Introduction Dr G. H. Bennett, Dr R. Bennett and E. Bennett

“In brilliant sunshine – the ‘Hitler weather’ which traditionally favours any important event at which the Führer is present – the first of Germany’s 35,000-ton battleships was to-day named Bismarck after the creator of the Second Reich, and watched by the makers of the Third Reich, moved down the Blohm and Voss slips to the sea. Hamburg had prepared a great welcome for Herr Hitler... The Führer reached the green launching platform immediately below the high bows of the new battleship... In a short speech Herr Hitler said that the fate of the German fleet, which was sunk 20 years ago after fighting gloriously for four years, still cut deep into the heart of every German. Nationalist-Socialist Germany, therefore, looked upon the resurrection of that Fleet with particular love and sympathy... ‘As Führer of the German people and Chancellor of the Reich... I can give this ship no finer name from our history than the name of that man who, as a true knight without fear and reproach, was the creator of that German Empire whose resurrection from the direst misery and whose wonderful enlargement has been granted to us by Providence.’ ”1

From the moment of her launch, Bismarck was to become one of the most iconic battleships of the 20th Century. Named after Otto von Bismarck, first Chancellor of the newly united Germany in 1871, the ship was the embodiment of German national pride. A leviathan displacing 50,900 tons and armed with eight 38-cm guns in four turrets, as well as formidable secondary armament, the ship marked almost the final stage in the evolution of the battleship. On her one-and-only war cruise, the pride of the German Navy destroyed HMS Hood, the pride of the Royal Navy, before Bismarck was reduced to a sinking hulk, on 27 May 1941, by British battleships and cruisers.

There were just 116 survivors from Bismarck’s crew of 2,200. Her destruction resulted in a strategic shift in the battle for the Atlantic. Hitler would never again countenance operations which would place the major units of the German surface fleet in the dangerous waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The German surface fleet would be relocated to the fjords of Norway and to the Baltic; these waters were considered far safer than those dominated by the Allied navies. Hitler’s loss of confidence in the German surface fleet led, in due course, to a confrontation with Admiral Raeder, the head of the German Navy, and the near scrapping of the remaining battleships and cruisers of the Kriegsmarine.

The statistical and organisational details of Bismarck’s life emphasise her monumental scale. Laid down on 1 July 1936, Bismarck would be launched on 14 February 1939. It would take until 24 August 1940 for her to be commissioned. Bismarck’s main armoured belt was 32-cm thick. At 251 metres long and 36 metres across at the beam, Bismarck’s primary role was as a gun platform for her main armament. Designed in 1934, her main armament of eight 38-cm guns, operating in four twin turrets (Anton, Bruno, Caesar and Dora), were the heaviest guns to be installed on a German battleship. Each turret, operating on a roller-track platform, weighed 1056 metric tons. Bismarck’s crew was divided into 12 divisions (180–220 men):

Divisions 1–4: Main and secondary armament

Divisions 5–6: Anti-aircraft batteries

Division 7: Ancillary personnel (carpenters, stewards, cooks etc.)

Division 8: Artillery mechanical personnel

Division 9: Signallers and telegraphists

Divisions 10–12: Engineers, technicians and stokers

To spot the fall of shot for the main armament and to carry out localised reconnaissance, Bismarck carried four Arado AR196 floatplanes. They were stored in three hangars (two in the double 120-metre hanger by the main mast and two others in single 60-metre hangers amidships). The aircraft were catapult launched along a 32-metre double catapult. It had a telescopic function, which meant that it could be extended to 48 metres in length to cope with heavy payloads. Following launch, the aircraft would land on the sea to be brought aboard by crane. Bismarck’s power plant consisted of 12 boilers and three turbines. At an economical cruising speed of 16 knots (as opposed to a maximum of 30 knots) the ship could travel 9,280 nautical miles on a full fuel load of 8,294 metric tons. Three FuMO 23 radars would help to guide the battleship on its journey. At every turn, the facts and figures of Battleship Bismarck emphasised her formidable size and fearsome spectacle. Her total cost was 197 million Reichsmarks.

