Bismarck: How Britain Sunk The Infamous German Battleship | Full Documentary | History Hit

As I was looking at the bismar I saw all these little twinkling lights and I thought, "Oh, isn't that so pretty?" and suddenly I realized that what I thought was pretty was death and destruction in the form of about eight tons of metal coming. My way, the weather had deteriorated considerably and we flew and um into a cloud in the snow and really horrible flying conditions. 12,000 And that's 6 normal miles 6 normal miles for a fish. This for us was the point at the end of May 1941, one of the most important in the world. mighty ornate warships in the middle of the Atlantic was to be one of the last great battles of the age of naval artillery.

It was a series of brutal encounters, all revolving around the German naval flagship CS Bismar. Bismar is a quantum leap for the Germans and there is no doubt that the Bismar is as capable as anything the British have. The Bismar is a very impressive warship, she is extremely dangerous. Bismar was now loose in the Atlantic, the admiralty was now trying to find all the ships they could and throw them into trouble, so the British had a task: sink Bismar if left unchecked, Bismar threatened to dominate the Atlantic and depriving Britain of vital food and military supplies flowing from the rest of the world.

The admiralty had no choice. Bismar had to be arrested on Valentine's Day. 1939 at the Blo and Ross shipyard in Hamburg the largest ship ever built in Europe was launched. It was a triumphant day for Hitler, who was brought to power by promising to revoke the Treaty of Versailles and return Germany to a position of pride and power. He was now christening one of the most powerful ships afloat, a stark declaration of intent, he concluded his speech. May the German soldiers and officers who will have the honor of commanding this ship one day prove themselves worthy of the name of bismar. bismar is a pretty big boat.

The

battleship

for its time is about 250 m long, which is quite impressive, and 30 m wide, making it wider than many contemporary

battleship

s, which helps make it a very stable weapons platform capable of reach a very respectable speed of 29. knots at

full

speed and that's pretty fast. The important thing about this is that it is a speed that she can maintain in any weather. Many boats have a rated maximum speed, but it often drops in bad weather. Bismar can move forward and maintain her maximum speed. When conditions are difficult, her armament is quite impressive, she has eight 15-inch guns mounted in twin turrets to send to AR.

Finally, there is Bism Mar's armor and protection scheme in accordance with traditional German warship construction practice. They have emphasized what the most hyperbolic would call desynchronization capacity. It has an incredible number of subdivisions that make it very difficult to flood and therefore sink. Her armor protection is comparable to most modern battleships of the time and she not only has very impressive protection on the side of the hull with fairly dense armor. belt, her turrets are very well protected and her command space has a heavily armored command tower, so, among all this, the Bismar is a very impressive warship.

She is by no means the best battleship of her generation, but she is extremely dangerous. The Bismark is a Quantum. Leap for the Germans, no doubt, um, so before the Bismar entered service, the most powerful ships of hers were the ones they would nickname the twins Shanor and N. Now they are relatively small. The Germans call them battleships. The British always call them battlecruisers. Son is a development of the Panza Shifer, so they are armed with 11 inch guns, they are quite fast, but they are not really a one on one match for any British battleship, on that point Bismar is.

The Bismar is as capable as anything the British have. Radar had designed the Bismar as a Commerce Raider as such. She would probably be unstoppable if the Bismar had stormed into the Atlantic as other cruisers and smaller ships had done during 1939 and 1940. They would have a real problem: they lacked ships with the firepower to be able to engage Bismar effectively on the high seas, but it would be 2 years before Bismar was ready to threaten the seas. 2 years would see Western Europe fall almost completely. Under Nazi control, the United Kingdom had resisted the attacks of the Lvfa and avoided the invasion of the verar, but on the margins of Europe it was still desperately vulnerable.

Britain now depended on fragile cargo routes crossing the oceans for vital food and supplies to enable it to continue resisting Nazi domination. Grand Admiral Raida, head of the German Navy, had witnessed the successes of the army and the LVFA as they dominated Central Europe, but he had also seen them struggle to subdue Britain. He was interested in remaining useful in the eyes of the fury and adding naval victories to Germany's impressive list of achievements, now it would be the Cs Navy's turn to try to defeat the British, so the German Navy in the second war world, the most important thing to keep in mind is that it's aw

full

y small, um. however, they have used it operationally, most notably perhaps in Norway in 1940, when they used almost their entire fleet to transport an army and carry out a surprise attack on Norway.

They have their pocket battleships, the famous Panza Shifer, that they go out on. Trade raiding missions were in place at the beginning of the war, so in 1941 you had a German Navy that had probably done the best it could, given the resources it had. The German Navy had been designed along different lines. Since the Royal Navy, the Royal Navy was all about sea power and sea control, controlling the sea lanes and imposing your will on the enemy, essentially the same thing as it had done in the Napoleonic Wars and during the First World War the Germans were in the Seed Denial business that limits the enemy fleet and pins it in place, but also attacks its sea lanes.

