part0015

I t was early May 1941. Our crew on the Bismarck feverishly prepared for inspection by none other than our führer, Adolf Hitler. Now, here among us. Our decks scrubbed and rails polished, our uniforms pressed, and the ship's barber had worked his way through as many of the 2,000 men as time and his blistered fingers allowed.

This was a visit by the führer to Germany's greatest battleship. Our crew, with an average age of 20, was immensely proud of their new vessel. I watched as the führer passed through the assembled ranks. We stood, faces stiff with pride, and awed to be in the presence of our leader. Hitler was not impressed with everyone on parade. He walked by a fellow anti-aircraft gunner, and the führer looked straight through him. I'll never forget the shark-like, cold, and heartless eyes that I saw that day.

The führer had an almost schoolboy fascination with our battleship and went on a tour. He was mesmerized with the Bismarck's gunnery control system. Its state-of-the-art computer mechanism took in the ship’s speed and course and that of its enemy, wind direction as well as shell flight time. This produced changes of correction of aim at what was by the standards of the time—lightning speed.

Hitler also noted with pride, the two huge swastikas, the emblem of his Nazi Party, painted at either end of the ship, which served to identify the vessel to their aircraft. We had a small Navy, but our warships were the most advanced in the world, and the Bismarck was the pride of our fleet. She was a genuinely colossal war machine, over a sixth of a mile long, and bristling with massive guns. She was no doubt the fastest, best armed, and most protected battleship of her day.

The Bismarck's most senior officers accompanied Hitler on his tour of inspection. The captain was a stiff, frail-looking 45-year-old man who was never without a cigarette. In his portrait on the ship, he stared out at the world with piercing intelligent eyes. His blond hair slicked back behind two enormous ears. But his slightly comical and stern look was misleading. We held him in high regard and affection. We even referred to him behind his back as our father . He emanated both confidence and approachability. Being anointed captain of the Bismarck was the most significant break of his naval career.

With him was our Fleet Commander, together with 50 of his staff. Our Fleet Commander, Admiral Lütjens, was a handsome 51-year-old man. He had a stark resemblance to American film actor Lee Marvin. Admiral Lütjens, like many officers in the German navy, was not a great supporter of Hitler and had tried to protect Jewish officers under his command. Right from the start of the war, he believed Germany would be defeated. Maybe that was why he was such a forbidding man to be around, and he seldom smiled or laughed. Although he was an excellent commander, he didn't have the leadership skills as future events will show .

Admiral Lütjens knew that the British feared his powerful ship and that they would do everything in their considerable power to destroy it. More than any man aboard the Bismarck, he did not expect to return from this posting alive. Britain was the only major European power still undefeated by us. Our commander in chief of the Navy, Grand Admiral Raeder, intended to use our Navy to starve their isolated island opponent into defeat. British survival was dependent on cargo ships from the United States. And so far, this tactic was working. It was now early 1941, and two other battleships had ventured out into the North Atlantic on raiding missions and sunk 22 ships between them.

Now, in May of this year, our Bismarck was preparing to do the same. The expedition was codenamed Operation Rhine, and sailing out with us was another modern ship named Prinz Eugen . This raid would be different, on previous raids, our warships were told to avoid battle with the British Navy at all costs. We were to concentrate solely on destroying merchant ships. But now, we were so confident in our new warship that the German High Command had permitted us for us to fight back if we came under attack.

Most of our crew—including myself—felt we were in an invincible battleship. We had no idea of the horrors that awaited us. There were a few more experienced sailors that had been aboard sinking ships and were old enough to know that the British Navy was a formidable foe. Even our Grand Admiral Raeder had admitted his surface vessels in the Navy—as opposed to his lethal submarine fleet—could take part in hit and run raids only.

We were heavily outnumbered by the British, who'd always depended on their powerful fleet to keep control of their sprawling overseas Empire and protect their trade. I remember hearing once Admiral Raeder had heard that we were at war with Britain, he greeted the news with resignation:

Almost from the start of our mission, the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were shadowed by British planes and ships. They kept carefully out of the range of our guns. When news reached the British Admiralty that our ships had left Norway to venture out into the shipping lanes of the North Atlantic, immediate action was taken. I understood that the Royal Navy ordered two of their most powerful warships, the Prince of Wales and the Hood to intercept us. These ships slipped away from their Orkney base in the early hours of May 22nd . The Hood was quite possibly the most famous battle cruiser in the world. She was built in 1918 and was handsome and a formidably armed vessel. She was also a sixth of a mile from bow to stern.

The Hood had become a symbol of British naval power and had a fearsome reputation during our training exercises. Our crew along the Bismarck had frequently run through attack and resistance tactics with the Hood as our imaginary enemy. Now we were about to fight her for real. We took a course up past the north of Iceland, and through the Denmark Straits, which separate Iceland from Greenland. Here, we sailed by vast sheets of ice that formed around the coastal waters of Greenland for most of the year.