British reactions to the launch of Bismarck varied considerably. Within Royal Navy and shipbuilding circles there was considerable scepticism about German claims that the ship displaced only 35,000 tons. Among the circles of appeasers in pre-war Britain some hope was invested in the name given to the battleship. The Times newspaper commented:

“There is perhaps some significance in the name given to the first of Germany’s new great battleships. She and her consort, which is to be launched shortly, are built under the provisions of the Anglo-German naval agreement of 35 per cent of British tonnage. That limit, as far as battleships are concerned, would hardly be reached if Germany‘s present battle fleet, built and building, were to be doubled. It may be thought symbolic therefore that the new ship should be named after the Chancellor who always set his face against naval rivalry with Great Britain.”2

The impressive nature and importance of Battleship Bismarck has resulted in a small cottage industry publishing books on the story of the ship.3 Her story is well known, but in the re-telling, some aspects of her life and destruction have been obscured. Several aspects of Bismarck’s story deserve greater clarity, including the Kriegsmarine’s purpose in building Bismarck; the purpose of Bismarck’s mission; and the decisions taken during her war cruise. Unfortunately, many aspects of her final mission cannot be resolved. The senior officers onboard, who took the critical decisions in 1941, did not survive her final battle, and because of the need to maintain radio silence, the radio transmissions from Bismarck are not illuminating. However, alongside the battle summary which follows, relevant sections from meetings held by Hitler, known as the Führer Conferences, appear. This gives the German context and reveals comments minuted at the time.

The Kriegsmarine’s Purpose in Building Bismarck

Battleship Bismarck was part of Germany’s Plan Z developed in the 1930s. Plan Z was a blueprint designed to give the German Navy a fleet able to compete against the British for control of the seas by 1944. Bismarck, and her sister ship Tirpitz, were to be Germany’s first true battleships of the new era. The Bismarck class would in turn be surpassed by battleships of even bigger design.4 However, the outbreak of war in 1939 interrupted the development of the balanced fleet. Along with the rest of Germany’s surface fleet, Bismarck and Tirpitz would be used in the campaign against British commerce, the convoys and merchant ships on which the British war economy depended, instead of fighting as elements of a balanced surface fleet operating under air cover provided by the aircraft carrier Graf Zepplin. Bismarck was to be put to a purpose for which she had never been intended. As the battleship worked up in the Baltic in 1940 and early 1941, three questions dominated the thinking in the Admiralty in London:

When would Bismarck be sent into the Atlantic to attack the North American convoys?

Which route might she take?

Would she sail on her own or as part of a task force?

Purpose of Bismarck’s Mission

As Admiral Kranke later noted, during 1941 it was envisaged that Bismarck would operate as part of a task force in the Atlantic.

“The idea was to form a powerful group in the Atlantic, made up of the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, with the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, which would be in a position to attack convoys escorted by battleships. Unfortunately, an aircraft carrier was lacking. The group was not to be scattered.”5

However, damage to Scharnhorst and Gneisenau following a sortie into the Atlantic in 1940 were to rule them out of operations for much of 1941. In May 1941, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen would sail alone. But why were they allowed to depart – a pair of ships instead of part of a powerful battle squadron? Undoubtedly pressure of events played a key part in the timing of the operation. Bismarck’s war cruise had begun on 18 May, two days before the launch of Operation ‘Mercury’: the invasion of Crete. This was to start with the landing of paratroops with further troops landing by sea. It was realised at the outset that such was the Royal Navy’s strength in the Mediterranean that the sea-borne element of the operation might be seriously contested. It was therefore imperative to draw some of that strength out of the Mediterranean. An operation in the Atlantic involving Bismarck could provide the necessary diversion to draw off the Royal Navy’s Force H from Gibraltar.6

The instructions given to Admiral Luetjens, commanding the task force, were explicit. As Admiral Assmann later explained:

“Enemy supply traffic in the Atlantic north of the equator was to be attacked. The operation (codename ‘Rheinuebung’) was to last as long as the situation permitted. The route out to the Atlantic was through the Great Belt, the Skagerrak, and the Norwegian Sea. The ships were to attempt a breakthrough unobserved, the mission remained as defined in the operational directive. It was left to the discretion of the Fleet Commander to shorten or break off the operation as the situation developed. According to the Group’s directive the main aim throughout the entire operation was the destruction of enemy shipping. As far as possible, they were to shun risks which would jeopardise the operation. Hence they were to avoid encounters with ships of equal strength. If an encounter were inevitable then it should be an all-out engagement.”7

Loss of the Hood

On 18 May 1941, Bismarck, together with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, sailed from Gotenhafen, putting into Kors fjord near Bergen on 21 May. The British quickly became aware that Bismarck was at sea and the Royal Navy made its dispositions accordingly. Bismarck’s location was confirmed at 2015 on 23 May when the two German ships were spotted by the cruiser HMS Norfolk in the Denmark Strait. As Admiral Assmann later related, the encounter with Norfolk was entirely unexpected:

“Considering the general evaluation of the enemy disposition, the encounter with an enemy cruiser patrol in the Denmark Straits to a certain extent came as a surprise to the Fleet Commander, but owing to the complete calm in the enemy radio traffic there was no reason to suppose that any extensive enemy operation was under way to prevent a suspected German advance into the Atlantic. When cruisers Scheer and Hipper made a breakthrough via the Denmark Straits on their return from the Atlantic, they had also noticed heavy cruisers on patrol and were able to elude the enemy in good time... What was most surprising, and of decisive importance for the further course of the operation, was the probability, established for the first time, that the enemy possessed evidently excellently functioning radar equipment.”8

Following the encounter between Norfolk and Bismarck, HMS Hood, together with Britain’s newest battleship HMS Prince of Wales, moved to intercept the German units. Hood was of World War I vintage and Prince of Wales was still not fully operational. The two forces met on 24 July in an engagement which was to be as short as it was dramatic. As the British ships attempted to close the range on Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, the British and German vessels began firing at each other. Suddenly Hood was struck by one or more shells. Onboard the heavy cruiser HMS Suffolk, a young Polish officer witnessed what happened next on the Hood. “We saw the flash of a bursting shell hit the dark silhouette of the Hood and the next moment a huge pillar of flame shot up to the sky. A black cloud covered part of the horizon like a blanket. We could sense something terrible had happened. The guns of the Hood were silent.”9

Onboard Prince of Wales, anxious observers, including a Reuters correspondent, peered in the direction of Hood:

“There was a terrific explosion, and the whole of the vast ship was enveloped in a flash of flame and smoke which rose high into the air in the shape of a giant mushroom. Sections of funnels, masts and other parts were hurled hundreds of feet into the sky, some falling on the ship. Hood’s bow tilted vertically into the air, and three or four minutes after she was hit all that remained, apart from bits of wreckage, was a flicker of flame and smoke on the water’s surface.”10

The Hood was gone and only three survivors of a crew of 1,421 remained to be pulled out of the water.11 Outgunned, outnumbered, and suffering from a series of mechanical problems, the Prince of Wales turned away, leaving the British heavy cruisers to keep a long-range watch on the two German vessels.12 The destruction of Hood was a remarkable triumph for the Kriegsmarine, but it was not entirely without cost: Bismarck had been damaged and was leaking fuel.

Alternative courses of action were considered onboard the ship and in Berlin. Having scored such a major victory should Bismarck and Prinz Eugen return to Norwegian waters, or should they press on further into the Atlantic and try to reach one of the German-controlled ports along the French coast? Admirals Schniewind and Schuster later revealed to British interrogators:

“In the course of the Bismarck operation, after the battle with the Hood, discussions arose in the naval staff as to whether it was not better to order the battleship to return to the Norwegian coast. This breakthrough appeared more feasible than continuing the operation or making for Brest... The naval supreme commander [Grand Admiral Raeder] refused to commit himself to issuing definite instructions to the battleship or the group command directing the operation, because he was not sufficiently well informed as to the battleship’s condition and radius of action and did not wish to hamper the free decisions of the commander in chief of all of the fleet and the group command.”13