When we think about the German comma attacks in World War II, we tend to focus on UOTs and submarines, um, and clearly that's what he does the most. general damage during war, however if you can make large capital ships at sea as well as submarines that is the dream ticket in terms of attacks on commerce because if you want to protect your merchant ships from submarines what do you do? You group them in a convoy with many small warships that are anti-submarine ships around them, job done, however, if a battleship like the Bismar shakes, then the battleship can destroy all those small escorts and the convoy, so the only thing a conv boy can do if a battleship like Bismar appears as a scatter and if it scatters then all those individual merchant ships can be

sunk

by submarines.

It was a game. Cher, um, came in the spring of 1940 with the capture of the French ports in the Atlantic, particularly the chest, which had a um, they had. In the dry docks, they had port facilities that could serve as a ubo fleet, but also if German battleships and heavy cruisers broke couches in the Atlantic, they could use places like the chest as a base. Raider was quick to take advantage of the newly captured French ports in the Atlantic. On the Atlantic coast, he based his ubot wolf packs there and sent them into the depths of the Atlantic to hunt British supply lines.

The impact was immediate and devastating. Ubot captains call this Happy Time. Despite these successes, most still believe that only surface warships could deal a decisive blow in the campaign, and so, while Bismar was undergoing her final sea trials, Raider launched Operation Berlin in January. In 1941, two fast and powerful battleships Nisen Now and Shanor crossed the Atlantic from Greenland to the Aors, breaking Britain's vulnerable sea routes in the face of the threat from Germany. The surface fleet was now very real. Raider was thrilled with the success of Operation Berlin and desperate to try to repeat it this time with his new superweapon Bismar.

Unfortunately for him, there were no other large gun battleships that were operational, but the Bismark would still sail with only company. by a squadron of smaller ships and the heavy cruiser Prince, the men in command of the Bismar were Vice Admiral Gunter Luchin and his captain Ernst Linderman Luchin had been in charge of the Berlin operation and was now about to lead the most powerful naval asset of Germany in another Ruong Trade Assault Mission Operation and so on May 19, 1941, the battleship with the world's heaviest mission left a shipyard on the German-occupied Baltic coast escorted by her consort, Prince oan, on board the prince oan was a small team from the propaganda company in charge of Incredibly, with them a cameraman named Laman Bismar was reporting on the mission.

The inaugural operation was filmed. Bismar wants to avoid contact with the Royal Navy as much as possible. The plan was to go out into the open Atlantic and begin making raids so as not to attack other ships from the Capital, otherwise getting there without being seen would be impossible. Within a few hours of leaving the port, a Swedish cruiser saw the flotilla sailing west through of the Baltic Sea the Swedish journalist noticed the ship and contact was lost once it left Swedish waters the message that reached the British The admiralty was only red when Bismar and Prince Oan slipped into the North Sea and towards Norway, the The British were already carrying out reconnaissance raids on the Scandinavian coast on 21 May.

Flying Officer Michael Suling flew over a few years near Bergen and took a photograph that sent a chill through the British Admiralty headquarters - the size of the ship in the photograph could only mean one thing Admiral John Tovi put the Royal Navy on high alert Bismar was on the loose so to understand the Royal Navy in 1941 we actually need to rewind quite a bit actually um actually let's go back very briefly to 1815 because at the end of the Napoleonic Wars the Royal Navy is the most powerful dominant force in the world um no There is nothing else that can touch it and that is the case for all of the 19th century, so the Royal Navy enters the First World War with a new young threat at sea and also without operational experience fighting naval battles for most of it.

Lessons are learned for the Royal Navy during the First World War, about command and control, and the boys who were the junior officers in command of the ships or the first tenants of the ships in World War I, those are the people who run the Navy. In World War II, they had the men and also the ships. The Royal Navy at the start of World War II had its gaps, but it remains the most powerful Navy in the world. So you have a mix of older ships that are being refurbished and that is actually a program that is underway.

When the war broke out the particular battleships were old, however five new ones were being built in 1941 and two of them in May had entered service with the local fleet, King George V and Prince of Wales, so At least they gave the British modern Speedy battleships who said they had considerable things to deal with, although the Royal Navy is huge, it is very, very stretched that they have entered. The second world war they were confident that they could fight the Germans, that was the good time, they could fight the Germans and the Italians with the French at their side, but they lost the French in 1940, so suddenly they faced the German Navy combined with the Italian Navy. and they are doing it alone.

I am deep in the streets of Liverpool now in Darby House and this is one of the most important spaces of the British war effort because it was from here that the British directed operations in the Battle of the Atlantic this is where it was collected and plotted the information so that it could be instantly accessible. You have all the states. Preparing squadrons of aircraft or convoys of naval assets and then those assets would be plotted on this incredible map of the North Atlantic. You have enemy and allied military ships and submarines. You also have Merchant Navy convoys, that means they leave Britain.