On the journey up, the two deck swastikas were hurriedly covered over with a fresh coat of paint. The only aircraft out here would be British ones. Such an insignia would indicate that the Bismarck was an enemy ship. It was in these chilly waters that the Hood and the Prince of Wales raced to intercept us.

This far north, during spring and summer, night falls for a few hours or not at all. In late May, dawn came before two o'clock in the morning. It cast a pale gray light over a heaving sea, dotted by patches of fog and brief flurries of snow. Our men stationed in lookout posts above the ships longed to scuttle back to their cozy and cramped quarters. A biting wind whipped over the bow and stung our numb faces. This delicate spot near the frozen top of the world was one of the most dismal places on earth.

Aboard the German ships, our crews expected an imminent attack. But we had no idea how close the British were. The cruiser Suffolk had sighted us just after 11 a.m. on May 23rd . On our ship, we spent an anxious night. There were several false alarms as sound detection operators picked up the incoming rumble of British engines. But it was only a radio message from German headquarters who had been monitoring British transmissions. They told us that the enemy was almost upon us.

Just after the message arrived, our lookout spotted two smoke trails from the funnels of the approaching British, one on the southeast horizon. And even then, we weren't sure this was an attack. Maybe we were still being shadowed by smaller vessels who were just keeping tabs on us. But by 6 a.m., it was evident that the approaching ships meant to attack us.

We sent a terse radio message to headquarters:

Then we prepared ourselves for the battle to come. In an often-rehearsed procedure, one ton of high explosive shells was hauled up to the huge gun turrets by a complex system of pulleys and rails from magazines deep inside the hole. On the Bismarck, we had monstrous projectiles over 16 inches across and loaded onto guns that were 20 feet long and weighed over 100 tons each. The order was given to fire at 13 miles. At once, all four ships began exchanging broadsides. At these distances, shells would take up to a half a minute to reach their target.

It was just after 6 a.m., the roar of the guns were so loud that they could be heard in Reykjavik, Iceland. After the battle began, it soon became apparent that the Hood’s reputation had been undeserved. The Hood was built just after the First World War. She was given heavy steel protection along her vertical surfaces, back when warship designs assumed enemy shells would travel low and hit their sides. Now, 20 years later, such assumptions no longer applied.

By 1940, warships aimed their shells in high arc trajectories where they’d plunge on top of decks and turrets. These were the Hood’s weakest spots. The second and third salvo had an astonishing effect on the British ship. We watched in astonishment as our much-feared opponent exploded like a giant fireworks display. The entire front half lifted out of the water and broke the battleship in two. A vast silent sheet of flame shot high in the air. As intense as a blowtorch, and so bright it could be seen over 30 miles away. The Hood turned over and sank in less than five minutes in the bleakest of battlegrounds.

I was later to find out that all but three of the 1,500 men crew died. The Prince of Wales veered sharply to avoid hitting the Hood . She was in deep trouble herself. Seven shells from the Prinz Eugen and the Bismarck hit her, including one on the bridge, which killed everyone but the captain. Several of her main gun turrets had also jammed. The British sensed another catastrophe, and with no chance of destroying either German ship, ordered a speedy retreat.

On the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen there was an atmosphere of euphoria. Our crews were led to believe that we were aboard the most powerful warship on the planet, and events proved this to be true, hadn't they? Yet the atmosphere on the Bismarck's bridge was strained. The admirals had exchanged sharp words about the wisdom of going after the Prince of Wales . Even though she was an easy target, they had decided to stick to their original mission of sinking enemy merchant ships. We weren’t prepared to take any unnecessary risks. And there was bad news too. Although the Prinz Eugen had escaped unscathed, our Bismarck had taken two shells from the Prince of Wales . Men were killed, the ship’s sickbay was filling up with burned and scalded casualties. The most serious scenario was a shell had sailed clean through the front of the ship close to the bow. It hadn’t exploded but left a man-sized hole just above the waterline. Our ship lurched up and down through the choppy ocean, and the sea flooded in and drained out, gradually filling the surrounding compartments with over 2,000 tons of water. Our fuel lines were broken, leaving over 1,000 tons of fuel in the forward tanks cut off from the engine room. The ship was seeping into a sickly brown trail of oil. Part of the ship's engine had also been damaged.

I later found out that news of the Hood's destruction caused a sensation across the world. Winston Churchill would recall it is the single worst moment of the war. This was when the British Admiralty issued the famous order: Sink the Bismarck .

They sent two battlecruisers, two aircraft carriers, 13 cruisers, and 21 destroyers to avenge the Hood . They were sent to find and destroy us, and their first task was to make sure we did not vanish from sight.