The Chase

As Bismarck and her consort pushed further into the Atlantic,14 the battleship became the target for an aerial attack by torpedo-carrying Swordfish bi-planes flying from HMS Victorious. Bismarck was hit by at least one torpedo although the damage was minimal. Shortly afterwards, Bismarck turned to engage the British heavy cruisers shadowing her. The move was a distraction which allowed the Prinz Eugen to break away and move away unobserved. Bismarck too, on a different course, was able to slip away from her shadowing escorts. It was over 31 hours later that Bismarck was spotted by a shore-based Catalina flying boat. This allowed the Royal Navy to concentrate resources against the German vessel. Increasingly, senior officers in the Admiralty were convinced that Bismarck was heading for the safety of Brest; the only question was whether they could bring her to action before she reached port. Two attacks were launched by the Fleet Air Arm on 26 May: the first almost sank the cruiser HMS Sheffield in a case of mistaken identity.15 The second attack, at 2047, crippled Bismarck, which was hit by two or three torpedoes. A lucky hit jammed Bismarck’s steering gear, condemning her to steam round in circles. Desperate attempts to free the steering gear were only partially successful. Although attempts were made to send U-boats to Bismarck’s aid in Berlin, on the ship, it was recognised that nothing could be done to prevent the British from closing in.

The Destruction of Bismarck

Catching up with the crippled battleship through the night of 26/27 May the British battleships opened fire on the still-circling Bismarck at 0847 on 27 May. The battle ended as a contest approximately 40 minutes after it had begun. The opening of Bismarck’s final battle was relayed to The War Illustrated by an unamed officer on HMS King George V:

“I have my glasses on Bismarck. She fires all four guns from her two forward turrets, four thin orange flames. The Germans have a reputation for hitting with their early salvoes. Now I know what suspended animation means. It seems to take about two hours for those shots to fall! The splashes shoot up opposite but beyond Rodney’s fo’c’sle. I’m sorry to say that we all thought, ‘Thank heavens she’s shooting at Rodney’. My second thought was that I wouldn’t care to be facing nine 16-inch and ten 14-inch guns; I just kept my binoculars glued to Bismarck. Rodney’s first salvo produced great white columns of water 120 ft. high that would break the back of a destroyer and sink her like a stone if she steamed through one of them. The second splash I missed – all except one shot which seemed to belong to King George V and was a little ahead of Bismarck. Then I watched Rodney to see if she was being hit, but she just sat there like a great slab of rock blocking the northern horizon, and suddenly belched a full salvo. I actually saw their projectiles flying through the air for some seconds after they left the guns like little diminishing footballs curving up and up into the sky. Now, I am sure that four or five hit. There was only one great splash, and a sort of flurry of spray and splash which might have been a waterline hit. The others had bored their way through the Krupp armour belt like cheese; and pray God I may never know what they did as they exploded inside the hull.”16

Forty minutes later, firing from Bismarck had all but ceased. The British battleships continued to pound the blazing Bismarck, which stubbornly refused to sink. A Polish officer onboard HMS Renown observed:

“I can count the holes made by our shells on her starboard side. More than fifteen. Some are still smoking, while others just gape emptily... The enemy is no longer firing. She has been silenced by the fire of the British guns. I have never seen such a great ship; ideally proportioned, a long bow, a well-balanced bridge even though now in ruins.”17

Shortage of fuel forced the Renown and the other British battleships to break off their attack at 1015, while the cruiser HMS Dorsetshire and the Tribal class destroyer HMS Maori were sent in to finish with torpedoes. Dorsetshire rescued just 111 men before the warning of a U-boat in the vicinity forced her to cease rescue work (one survivor died onboard Dorsetshire as a result of his wounds). Later that day, U-74 picked up a further three survivors from a carley float that they had managed to launch. On 28 May, the German weather ship Sachsenwald picked up the final two survivors.

As Bismarck finally slipped beneath the waves, news of her sinking was signalled to London to be announced in the House of Commons by a jubilant Winston Churchill. A decisive British victory had been achieved in difficult circumstances. Chance had played a major role in allowing the British to re-acquire the German vessel and to stop her just at the point when it seemed certain that she would escape to the safety of Brest. The chase and sinking of Bismarck was followed eagerly by the world’s press.18 In the United States the victory was taken as evidence that despite the threat of the U-boat, the Royal Navy had held the upper hand in the North Atlantic.