HX means you left Halifax bound for the UK. It gives the commanders here a real-time view of what's happening in this battlespace. It is essential to British success in the important Battle of the Atlantic and, as such, was at the center of that Titanic month, May 1941, when the British attempted to capture the Bismar. It was quite an undertaking, the British fleet left its base in Scotland these days. The convoys were stripped of their military escorts, all non-essential missions were cancelled, it was the largest naval operation of the Second World War so far and, at its core, the pride of the fleet was the Mighty Hood, it was a shiphuge it was beautiful.

Look, she had a wonderful looking ship, she was long and, uh, perfectly symmetrical, two turrets for two masses, two FS, two turrets after a wonderful looking ship. I have never seen anything so powerful and beautiful for a battleship, it sounds like a horrible word but it is There is no other word to describe the Hood was roughly equivalent in size to the Bismark, it was approximately 860 feet long which was a ship very large, in fact, somewhat thinner than the Bismark with only 100 feet of beam. Therefore, perhaps it was better to describe her as an oceanic Greyhound, she was designed to be fast and she was designed to be very powerful.

There is also a similarity in primary weaponry. She has 8 15 inch guns spread out in the same way we see on the Bismark, two twin turrets forward, two twin turrets behind Hood. It was respectably protected, but its protection scheme was outdated, so although its armor was only marginally thinner than the Bismarks in terms of horizontal protection and was actually thicker in places around its turrets, the cowling had been designed before the effects of long-range fire were fully understood. and because she had never had the complete refit that she had graced a couple of other Royal Navy capital ships, it meant that she went into battle with a protection scheme that was inadequate for the demands of modern naval warfare. .

The final element of course was her speed, that long thin hole was intended to buy very high speed and in fact the reason her upper deck is so low at the stern, uh, is basically to save weight and squeeze as many knots as they could out of this design that had already sacrificed a lot of weight in other directions as the complete Hood could reach 31 to 32 knots quite easily, a very high speed for a boat of this size, but unfortunately in 1941, Its engines, although maintained, were aging and, unlike the Bismar, it was not designed in the same way. to cope with very adverse weather conditions, so while her printed speed in full might have been 31 knots, her actual speed in 1941 was probably no better than the bismarks, it may even have been a knot or less slower at the beginning of the Second World War. the most famous warship in the world during the interwar years Hood spent most of its time displaying the flag toured the world and was a floating embodiment of British sea power looked powerful looked elegant looked above all looked Stylish flag is the perfect container to display music bands playing cocktails and will impress anyone.

The problem was during that time that she had not been checked. She could have been modified, upgraded and re-assembled, but she was too useful as a model. de british seire there is a mythical status on the hood that is difficult to defend um she is a battlecruiser this is an evolutionary dead end for warships it really should have been eliminated after the battle of Jutland when three of them explode and Their best advantage is supposed to be their speed, which is why they look like a battleship. They have the same weapons as a battleship. They do not have the armor protection of a battleship and, as a result, can go faster. to be used to scare the oceans of Commerce Raiders, so you want a battlecruiser to go and find a pocket battleship and SN, you don't want them to stand in line against the battleships and learn this in Jutland, um, to that they don't do it. build more and actually the Royal Navy only enters the second world war with three of them um H Renown and reject all of which date back to the last years of the first world war were established and completed during the first world war Renown and The Republic actually saw service in WWI and the Hood arrives shortly after, so it's really built with problems, it's nicknamed The Mighty Hood and it's fundamentally the wrong ship to put that label on, they really shouldn't have done it despite Of those concerns Hood, under the command of Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland, would lead the attack force against Bismar and would be accompanied by a new battleship HMS Prince of Wales;

The pair were ordered to sail south of Iceland, where they could use their speed to intercept the Bismar. Whatever route they took to enter the Atlantic, Admir Toy knew there were three options available to Luchin, but not yet. He knew which one he would take, so he ordered heavy cruisers to take up positions between Shetland and the Pharaohs in In the Icelandic Pharaoh's Gap and in the Denmark Strait, the water channel between Iceland and Greenland, the Royal Navy had laid its trap. Whichever route to the rich Atlantic hunting grounds Bismar and Prince Oan decided to take, the Navy would be waiting whether it was between Pharaoh and Iceland or the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland the German ships would have to pass through. of a British network all these British ships had to do now was keep their eyes open and wait May 22 Bismar and Prince Oan were sailing off the coast of Norway and Lutens needed to decide what step they would take, he knew that the Royal Navy he would be somewhere, but he didn't know where at 12:00 he ordered a new course that Bismark and Prince Oan would try to break.

In the Atlantic across the Denmark Strait, stationed in the Strait were the sister ships HMS Norfolk and Suffk. They had been dispatched on May 21 and their crews had been waiting patiently in the bad weather of the North Atlantic. They would be the tripwire for the entire British plan. On Sunday at 20 7, my boat shed and then two boats, SW my Ste, pass behind us and approach behind us. What really happened is that the Bu that was closed suddenly got up and they were there and I know it. I know the distance because right behind me at the control there was a communications person who was repeating uh messages from the radar office and although we had seen them first officially I heard him say Echo with a green one40 12,000 12,000 12,000 And it's 6 normal miles 6 miles Normal for a boat as far as we are concerned.