The North Atlantic stretched for more than a million nautical square miles. Although we'd still be shadowed by smaller British vessels, it would be easy to lose them. The next morning, the rain and drizzle eventually gave way to an occasional hint of sunshine. But the sea was still heaving. The ship was losing fuel and taking in water. We still had full firepower, but we lacked speed, essential for our hit and run missions. The Prinz Eugen was ordered to break away from us and continue alone. We would take our ship to the port of St. Nazaire, France, for repairs. At our current speed, we would make the 1,700-mile journey in just under four days.

Meanwhile, the British relaunched their Swordfish Torpedo Bombers from the aircraft carrier Victorious . These rickety biplanes looked like relics from the First World War. They slowly lumbered through the sky. We quickly fought off the Swordfish with our anti-aircraft guns and put up a protective sheet of flame that prevented the planes from launching their torpedoes accurately. There was one hit, but it caused minimal damage.

Another British aircraft carrier hurried to intercept us, the Ark Royal. She would soon prove to be far more deadly. Our Admiral made a midday speech to us over the ship's PA system. The Hood was the pride of England; he told us:

He wasn't diplomatic with his choice of words, but even admirals are human. And I'm sure he knew what was coming, but in my opinion, he was too pessimistic.

That night we had outrun our British pursuers, and when dawn came, they had lost sight of us. Our Admiralty did not know. Later in the day, our Admiral sent a long despondent message to German High Command. It was picked up by British radio trackers, who concentrated an aerial search in the area where they detected the signal. But even then, luck was still with us. The British fleet miscalculated our position and assumed that Bismarck was heading back to Norway rather than France. They altered their pursuit course accordingly.

It would now be a whole 31 hours before the British found us. It wasn't until 10:30 a.m. on May 26th that observing members of the RAF Catalina circling just outside of the range of our guns spotted us. The port of St. Nazaire was only a day or so away, as was the imminent prospect of both air and U-boat support. Our position was reported by the Catalina and the British fleet altered their course to the south.

The aircraft carrier Ark Royal was closing fast. Its huge bulk heaved in the rough sea and torrents of seawater sprayed the flight deck. Ground crews prepared the bulky Swordfish bombers by loading heavy torpedoes to the undersides. In the middle of the afternoon, 15 Swordfish lumbered into the air. They didn't expect to sink the Bismarck as they hoped, but at the very least, they wanted to cause enough damage to slow us down so that the other pursuing British ships could catch up and attack.

These planes slipped through the low cloud fog, driving rain and pounced, flying just above the waves to unleash their torpedoes against us. If the Swordfish crews were surprised by the complete lack of defensive fire from the ship below, it didn't cause them to pause and consider their target. All their torpedoes missed, which was fortunate for the British because the ship they’d attacked was the British cruiser Sheffield .

Despite the humiliation and embarrassment, a second wave of 15 Swordfish were sent off into the slow falling dusk. This time they found us. We were only 620 miles from the French port. They moved so slowly. It seemed like they were hanging in the air, but they flew in so low their wheels brushed over the waves. Our guns could only fire above them. This time two torpedoes hit home, one caused only minor damage while the other exploded underneath the stern.

A huge watery explosion shot up like whiplash through the length of the ship. It buckled deck plates and bulkheads and threw men to the floor and against middle partitions with breathtaking violence. Above this side of the explosion, water surged into the ship with a vengeance, flooding the entire steering compartment.

The sea burst through once waterproof compartments and gushed down cable pipes that ran the length of the ship. I heard later aboard the Ark Royal , that senior commanders listened to wild, excited reports of their young pilots. They tried to sift fact from fiction to determine what damage had been done. One Pilot’s account seemed to indicate something extremely significant. After the attack, the Bismarck was seen making two huge circles and then slowed down to a halt. It was obvious our steering had been badly damaged. In fact, the rudder had jammed at 15 degrees to port.

It was now time to put desperate measures into effect. The Bismarck carried three seaplanes. Plans were made to remove the hangar door and weld it to the side of the stern to counteract the effect of the rudder. But bad weather made this impossible.

Admiral Lütjens sent another grim signal home. Ship no longer steering . German naval authorities reacted by ordering more U-boats to head for the Bismarck's position as soon as possible. But our U-boats weren't the swiftest of vessels, and there were none nearby. Another message was sent that the admiral shared with us over the ship's PA. It was from Adolf Hitler, he said:

This message offered no hope for survival. That night on board the Bismarck was a long dreadful night. I wondered whether I would live to see another dusk. Several men had nightmares, and there were men on other bunks that woke screaming and sobbing. When word spread the rudder was put out of action, the older members of the crew took this to be a death sentence. It was equally strange that later that night, permission was given for the crew to help themselves to anything they wanted, food or drink. It was a blatant admission that the ship was doomed.