Hitler was deeply affected by the loss of Bismarck. He had been elated when Grand Admiral Raeder had telephoned to tell him of the victory over HMS Hood, but had grown steadily more concerned and depressed as Bismarck was chased towards her final battle. The final message from Bismarck had expressed undimmed confidence in Hitler’s leadership and certainty about the final victory of Germany over her enemies. Hitler had replied in emotional tones: “All Germany is with you. What can be done is being done. The fulfilment of your duty will fortify our people in the struggle for their existence”.19 Following the loss of the battleship, Hitler had been silent until he asked for details of how many crew had been onboard. Reflecting on the scale of the losses, he declared that he would never again sanction the deployment of one of Germany’s remaining surface ships to the Atlantic. Only the safe arrival of Prinz Eugen at Brest on 1 June relieved the gloom. Entering port she steamed past the mooring buoys, which had been put out to receive Bismarck.20 At his meeting with Grand Admiral Raeder on 6 June, the Führer made no secret of his displeasure at the loss of Bismarck.21

Winston Churchill was in no doubt either about the importance of Bismarck’s sinking. On 28 May he sent a telegraph to President Roosevelt of the United States highlighting the fact that the Royal Navy was now free to deploy a number of battleships which had previously been forced to remain at the Scapa Flow anchorage to meet any sortie by the German battleship. Churchill considered that this in turn could materially affect the situation in the Far East, where Britain and the United States faced a threat of war with the Japanese who were eager to expand their Empire.22 With the Royal Navy perhaps freer to move some of its capital ships to Asian waters, the Japanese might prove more reluctant to run the risk of war with the British and American navies.23 Churchill later wrote that sinking Bismarck was of global significance for the British Empire, while at the same time hinting at the inter-service rivalry which had broken out over the relative levels of credit which the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force could claim for finding and sinking the German battleship:

“Had she escaped, the moral effects of her continuing existence as much as the material damage she might have inflicted on our shipping would have been calamitous. Many misgivings would have arisen regarding our capacity to control the oceans, and these would have been trumpeted round the world to our great detriment and discomfort. All branches rightly claimed their share in the successful outcome.”24

Post War Controversies

The inter-service rivalry came to a head during 1946, in the lead-up to the publication of the official dispatch dealing with Bismarck. There was considerable resentment within the Air Ministry at the limited references in the dispatch to the efforts of Coastal Command to locate the battleship.25 Representatives of the Air Ministry politely reminded the Admiralty that but for the aircraft of Coastal Command, the battleships of the Royal Navy would not have been able to re-acquire Bismarck during the extended hunt.26 Senior figures within the RAF considered that the lack of reference to the efforts and success of Coastal Command were intended to garner for the senior service the maximum credit for the sinking of Bismarck. That in turn would serve as a distraction for the sinking of HMS Hood and its immediate aftermath. In truth, the Bismarck episode was a powerful reminder of the results that could be achieved by effective co-operation between the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. It also underlined the vital importance of an effective Fleet Air Arm operating from carriers able to protect a fleet and to provide strike forces well beyond the range of land-based aircraft. The disagreement over the official dispatch was kept ‘in-house’ between the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, but another controversy was to run for longer.

Shortly after the stories of her sinking began to circulate, it seemed that Bismarck may not have been sunk by the guns and torpedoes of the Royal Navy but had, in fact, been scuttled by her own crew. Following interrogation of Bismarck’s survivors, the Department of Naval Intelligence was ready to conclude that, while there was no certainty about what had caused the vessel to sink, some of the prisoners had stated that scuttling charges had certainly hastened the process. While some later accounts would portray the scuttling of Bismarck as a final act of defiance, on a par with the scuttling of the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet in 1919, the Department of Naval Intelligence viewed the matter rather differently. Evidence from survivors pointed towards a breakdown in morale onboard the doomed battleship that had affected all ranks from Admiral Günther Luetjens downwards.27 Observers of the final action against Bismarck provided further evidence that seemed to confirm this breakdown:

“The action had been going perhaps twenty minutes; some of her secondary armament and certainly two of the great turrets were still firing, perhaps a little wildly, for nobody on our side showed signs of a hit. There, racing across her quarterdeck were little human figures; one climbed over the wire guard rails, hung on with one hand, looked back, and then jumped into the sea. Others just jumped without looking back at all – a little steady trickle of them jumping into the sea one after another.”28

Under interrogation, survivors embittered by what they saw as the abandonment of Bismarck by the Luftwaffe and U-boat arm made statements that indicated that crews had abandoned their guns and that, in at least one case, an officer had shot down some of the crew in a vain effort to get them to stay at their posts. Other accounts refer to groups of men coming together in locations sheltered from the storm of shot to determine how they could escape the inferno. Herbert Manthey who was one of the three men picked up by U-74 related how the anti-aircraft crews abandoned their guns in order to take shelter: “First I was with a group of 20 men in the aftergunnery position. After a few hits close by we fled behind the turrets C and D on the upper deck.”29 Stating that he and his two comrades were washed into the sea with a carley float, they were clearly some distance away from Bismarck when Dorsetshire closed in for the kill.

Despite the ‘secret’ classification of the Department of Naval Intelligence’s report on the Bismarck interrogation, rumours began to circulate in Britain about the collapse in morale on Bismarck, and the use of scuttling charges. In the House of Commons Rear-Admiral Beamish made mention of the scuttling rumour in February 1942:

“I would like to mention a rumour – it is nothing more than a rumour. The other day somebody said to me, ‘Didn’t you know that they were never able to sink the Bismarck?’ The Bismarck’s crew knew that they could not go on fighting, steaming, or escaping, and they were determined that the ship should not fall into the hands of the British because she was torpedo-proof, and therefore, they opened the seacocks and sank her.”30

In 1989, the wreck of Bismarck was located and photographed by a team with Dr Robert Ballard at the head.31 The wreck was mostly intact. Held in place by gravity, the four main turrets of the battleship had become detached from the hulk as soon as she rolled over and sank. Parts of the superstructure had broken away as the ship’s underwater descent had accelerated. Hitting bottom with enormous force, the wreck had slid some distance before coming to rest. Most importantly, at some point in her journey beneath the sea, the last 35-ft. of the stern had become detached. Some analysts have argued that this may indicate a flaw in the design of Bismarck and other German ships of the period – the stern of the Prinz Eugen suffered similar failure following a torpedo strike on 23 February 1942. Despite considerable damage inflicted during the final battle, the forward and the aft conning towers remain. The wreck was found to be in surprisingly good condition with much of the wooden deck panelling still in place. Sunk in mud almost to the waterline, Ballard’s expedition did little to resolve the controversy over the precise cause of Bismarck’s sinking. However, Ballard did suggest that the lack of implosion damage, which results when a partially flooded hull reaches a depth where it can no longer survive the pressure, seemed to point in the direction of a gradual sinking and he concluded:

“We found no evidence on the wreck of the implosions that occur when a ship sinks before it is fully flooded. For an example of the two ways a ship can sink, you need only to look at the two main pieces of the Titanic hull as we found them on the ocean bottom. The bow, which had been opened up by the iceberg and filled with water over the two and a half hours between the impact and the final plunge, was virtually intact except for damage sustained when it hit the ocean floor. The stern, which had not been hit was only partly flooded when the ship broke in two and sank, was totally devastated, a chaos of twisted and torn hull plating. This was because the pressure of the water outside the hull was much greater than that of the air still trapped inside. If the Bismarck had sunk before the flooding of all her watertight compartments was virtually complete, this pressure differential would surely have led to cave-ins, causing her to look something like the Titanic’s stern, despite the stoutness of the battleship’s construction. Instead we found a hull that appears whole and relatively undamaged by the descent and impact. The Bismarck did not implode.”32

Although Ballard kept the location of the wreck secret to protect it from further disturbance, it was located by further expeditions in 2001–2002 and 2005 which carried out extensive filming. The second expedition also located the wreck of HMS Hood.33 The wreckage of Hood, ripped into three sections by the explosion which destroyed the vessel, was consistent with the theory that an explosion in the aft magazines had destroyed the ship, but it also pointed to a second explosion that broke the for’ard remains of the ship in two. Analysis of the wreck of Bismarck by all teams found further evidence to support the idea that she had been scuttled. In particular, James Cameron’s 2002 expedition was able to show evidence that the torpedoes which had struck Bismarck had not penetrated the inner core of the ship.

