At 19.00 hours Maund was ready to let his 15 Swordfish machines make yet another attempt on the Bismarck. The strong wind from the northwest persisted and the cloud base was very low, about 200 metres above the heeling Ark Royal. Violent rainsqualls swept over the area when the carrier turned against the wind to allow the torpedo aircraft to start. Intermittently, she seemed almost out of control, but eventually the 15 aeroplanes got away safely.
This time, Lieutenant Commander Tim Coode, who was determined not to repeat the faux pas with the Sheffield, led the aircraft. In one respect the attack on the British cruiser had brought advantages. It had showed that the magnetic detonators suffered from some kind of defect. Without that mistake, the aircraft would have attacked the Bismarck with virtually useless torpedoes, but instead another type of detonator had been used. In addition, rather than relying on radar, the Sheffield, which was in the wake of the enemy, was to send a homing signal for the unit to use to help them find the cruiser. When the latter had been located, Larcom would instruct the aviators to their target.
Coode remained at low altitude, carefully avoiding the dark grey clouds above, while he navigated towards the Sheffield, aided by her homing signal. Behind him the other aeroplanes formed up, until they had assembled in six groups of two or three machines each. About an hour later, the Sheffield was sighted by Coode’s observer, Lieutenant Carver, who signalled to the cruiser for the exact position of the German battleship. Carver had been detailed to fly Hurricanes between Malta and Gibraltar, when it became known that the Bismarck had broken out. When Force H left Gibraltar, he followed as a reserve and soon ended up in a Swordfish as Coode’s observer. Now he received Larcom’s reply, that the Bismarck was 10 nautical miles ahead.
Fully aware of the bitter comments the seamen on board the Sheffield must have uttered when they saw the 15 Swordfish planes, Coode ordered his groups to ascend until the clouds obscured them. The poor visibility not only concealed the aeroplanes from the Bismarck, it also caused them to become separated. When they had reached above the clouds, at 1,700 metres, they had to spend valuable minutes forming up again. But soon the attack force assumed a course that would bring it directly towards the Bismarck. However, before they saw the enemy battleship, a huge formation of cloud loomed ahead of the airmen. When Coode initiated the dive that was to develop into an attack from several directions, he realized that it would not work: Coode again signalled to his group commanders; this time instructing them to attack on their own. The clock now showed 20.54 hours.
Visibility was limited – a matter of yards. I watched the altimeter go back. When we reached 2,000 feet I started to worry. At 1,500 feet I wondered whether to continue the dive. At 1,000 feet I felt sure something was wrong, but still we were completely enclosed by cloud. I held the formation in the dive, and at 700 feet only we broke cloud, just when I was running out of height.387
On board the Bismarck, the air alarm resounded through the ship when Coode’s force approached from above. The gunners hastened to ensure they were ready to fire and the damage control teams made ready. An air attack had been expected ever since the Swordfish had been observed, but as it had not occurred many had begun to hope that it would grow too dark for an attack.
The noise from the enemy aircraft increased, but then decreased and faded away. Had the thick clouds concealed the battleship so well that the British flyers had missed it? Minutes passed and when orders were given to the gun crews to stand down, a wave of relief swept through the ship. It did not last long. Suddenly the air alarm was heard again and this time the sight of the approaching torpedo planes almost immediately followed.388
Coode’s group had descended from the clouds far ahead of the battleship, which would force him to attack against the wind. Thus he broke off the attack, to find a better angle to attack from and turned back into the thick grey clouds. Soon anti-aircraft shells were bursting around him and the crew realized that the task ahead of them was going to be difficult indeed.
Lieutenant Godfrey-Fausset and Lieutenant Pattison made the first attack from the second group. It had ascended to an altitude of 3,000 metres, where the aircraft became afflicted by the build up of ice. Despite this problem, two of the aircraft were able to manoeuvre into a suitable position for attacking the battleship. They descended on the Bismarck’s starboard beam and immediately began the approach to release the torpedoes. At the same time, aircraft from the third and fourth groups attacked from the opposite side.
The battleship opened fire with all her weapons and the scenes from Esmonde’s attack, with almost all their features, were repeated. The only significant difference was the very rough sea on this evening. To the German seamen on deck, the aircraft appeared to hang immovable in the air, sometimes so low that their wheels seemed to disappear behind the crests of the wave. It was incredible that none of the aircraft was shot down, but the rough sea and the movements of the ship combined to make the aircraft into difficult targets. The pilot in one of the planes was wounded by shell splinters, as was his gunner, but despite the fact that 175 holes were later counted on the plane, the pilot, Lieutenant F. A. Swanton, pressed home the attack.