Point at which the German ships advance are discovered by the British cruiser hm suffk patrolling in Denmark. Right now suffk and norfolk aren't powerful enough to take on bismar clearly, but what? What they can do is absolutely classic cruising work which is to find the enemy, report their presence and then follow them and that's what they do, they spot the Germans. The British have the radar advantage, so they begin following the Germans through Denmark. Directly, the Germans try to get rid of them, they know the risks are there. Periodically they turn and shoot them. It is a dance that the British are very used to.

They move out of range, approach again, and continue methodically following them. While heavy forces can be called in and the closest force that can be mustered is HMS Hood along with the new battleship HMS Prince of Wales, the British were planning to get ahead of the Germans so they actually went into action. stations very shortly after midnight on the morning of May 24, the Germans were at a slightly lower alert level. They knew that there were British cruisers following them, but those cruisers did not represent an existential threat, rather they were a very dangerous nuisance. so the Germans were at the next lower alert level which meant some of their crews could rest while about two thirds of the crew were locked in and when Hood was sighted at Prince of Wales it was easy to go to action stations complete and summon the rest of the crew to their battle stations, so the state of the game when these two forces meet is quite interesting because at first one would think that the British have the advantage, actually Hood that we have discussed is quite old um but she still has those powerful 15 inch guns um she has her speed um and she is accompanied by the Prince of Wales, which is another new battleship 14 inch quad turret battleship, you know, a very powerful unit um against that the Germans have bismar now bismar is Furthermore, inexperienced and inexperienced, we tend to forget that Bismar and the Prince of Wales are on their first operational deployments.

The Prince of Wales has been rushed to her. Her marks had a little more preparation time, but neither of them have fought a battle, um and then the Germans have the Prince or a new Heavy Cruiser as well. Realistically, she's pretty over it. Prince Oran is not designed to go Toto Toe with either a hoodie or the Prince of Wales. The British also have two cruisers, so there is a stronger British force there. Prince of Wales, uh, Hood's consort in this operation is a completely new battleship, it is one of the new King George battleships, the fifth class battleships, these are very powerful warships, they are very well designed, they are reasonably fast and His presence there should have been enough to secure a British victory, but there was not.

There was a lot going on beneath the surface: the first was the Prince of Wales, which was extremely new. Her crew had just been assigned. Many of them were inexperienced and the ship still had civilian contractors on board because they had quickly commissioned it and sent it to ACC Company, uh Hood, so what this meant in practice was that you have a ship with a crew that is not familiar with her. The ship has not undergone what they would call a shakedown cruise to get her systems in order. Iron Out All The Kinks. Identify potential mechanical problems and rectify them, none of that has really had a chance to happen, so although on paper the Prince of Wales is an extremely powerful asset, he is not all he seems and in many ways he is less than he seems.

It seems that when Dawn arrived and the two sides saw each other and realized that the Germans were not exactly where I expected them to be shortly before Luchin had altered course he was essentially heading south now he was heading more southeast Holland He had a decision to make: he could continue towards the Shadow German ships and wait for Royal Navy reinforcements to arrive or he could engage the enemy at 5:37 a.m. m. made the decision to fight, the message was transmitted to the admiralty. ADM Holland has no choice but to confront Bismar, which is his. job so the German job is to avoid the action and get to the Atlantic, that's Lin's job, the Netherlands' job is to stop it, so the Netherlands has to fight a battle and in fact they have trained experienced crews.

I think we tend to think about the problems with the hood the advantage of the hood is that it is a veteran, you know, it has been in service for a long time, it is an experienced team, you know, all the false mechanical failures of the hood have been solved a lot before you know it, a very coherent unit that knows it. what he is doing and then the Prince of Wales, a very powerful new force, so there is nothing wrong with Holland's decision, has to confront the men on board the two ships from the British capital that now confront us. we are preparing for battle, we were good on the hood because I mean it was the best, it was the best ship in the world and we were safe, we didn't bother, there was some tension, yeah, I wouldn't say we thought it was going to be historic, but We thought that the hood was the best and would defeat the enemy but as I said before there were going to be casualties, you don't go into any action like that without expecting casualties, but once again it's going to happen to someone else, it's not going to happen to me or through the speaker system. came a voice that we didn't particularly know and said: this is the chaplain speaking this was the prayer before Edge Hill oh Lord, you know how busy we will be today if we forget you, don't forget us.

Hood was in a lot of danger. At the beginning of the engagement, it is very obvious from the beginning that the British are at a disadvantage, they have closed in out of position, the Germans are very well on Hood's bow, which means they are crossing the British tea, they can take everything their broadside to pressure the British ships, while the British have to make a rather uncomfortable decision, they can turn to match the Germans, in which case you have an engagement in which Hood is at a serious disadvantage in terms of his protection or they can try to close the scope. however, when closing, only the front turrets on the hood and on the Prince of Wales can support.

