Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1941

25 May. Radio monitoring fixed the time of the last enemy contact report at 0213, the location, 56° 49’ N. Enemy radio continued to be busy with urgent operational and tactical messages. Evidently at this time the enemy had temporarily lost contact. However, he regained it at dawn and according to the report at the Fleet Commander at 0700 on 25 May the Prince of Wales and the two cruisers were still shadowing the Bismarck in quadrat AK 55. From the radio traffic it can be gathered that the Bismarck, presumably making use of poorer visibility, succeeded in withdrawing from the enemy at about 1100 in the morning. As before, the enemy radio traffic was extremely busy. In the course of the day and in the evening and night several urgent operational messages from the British home area and the western part of the Channel were picked up, as well as messages communicating with Force H and with the 3rd Battleship Squadron (Canada), all pointing to comprehensive measures for searching for the Bismarck... At noon on 25 May the prevailing impression was that the enemy was concentrating his superior heavy forces for attack on the Bismarck in the sea area between 43° N and 52° N beyond the range of German aircraft, i.e., somewhat west of longitude 15° W. The enemy did not succeed in re-establishing contact in the course of 25 May. There could be no doubt about the gravity of the Bismarck’s situation at the time, however. There was no possibility of relieving her with our naval or air forces. In view of this situation, the Naval Staff suggested to the Fleet Commander to consider putting in at a harbour in northern Spain, should further developments make such action necessary. It is probably that the Fleet Commander, when he escaped from the enemy on 25 May, considered the possibility of withdrawing into the Atlantic. If he had done so for the purpose of refueling from one of the tankers north of the Azores, the Fleet Commander might have succeeded in preventing the enemy from quickly regaining contact. Even a temporary withdrawal would have forced the enemy to stop his convoys or to resume protection of convoy routes by means of his fast forces as soon as possible. It must be assumed that owing to the fuel situation the Fleet Commander was unable to push out into the Atlantic in such a manner, and hence was forced to proceed directly to St. Nazaire, in spite of the great risk involved in such a course. Possibly the oil traces influenced his decision.