‘The tail air gunner would later tell me I nearly shouted my head off as we ran in,’ Woods remembered. ‘Probably true, but what it was I have no idea. All I do know is that as we dropped our ‘tinfish’ A4 ‘Charlie’ almost leapt into the air, and as we turned away aft tightly, we were suspended motionless for a split second that felt like an eternity as every gun seemed to concentrate upon us.’389
The Bismarck turned to present a smaller target area. At the same time more torpedoes splashed into the water. The ship’s guns fired into the water, in the hope of disrupting the trajectories. Maybe the efforts met with success in some cases, or perhaps the torpedoes would have missed anyway. It was very difficult to release the torpedoes, as they had to fall into a down period, not a crest. If the torpedo was released into a wave crest, its course would be erratic. When the six machines turned away to avoid the intensive fire, the observers and rear gunners could not see any obvious signs of hits, although some of them would later argue that one torpedo might have found its mark.
Soon after the first wave of the attack had disappeared Coode could again be seen from the battleship, as he approached together with the other two machines in his group. Somewhat behind, a fourth aeroplane from another group followed, as it had become separated from its group. Again the thunderous noise from the battleship’s anti-aircraft guns and heavy artillery filled the air. ‘We came out of the cloud at 700 feet and 4,000 yards from the Bismarck,’ one airman recalled, ‘and all her anti-aircraft pieces opened up upon us immediately. It was an impressive and frightening amount of glowing balls that flashed past.’
The second aircraft in the group was hit several times, but the machine as well as the crew survived and continued to release its torpedo. In the third plane, Lieutenant John Moffatt saw the battleship grow gradually in his sight. Between him and the ship, huge cascades of water rose when the heavy shells hit the sea. They created a curtain of water spray in the strong wind. He tried to calculate altitude, speed, range and aiming-off simultaneously. It was not easy, as tracer fire of various colours darted out from the mist, while the blast from exploding shells shook the aircraft. To release the torpedo at a range of 900 metres was regarded as the optimum, but he had to avoid the high wave crests. Moffatt wondered if he would really make it, when a voice crackled in the headphones: ‘I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!’ it said. ‘I’ll tell you when to let it go!’
Moffat turned his head, discovering his observer hanging halfway out of the aircraft. ‘I’m not kidding,’ Moffat wrote later. ‘There he was leaning right out, and his head down…and then I realized what he was trying to do.’
By watching the waves below, the observer tried to judge the correct moment to release the torpedo, ‘Not yet…not yet!’
Moffatt again concentrated on the battleship, which was rapidly becoming larger ahead of him. He had to release the torpedo before it was too late: ‘He held me there far too long.’
‘Not yet…Now! Now!’390
Moffatt pressed the release mechanism and turned as sharply as he dared, to avoid the projectiles aimed at his aircraft. The Bismarck was shrouded in smoke from all her firing guns, which continued to spew shells at the fourth plane, thereby preventing Moffatt and his crew from seeing if the torpedo had hit.
While his comrades set course back towards the Ark Royal, Coode returned to the area. He made a few sweeps out from the clouds, but could see nothing that suggested any damage to the Bismarck. Neither could he see any more Swordfish attacking the beast. With disappointment, he instructed Carver to report that the attack had failed.
On board the King George V Tovey and his staff waited nervously for any news of the air attack. Night approached quickly. Suddenly the signal hummed in the radio room and the signal officer communicated the content of Coode’s report: ‘From the attack force commander,’ he said. ‘Estimate: No hits.’
Tovey did not reply. While he fended off the rolling movements of the flagship with one hand, he absorbed the message. So, everything had been in vain? At dawn, the Bismarck would be within range of the Luftwaffe and the British ships would have to turn north, or else their fuel oil would not be sufficient to allow them to reach harbours in England. All the staff officers remained silent. All of them watched their commander, waiting for his response. When Tovey finally reacted, it was with only a forced smile. They had done all they could.391 And they had lost.
However, the report had been premature. The observer in the fourth plane, which had been a few hundred metres behind Coode’s three aircraft, had seen a column of water shoot up from the sea on the Bismarck’s port side, just abaft of the battleship’s funnel. The gunner on the same plane was certain that he had seen smoke, but could not exclude the possibility that it originated from the firing weapons of the ship. In fact, Moffatt’s torpedo had hit the Bismarck on the port side.