The remains of Bismarck lie some 600 miles west of Brest at a depth of 15,700 feet. Such is the slow decay of the vessel that it is estimated that she will continue to stand as a monument to the fate of so many of her crew well into the 22nd Century. On the ocean bed around the wreck are hundreds of pairs of seamen’s boots – a final ghostly reminder of the men who once filled them.

The Battle Summary which follows charts the operations of the Royal Navy against Battleship Bismarck. There was much that the writers of the summary could not know. The summary was pulled together in some haste as the officers of the Royal Navy struggled to learn lessons for the future from recently concluded operations. The German perspective on these operations would not emerge until after 1945. With so few survivors from Bismarck, the final hours in the life of the battleship, especially the decisions taken by those on the bridge, remain beyond the reach of historians. Included here are first-hand accounts by survivors, both British and German, sourced from within the pages of the Hitler Conferences and separately from private, independent sources. Even the discovery of the wreck has not conclusively settled the issue of how the battleship sank.

Seventy years on from the events it analyses, the Battle Summary of the pursuit and sinking of Bismarck makes interesting reading, particularly here with the addition of specially selected sections of the minutes of the Conference of the Commander-in-Chief, Navy with the Führer at the Berghof on 22 May 1941.

1. ‘The Bismarck Launched’, The Times, 15 February 1939, p.11.

2. Editorial, The Times, 15 February 1939, p.11.

3. See for example, Brower, J. (2005), The Battleship Bismarck (Anatomy of the Ship), Conway Maritime Press, London. Bercuson, D. J. & Herwig, H. H. (2003), The Destruction of the Bismarck, The Overlook Press, New York. Berthold, W. (1958), The Sinking of The Bismarck, Longmans, Green and Co., London. Busch, F. O. (1950), Das Geheimnis der Bismarck, Adolf Sponholtz Verlag, Hannover. Elfrath, U. & Herzog, B. (1989), The Battleship Bismarck: A Documentary in Words and Pictures, Schiffer Publishing, Atglen. Forester, C. S. (1959), Hunting the Bismarck, Amereon Ltd, London. Russell Grenfell, R. (1948), The Bismarck Episode, Faber and Faber, London. Jackson, R. (2002), The Bismarck, Weapons of War, London. Koop, G. & Schmolke, K-P. (1998), Battleships of the Bismarck Class: Bismarck and Tirpitz: Culmination and Finale of German Battleship Construction, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis. Rhys-Jones, G. (1999), The Loss of the Bismarck: An Avoidable Disaster, Cassell, London. McMurtrie, F. (1941), The Cruise of the Bismarck, Hutchinson & Co., London. Moffat, J. (2009), I Sank the Bismarck, Bantam Press, London. Schofield, B. B. (1972), The Loss of the Bismarck, Ian Allan, London. Shirer, W. L. (1962), The Sinking of The Bismarck, Random House, London. Winklareth, R. L. (1998), The Bismarck Chase: New Light on a Famous Engagement, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis. Zetterling, N. & Tamelander, M. (2009), Bismarck: The Final Days of Germany’s Greatest Battleship, Casemate, Drexel Hill.

4. Mulligan, T. P. (2005), Ship-of-the-Line or Atlantic Raider? Battleship Bismarck Between Design Limitations and Naval Strategy, The Journal of Military History, vol. 69 (October 2005), pp.1013–44.

5. Bennett, G. H. & Bennett, R. (2004), Hitler’s Admirals, United States Naval Institute Press, Annapolis. p.100.

6. Bennett, G. H. & Bennett, R. (2004), Hitler’s Admirals, United States Naval Institute Press, Annapolis. p.99.

7. Admiral Assmann’s report on the Bismarck operation June 1941, reproduced in Showell, J. P. M. (1990), Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1939–1945, Greenhill Books, London. pp.217-218.