We were assured that U-boats and aircraft were heading out to protect us, and some of the younger sailors still hoped that they’d survive after all. That night, the admiral ordered the engines to stop, against the recommendation of the chief engineer. After five nights with virtually no sleep and all the stress and worry of commanding a ship in a now impossible situation, he was a man at the end of his rope.

To keep the crew from worrying too much about the battle to come, the admiral played records of popular songs over the ship's PA system. But his psychological tactics failed. The songs reminded the men too much of girlfriends or wives and families back home.

Admiral Lütjens came up with an idea of getting men with no immediate job to construct a dummy funnel of wood and canvas. The idea was to change the Bismarck’s silhouette, so the enemy ships or aircraft would think it was another battleship and leave us alone. This was a considerable task, and men kept busy painting the canvas and building the scaffolding structure all through the night and into the next day.

On the morning of May 27th , we hoped to reach the safety of a French port. But the British fleet closed in to finish the job. Aboard our ship, our exhausted lookouts saw two massive ships heading straight for us. We identified them as King George V and Rodney , boldly closing in to scare our crew, and it worked. The battle that followed, which started with a salvo from Rodney at 8:50 a.m., was brutally effective. As they homed in, the British ships took carefully timed evasive action, darting one way, then another to avoid our powerful guns.

This time, luck was with the British, and few of our shells found their mark. By 9 a.m., King George V and Rodney were both firing steadily at us. It was nearly four salvos a minute that fell around our ship, which was now entirely obscured by a smoking spray. A huge towering column of water was sent into the air by near misses. A shell hit our ship near the bow. A blinding sheet of flame momentarily swallowed the entire front end of the Bismarck. This one shot, ten or so minutes into the battle, was the most crucial of the day. After that, our two front turrets fired no more. In that one explosion, perhaps half the ship's crew had been killed. Only one man from the entire front section survived the battle.

Our ship may have been the most technologically advanced battleship in the world, but now we were completely outgunned. For the next hour, hundreds of shells fell on top of us. On deck and below, men were blown to pieces or burned to death. Our interior turned into a blazing deathtrap as the British ships drew closer. Our ship's exceptionally effective construction only made our destruction even more prolonged. As the shelling continued, fierce fires blazed all over our deck and superstructure, and the Bismarck began listing to port. It was now 10 a.m., and the British ships were close enough to see streams of men leaping into the sea, trying to save themselves from the flames and still exploding shells. When it was evident that our crew was abandoning ship, the British ordered the shelling to stop.

The Bismarck slowly capsized through the carnage, and men ran around blindly, desperately seeking ways to save themselves. Not a single lifeboat, life raft, or even a float remained. All through the smoke and ruin, I saw doctors busy attending to the wounded, giving them pain-killing morphine jabs to ease their agony. Many men were still trapped inside the ship, fires cut off escape routes and shells buckled hatches, which no longer opened. Some were able to escape it by climbing up shell hoists, wiring shafts, or any kind of duct large enough to take them in. Others gave up hope and sat where they could, waiting for the ship to go down, but still, the Bismarck stayed afloat.

Finally, at nearly 11 a.m., the Bismarck turned over and sank. To this day, it's unclear whether she sank because of the torpedoes or because their crew deliberately flooded her to keep the ship from falling into British hands. I was in the water near the bow and witnessed this one final extraordinary scene. Our Admiral had been killed by shellfire early in the battle, but the captain had survived. He was with a junior officer standing near the front of the ship with seawater fast approaching. From his gestures, he appeared to be urging this man to save himself, but the man refused and stayed next to the captain. As the deck slowly turned over into the sea, the captain stopped and raised his hand to his cap, gave one final salute and disappeared. I only thought these happened in books and movies, but I saw it with my own eyes.

There were hundreds of us in the water. We had been told that the British regularly shot their prisoners. In retrospect, it was a sly piece of propaganda designed to ensure our military forces would be reluctant to surrender. But we were freezing in the water, and we swam towards the British ships. The British hurriedly bundled us aboard, but in a cruel twist of fate, a lookout spotted a whiff of smoke a couple miles away, which they thought to be a German U-boat.

The British ships were immediately ordered to move off. Although I was one of the hundred men that were rescued, they left 300 more in the water. As I was later to find out, these exhausted men who had seen their hopes of survival raised and crushed slowly succumbed to the intense cold of the ocean. Only five men lived to tell the tale. Three were picked up by a U-boat and two by a German weather ship.

When other German ships arrived on the scene, they found only rubble, lifebelts, and a few floating bodies. I watched the Bismarck turn upside down and descend to the ocean floor, three miles below. Her four huge gun turrets fell from their housings. By the time she hit the slopes of a vast underwater volcano, some 20 minutes later, she’d righted herself and set off a massive landslide, which carried her further down the slope.