This was not the only hit. Godfrey-Faussett’s and Pattison’s attacks had also met with success. Corporal Georg Herzog, commander at one of the anti-aircraft guns on the starboard side, saw the two Swordfish machines approach quickly. The courage of the British aviators surprised him. Despite the hail of fire, they came closer and flew so low that they almost hit the crests of the waves. Soon the planes were so close that the guns could not be depressed sufficiently to fire effectively. Then the torpedoes were released: one aimed amidships, the other abaft. The Bismarck sheered to port to avoid the torpedoes, but soon an explosion resounded and Herzog saw a fountain of water shoot up astern.392 The force of the explosion made the ship heave in the sea and then buck in such a way that seamen in the fore and aft had to hold on, or else they would have been thrown onto the deck. Hardly had the Bismarck calmed down before Chief Engine Room Artificer Schmidt’s message ‘presumed torpedo hit aft’ reached damage-control centre. The first inspection of the damage revealed that the torpedo had blown a hole in the plating on the bottom of the hull, through which water had rushed in and filled the compartments of the steering gear. Water splashed to and fro as the ship moved in the seaway. A man would be hard put to stay alive there, far less be able to repair anything.
Müllenheim-Rechberg was in the aft fire control tower when he felt the impact through the ship:
The attack must have been almost over when it came, an explosion aft. My heart sank. I glanced at the rudder indicator. It showed ‘left 12 degrees.’ Did that just happen to be the correct reading at that moment? No. It did not change. It stayed at ‘left 12 degrees.’ Our increasing list to starboard soon told us that we were in a continuous turn. […] Our speed indicator still showed a significant loss of speed. […] In one stroke, the world seemed to be irrevocably altered.393
The attack had knocked out the ship’s manoeuvrability and now she began to sheer as the rudders had jammed at an unfavourable angle. At the same time, she began to list heavily to starboard. Many seamen believed she was about to capsize, when Lindemann ordered speed to be reduced, thereby regaining trim. However, the situation for the Bismarck had instantly changed from one of relatively safety to near catastrophic.
Coode’s initial report had been incorrect in more ways than one, because all but two of the Swordfish aircraft had launched their torpedoes against the target. Several of the pilots had been forced to return to the Sheffield, to get a new bearing to the target, as they had lost track of the Bismarck in the rainsqualls. Lieutenant Beale signalled to the cruiser, requesting a new direction. In the message, he used the term ‘target’ for the battleship. Larcom could not refrain from answering sarcastically: ‘The Enemy target is ten miles ahead.’
The sixth group had also returned to the Sheffield after losing sight of the Bismarck, but when they found her again, they were met with such intensive fire that one of the aircraft released its torpedo at a range of 2,000 metres, while the second dropped its torpedo in the sea and returned to the Ark Royal. Lieutenant Owen-Smith approached the battleship from astern, but realized it was an impossible attack angle. He tried to manoeuvre into a better position from the starboard side, but was surprised to see the Bismarck gradually turning to port. Thus she exposed more and more of the port side to Owen-Smith. He too released his torpedo and returned to the carrier.
The last pilot to make a determined attack at short range was Sub-Lieutenant Beale. After receiving instructions from Larcom, he had made a wide tack to approach the Bismarck on her bow. He ended up in the teeth of the wind, just the situation Coode wanted to avoid, but perhaps the choice turned out to be fortunate. Whether the lookouts on the Bismarck did not see Beale, or the anti-aircraft gunners were engaging other targets, remains unclear. In any case, Beale and his crew did not meet with any fire on their attack approach merely 15 metres above the surface of the sea. The torpedo splashed into the water, whereupon the Swordfish turned away. At this moment the anti-aircraft gunners opened fire on Beale’s plane. Beale’s rear gunner fired a few salvos with the machinegun, despite the fact that it could not harm the Bismarck. A few seconds later, a huge fountain shot up amidships on the Bismarck. ‘The tail air gunner was dancing a small jig,’ Sub-lieutenant Friend recalled, ‘as I excitedly told Beale. By turning the Swordfish quickly, he too was able to see the splash subsiding. Thus, all three of us saw our hit.’394
On the Sheffield, visual contact had been lost with the Bismarck during the air attack, but she could be followed on the radar. When the haze suddenly cleared, consternation beset the officers on the bridge, as the Bismarck did not present the narrow silhouette expected. Rather she had turned port and exposed her entire broadside. It was assumed that the German battleship had turned to manoeuvre away from the torpedoes, but suddenly this thought faded away as her main guns flashed. Had she turned to attack the Sheffield?
The first salvo was short by more than a kilometre but new flashes from the 38-centimetre guns were seen. Less than half a minute later, a forest of water columns surrounded the Sheffield, as the German salvo straddled her. Splinters from one of the bursting shells swept over the cruiser’s superstructures, wounding 15 men manning the anti-aircraft guns. Larcom ordered a drastic change of course, while smoke was placed to conceal the cruiser. The last he saw in his binoculars, before the battleship was obscured by the smoke, was the Bismarck sailing on a north-northwesterly course, straight towards Tovey’s main force.