Holland makes this decision, God knows I wouldn't want to make it to get in close as quickly as possible before lining up, so he accepts the fact that he will be out of combat for a while and that the Germans will be able to aim all their weapons only at his guns. forwards as they approach, so that's the decision he makes, the reason Holland decides to close is to try to avoid the possibility of diving fire as fast as he can. Now, what is dive fire? That is, you raise your weaponsa bit like a military howitzer and you fire a projectile that goes up into the air and then falls, and what that does is If you hit the target, you'll go through the deck armor instead of the armor belt around the side of the ship.

Now, on any warship, the deck armor is more vulnerable than the armor belt. In Hood, it's a particular problem because. Hood is a battlecruiser, they've sacrificed armor protection for speed and Hood's deck armor really isn't up to par, now Holland knows this so what he wants to do is dive as soon as he can hit with blows like boxers. Fundamentally, she has two very powerful ships and the Germans only have one very powerful ship. He's pretty sure he can win. When the radar first obtained this range, it was somewhere in the region of about 20,000 yards. I should imagine and see this pointer was going 20,000 19,000 18,000 177,000 16,000 if I had been a coward, I should have left it and eaten the 15 inch guns range and quickly hit it from there and I thought, oh my God, in a minute.

We will take out our cutlasses and climb aboard that German and give them a good taste of the Nelsons and Dres Hood's huge guns will open fire at 0553 launching enormous shells an astonishing distance of 15 miles, but Hood's crew had committed a mistake. terrible mistake when shooting. on the lead German ship believing it to be Bismar, but during the night Bismar and Prince Oan had changed positions, so for several crucial minutes Hood was firing at the wrong target in isolation, not that important, but the problem is all these. The little things are these leveling factors that then start to give the Germans an advantage, so some time is lost when they target the wrong ship.

Basically, not only does it mean that you're missing out on opportunities to attack Bismar, but you're also giving them Bismark is a free shot because they're not distracted by the shots being fired around them and the splashes of projectiles and water, um, when you add that to the need to close range due to Hood's weak deck armor, mechanical problems aboard the Prince. of Wales, all of these factors are starting to level things up for the Germans and take away what should have been a British advantage. The crew aboard Prince of Wales made no such mistake and, despite her mechanical problems, it was the new battleship that scored.

The first impact, a shell passed through the bow of the Bismar without exploding but cutting off the fuel. Bismar lines like a fighter absorbed the blows then Captain Ern Linderman barked an order to his artillery officer Schneer permission to fire at 05:55 the guns The camera captured the huge flares from the 15-inch Bismar guns as well as the huge shell splash caused by British shells falling around the German ships. As I looked at the Bismar I saw all these little flashing lights and thought : "oh, isn't it so pretty?" and suddenly I realized that what I thought was beautiful was death. and destruction in the form of about 8 tons of metal coming towards me.

Holland had ordered the Prince of Wales and Hood to stay close together to better coordinate their fire, but this presented Bismar with an easier target using the state-of-the-art Zeiss stereoscope. Rangef found equipment atop Bismar's superstructure, the artillery officer watched where the shells fell from him and moved them closer and closer to the British ship, correcting her fire. The Bismar was closing in as Bismar shells roared overhead. Admiral Holland realized his terrible mistake and calmly ordered the change. Aim right, his weapons would now focus on Bismar, but he lost valuable minutes. Holland is doing the best he can with the strength he has available and I think he is demonstrating knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the ships he has. um and trying to compensate for that the best way you can um and you know, these smaller factors happen in battle and I think it's very easy for us to sit there and say well, the lookouts should have done their job better and distinguish between Prince Oen and Bismar and you know you can argue about all these things, but in reality he has to do the job with the tools he has, there is always a strong element of luck, and some of these things just go against him, the cards no It did not turn on the right path, another Salvo from Bismar came screaming at that moment, it was an impact, a projectile fell into an ammunition depot, fortunately there was no catastrophic detonation and the fires were contained.

Prince Oan also caught up with Hood, the German gunners sniffed. Blood at 6:00 a.m. Admiral Holland made the decision to turn his ship to aim all of his weapons at the same time. Bismar at a distance of about 9 thousand. He unleashed another Savage Salvo and the monstrous projectiles from it fell around Hood until one of them. scored another direct hit, no one knows where the fatal hit landed, there is no way we can know, but there are two theories that were advanced at the time and have many supporters today: one is that the projectile simply went through the decks, which That wouldn't be unexpected.

In terms of what was understood at the time, a fire strike that penetrates through this protection that is not adequate to protect against it achieves a lucky hit on one magazine and begins a chain reaction that dooms the ship, the other possibility is that there could have been what is called a short where the projectile doesn't actually hit the ship at first but instead lands in the water very close by and what happens in the case of a hit like that is that the projectile has entered the water, but through sheer good or bad luck, depending on whether you are the recipient, it actually travels below the level of the side armor and penetrates the hull beneath it, which could also have caused the chain reaction that destroyed Hood because of course the bottom of the ship is where the chargers are located.

