Shortly afterwards, the signalman sent Briggs’ famed message: ‘A battleship sighted, bearing 240 degrees.’ It was followed by range to the enemy, his course and Briggs’ own position. It ended with date and time, 10.30 hours on 26 May. After eluding the British for more than 30 hours, the Bismarck had again been discovered.