8. Admiral Assmann’s report on the Bismarck operation June 1941, reproduced in Showell, J. P. M. (1990), Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1939–1945, Greenhill Books, London. p.204.

9. Sopocko, E. (1942), Gentlemen the Bismarck has been Sunk, Methuen, London, 1942. p.51.

10. ‘I was There! – I saw One Vast Explosion – the Hood had Gone’, The War Illustrated, vol. 4, No.94, 20 June 1941. p.621.

11. On the loss of HMS Hood see the Board of Enquiry hearings and report, British National Archives (hereinafter TNA:PRO) ADM116/4351-4352.

12. On the actions of HMS Prince of Wales see TNA:PRO ADM 267/111.

13. Bennett, G. H. & Bennett, R. (2004), Hitler’s Admirals, United States Naval Institute Press, Annapolis. p.101.

14. For an older account of this episode see Kennedy, L. (1991), Pursuit: The Sinking of the Bismarck, Fontana London.

15. Willmot, H. P., (2002), Battleship, Cassell, London. p.163.

16. Un-named officer on-board HMS King George V, The War Illustrated, vol. 4, No.95, 27 June 1941. p.630.

17. Sopocko, E. (1942), Gentlemen the Bismarck has been Sunk, Methuen, London, 1942. p.83.

18. ‘Bismarck Epic’, The News Review, 5 June 1941, p.12. ‘Bismarck Sunk’, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 May 1941. p.1. ‘Bismarck Sunk’, New York Post, 27 May 1941. p.1.

19. Von Below, N. (2010), At Hitler’s Side: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Luftwaffe Adjutant 1937–1945, Frontline Books, Barnsley. p.101.

20. John Deane Potter, Fiasco: The Break-out of the German Battleships, Reader’s Union, London, 1970. pp.5–6.

21. Cajus Bekker, Verdammte See, Verlag Ullstein, Berlin, 1971. pp.216–217. Minutes of the Führer Conference on Naval Affairs, 6 June 1941, Jak P. Mallmann Showell, Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1939–1945, Greenhill Books, London, 1990. pp.217–218.

22. In addition there was considerable concern in the Admiralty and Foreign Office that the Japanese were providing assistance to German commerce raiders and blockade runners. See TNA:PRO FO371/28814.

23. Reproduced in Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, The Reprint Society, London, 1952. p.259.

24. Reproduced in Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, The Reprint Society, London, 1952. p.259.

25. See W.A. Marshall for the Lord’s Commissioners of the Admiralty to the Undersecretary of State at the Air Ministry, 29 May 1946, TNA:PRO AIR15/204.

26. See proposed amendments to Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet’s Despatch on the Sinking of the German Battleship Bismarck on 27 May 1941, TNA: PRO AIR15/204. See also further correspondence in TNA:PRO ADM1/19999.

27. Preliminary Report on Interrogation of Survivors of the German Battleship Bismarck sunk on 27 May 1941, British National Archives TNA: PRO ADM267/137.

28. Un-named officer on-board HMS King George V, The War Illustrated, vol. 4, No.95, 27 June 1941. p.630.

29. Survivor’s Report by Ordinary Seaman Herbert Manthey contained in Showell, J. P. M. (1990), Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1939–1945, Greenhill Books, London. p.216. See also the account by Bismarck’s senior surviving officer von Mullenheim-Rechberg, B. (1980), Battleship Bismarck, A Survivor’s Story, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.

30. Rear-Admiral Beamish in debate on the 1942 Naval Estimates, House of Commons Debates, 26 February 1942, vol. 378, cols. 402–403.

31. Ballard, R. D. (1990), Bismarck: Germany’s Greatest Battleship Gives Up its Secrets, Madison Publishing, Toronto.

32. Ballard, R. D. (1990) The Discovery of the Bismarck, Guild Publishing, London. pp.214–215.

33. Mearns, D. & White, R. (2001) Hood and Bismarck. The Deep-Sea Discovery of an Epic Battle, Channel 4 Books, London.

We are indebted to Martyn Anderson for his help in researching and preparing the books in this series for publication.