They are and if a heavy projectile like that goes through and causes a fire then you're in trouble. It is interesting to note that one of the survivors of the cowl stated that while the cowl was making its turn and was finally able to unmask her rear gun batteries (um ex turret) the third from the bow fired, why the turret remained strangely silent, so that it's entirely possible that whatever was going wrong had started to go wrong at that point. Regardless, in the next few minutes, everyone saw the explosion that destroyed Hood. Witnesses of that fateful moment say that a flame like a blowtorch ignited in the sky followed by an almighty explosion.

The hood disintegrated. I personally didn't hear any explosion again, the ship shook and we were all ejected and all I saw was a gigantic sheet of flame that shot around the front of the compass platform after the head, you heard the screams and the noise of the slaughter that was occurring. No order was given to abandon ship, it was not necessary on Prince Oan's horizon. In the film you can see distant smoke from the affected Hood. Witnesses compared the devastation to what happened to HMS Barum just 6 months later Hood also saw her magazines explode tearing the ship apart and in the corner of my binoculars where I could see we were so close.

I could see the hood, suddenly there was a huge orange flash and then when I looked with my binoculars to where the hood was, there was no hood. The hood was torn in half, the stern section sank in a matter of seconds, the entrails rising vertically into the air, the guns firing a final Haunting Salvo, a final act of defiance by a doomed gun crew. In 3 minutes, the Mighty Hood, the pride of the Royal Navy, the most famous ship in the world, sank beneath the waves, with 1,418 men on board, only three survived. we received information that the bonnet had been

sunk

, that sounded impossible and we waited for confirmation and were very anxious that we would hand over the weapons quickly because if the bonnet had sunk then we would have double duty as crew of The Prince of Wales watched in horror as his comrades were absorbed by the waves.

Suddenly they realized the reality of her own position. They were a British ship facing two Germans. In the next four minutes, seven shells hit the Prince of Wales. The situation was In desperation, we made a 15-inch fish cross the bridge and it exploded on the way out and killed many up there and a 16-year-old boy thinks that being wounded is a Nick in the shoulder, but I, in my sharpness, I was very, very interested. In those days I went to do what I was supposed to do and start tidying up the bridge and I entered and expected to see people and the first thing I saw when I entered the wood were small pieces of meat scattered everywhere and that was a very big shock. for me.

I don't think I've ever gotten over it. Less than 10 minutes after Hood slipped beneath the waves, Captain John Leeech of the Prince of Wales decided the odds were too stacked against him and gave the order. a sharp turn towards port and for his ship to escape and, to our dismay, around 10 6, the captain arrived, he said, I remember his words, Hood exploded and now the hood was Alle Legend of the name, as we were told that Prince had had to withdraw to repair his damage and leave the submarine on the Bismark Prince Road or so it did not seem a very happy situation.

The British were terrified of what Bismar might have been able to do if she had been unleashed on the Allied supply routes. across the Atlantic now in the space of just a couple of minutes firing only a few salvoes the bismar had sunk no unarmed merchant ship but the pride of the Royal Navy Britain's worst fears had been realized HS Norfolk which had been Following the battle he sent a simple statement to the admiralty in London, they published a visiting note that same night during the action. HMS Hood received an unfortunate magazine hit and exploded. There was really nothing in the British city that could replace such a dramatic loss of such magnitude. her prestigious warship she was essentially a huge slap in the face to British pride and the British sense of naval superiority.

The world had almost turned upside down. What could the Bismark do next? The Royal Navy itself will not be very surprised. This is why one of the things that has allowed the Royal Navy to be so dominant for so many centuries is that culturally they have always seen that ships are assets to be used and when you use assets you can lose them, this is not the first ship that The Royal Navy she's lost politically in action, um, and in terms of national morale, it's devastating, the hood is gone and the hood isn't just gone, she's gone in seconds and taken almost her entire ship company, apart from three men, with her, so that's a really significant problem and you have to look at the broader context without trying to digress too much, this is not a point where the war is going well for the British, so from Churchill down , this has to be Avenged, it has to be very Avenged Publicly in Germany, the news that the hood had caved in was greeted with widespread jubilation.

Gobles took full advantage. It was a huge propaganda coup. Bismar had surpassed the most famous warship in the world and the pride of the British fleet, so there was no stopping him. uh Germany, which could now burst into the Atlantic and destroy the Allied convoy routes, that was the message coming out of Germany uh Hitler was delighted that his support for the radar had been justified and, for the moment, everyone liked everything. Rosie when news of Bismar's success broke. to Germany, Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Gobles, immediately broadcast it to the nation. Germany now had a huge maritime victory to celebrate along with her remarkable streak of conquests on the European continent.

The British were devastated, but that disappointment did not lead to discouragement, but rather the admiralty was trapped. With iron determination, every ship, every asset was redirected to a very simple end to sink the bismar and then we were hit, there was a terrible explosion and suddenly the entire ship Silence dead, the sight suddenly shattered, the hood was torn apart. It was, someone said what and he said the hood was gone and it was just incredible that the hood was there in one minute and she was gone and we were shocked to think that the bismar had sunk the hood in May 1941.

The battleship Germany's newest and most powerful Bismar was sent on its first Operation Rhub mission, it would add its enormous firepower to the German effort to starve Britain into submission, just 5 days into its maiden voyage, Bismar was already having a major impact. in the war in the Atlantic that had crushed the British. She blocked and in an engagement that lasted less than 10 minutes she had sunk the Royal Navy's totemic flagship, HMS Hood Bismar, she was now in the North Atlantic and had the British convoys in sight. Winston Churchill and many in theAdmiralty were plunged into a state of depression, but the path that awaited them now was clear that the loss of Hood could not be in vain, the reputation of the Royal Navy had to be saved at all costs, the Royal Navy had to be found and destroyed.

Bismar, while the British reeled from the loss of Hood, the crew of the Bismar knew that there was another side to the story, she may have been the most powerful battleship afloat, but the Bismar had not escaped the Battle of the Strait unscathed. Denmark. She had suffered, according to German records, a total of three impacts. It is now generally accepted that two of these hits were of no real consequence of cosmetic damage, but nothing worse than that, but the third hit was the one that caused serious problems, hitting somewhere in the bow region and opening a hole. in Bism Mar's armor.

Now the hole itself was not huge, but because Bismar. It was moving at high speed, exacerbated the flooding and hundreds of tons of seawater entered the ship before they could attempt to stabilize the situation. This caused the Bism Mar's bow to sink slightly into the water and reduced her speed by a knot or two. It may not sound significant, but when you're being chased, those extra knots can be critical. The most serious consequence of the hit was that it severed the connection between the Bismark's forward fuel tanks and her machinery spaces. This is causing two problems.

Is causing. problems with losing the boat, it has lost a bit of speed but it is also bleeding fuel and that in itself causes two problems, the first is the obvious one, it doesn't have enough fuel, which limits how far it can go, but the second , It is leaving. A trace of oil in the water, so it's almost like breadcrumbs, makes it very easy to follow and detect, especially from the air, so this is a really important problem and, as the Germans get They move away, they try to do everything possible. they can get to this and patch it, they even try to send divers overboard while the ship is underway, it's actually very difficult to do, they fail, so this is a problem they never really solve, in the same way we see during the action with hood those small incremental problems that began to shift the balance in favor of the Germans.

The Germans are now beginning a process of small incremental problems that are turning the odds against them. Admiral Luchin is faced with some options that he can pursue. raid but he has less time to do it than he normally would. Another option is to return along Denmark Street and head towards Norway. Hook up with a tanker and try again once the ship has been repaired a bit. The other option is Head to the Atlantic and Loop Round to take advantage - Shanor and N were now there and are now damaged. Shan H is under repair, but the idea that the three ships together would be in the only port where they could escape.

En masse, it was quite attractive to fight. Bismar continues through the DeMark into the Atlantic. There is again some controversy over whether a Prince of Wales, which is mechanically unreliable with an inexperienced ship company, and then the two cruisers should have returned. and they committed to bismar and brinen, who knows what the outcome of that would have been either way, what really happens is that they opt for the Shadow again. The Germans know they need to get rid of this Surveillance Force as soon as possible, whatever their options are. It would be much better for them if no one knows where they are.

Linderman wants to make ongoing repairs and then steer Bismar directly toward those vital Allied shipping routes across the Atlantic. The original objective of the operation Ry ubang Lan did not agree. Bismar would return to safe harbor as quickly as possible. Churchill knew the danger that Bismar now posed, so he took a gamble and ordered all available Royal Navy ships to head to the Atlantic to join the hunt. The admiral was now trying to find all the ships he could and throw them into the sea. The problem essentially meant a battleship, Toy's flagship King George V, a sister ship to the Prince of Wales with virtually the same gunnery problems she faces, although not as acute, and also the aircraft carrier Victorious, other ships were around, the battleship Rodney, for example, escorted The Troop.

The ship Britannic uh and she was in the Clyde so the admiralty made the decision to detach her from that convoy along with most of the escort destroyers uh under the command of Captain Von and add them to the Tov Force. A remaining force was in jalter at vice admiral somerville. Force H uh based at Jalter who may have needed to sail north to intervene given the circumstances and scale of the catastrophe they have experienced with the loss of Hood. This is the appropriate response that there is a bigger picture here and that bigger picture. It's the political landscape and, to be fair, it's what Winston Churchill has to think about: he has one eye on how this plays out in the US.

Every time the British take a setback in battle, it weakens the American perception of Britain. one country is Great Britain, a viable investment. Can Britain stay in this war? um you know, if the Royal Navy loses a capital ship at sea, that will have consequences that go far beyond the tactical, tactically, she's an old ship and the British. I have quite a few more, but politically it's a real issue, so it's an appropriate response despite Bismark's decision to return to support it. The escort cruiser Prince oan was still fully operational and was able to continue Operation Ruong in 1812.

Bismar returned to engage the pursuing ships. and he opened fire to divert the prince as she took off and headed south. Bismar returned to his course and continued alone despite his addition. Bismar was still capable of sailing at 28 knots, which is the same speed as the new flagship of the local fleet. King George I could do it, there was simply no way to capture the Bismar unless something changed. The Royal Navy would have to find a way to stop it. The British simply did not have any ships large enough to bring the Bismar into action within range.

Then, at 1600 hours, Admiral Tovi or his aircraft carrier HMS Victorious prepared his torpedo boat squadron for an immediate attack. The idea of ​​air power at sea was a fairly novel invention. The British had achieved great success in 1940 with their attack on the Italian fleet at Toronto, but this was something completely different, it was a modern battleship with very good built-in anti-aircraft defences, um, and it was being attacked at sea by essentially inexperienced pilots. and an inexperienced aircrew, so that was a very desperate role for the What the aircraft carrier Aviation gives you is the ability to drill Beyond the Horizon.

Basically, you should think of a carrier plane as a shell that you can file for hundreds of miles. It's a huge force multiplier, so the trick is to get this. air attack and try to stop the bismar. I mean, she'd like Sinker if she can, it's unlikely, but she'll try. The main attack aircraft is the swordfish torpedo boat. Now people look at swordfish and call. It is obsolete because it is a beep plane and has an open cockpit. Honestly, I don't know how many successes swordfish have to achieve before we stop calling them obsolete. The swordfish is an extremely good naval attack aircraft and what we need to understand is that actually the requirements for naval aircraft are completely different than the requirements for anything you are operating on land, you are not so concerned about speed, in Actually because you are not going to outrun anything, you are not going to find fighters. opposition in the middle of the Atlantic, um, what you want is something that can carry a lot of weapons, that is very stable and flies in a straight line, that's what you need in a good torpedo boat and that can absorb a lot of punishment, and in fact, the Swordfish can absorb a phenomenal amount of punishment.

The cannon shells simply pass through that fabric. The wings just poke a hole and come out the other end and don't explode. The really difficult thing about torpedo bombing and, again, I can't emphasize it enough. It doesn't matter if you are on a swordfish or any other torpedo boat, you have to do something completely foreign to a pilot attacking anything: fly in a straight line, that's how you launch torpedoes, so your path is incredibly predictable for a gunner anti-aircraft, so it is a really very difficult challenge. The first attack, which was carried out by swordfish torpedo boats from Victorious, attacked in dim light and in fairly poor conditions, so they did not get off to a good start Terri.

They only got one hit and that. She hit Bismark about midships towards the center, this was very unfortunate for the British because that was the center of Bism Mark's armor belt and also where her torpedo protection was most effective, like any other battleship. The Bismark would have had her standard hull plating. Then it would have had a layer of armor bolted to that and for most of the length of the ship there would have been an additional layer of hull plating with voids, in the event of a torpedo attack the blast would be absorbed by the outer plating. and any flooding would simply fill the empty space without damaging the space.

Beyond that, that was the theory, it took a lot of design work to get it right, but the Bismar designers had done their job very well there, the attack was not the decisive blow that the Armada needed, however, the British Shadow Force was still attached to Bismar after the oil spill. Route to Bismar, although that route was only one of its problems. The crew's calculations based on the remaining fuel supply estimated the most economical speed to reach her. a safe harbor was now only 20 knots away, it seemed like things were starting to turn a little more against the German ship.

Lin knew he no longer had the speed to make a clean break from his pursuers, but he did have one key advantage and that was that the British didn't really know where they were going if Luchin couldn't escape them, he would have to outsmart them. Bismar was crossing the Atlantic by steam, the smallest needle in the largest haystack and which could go in any direction at any speed. At any time, it was imperative that Norfolk Suffk and the Prince of Wales remained in contact with Bismar without them. Send information to the rest of the fleet. Hunting would become almost impossible.

The interesting thing about World War II right now is that both. The sides are fighting with and against technology that hasn't been used in action before, so the British are using radar, which is a big advantage, but it's a pretty crude radar at this point in the war, it has quite a range. short and it's quite difficult to operate, you know. the classic type of rotating radar that they don't have, which allows you to maneuver the boat to change the direction of the radar. Likewise, the Germans haven't fought radar before either, so they are inventing tactics. on the hull to try to deal with the radar-equipped opposition, it was a message, as I understand it, from them to say that we were entering a very concentrated area of ​​the OS, so they gave us a heading, a zigzag heading to see if you were close, I think.

This was the low point of everything because, as I understand it from the radar people, we had an echo in one section, in the other section, at 3:00 am on the 25th, Lin took advantage of this interruption in the radar coverage and ordered Bismar. going at full speed 28 knots and told his helmsmen to turn west before turning north aboard suffk the radar operator waited for the bismar to reappear but no signal came the bismar had managed to turn around behind of their pursuers it was night there was no radar signal that the British had lost the bismar.

This whole maneuver by Lons was probably one of the most spectacular timings he could have imagined just by watching what the British were doing and timing things perfectly and knowing the limits and speed of his ship. and the probable British course meant that he had this small window to achieve this, all he did was turn and sail in a curve to the north and came in behind the British cruisers, away from the pursuing home fleet, and then he was free to Head towards the chest with nothing between him and the French port. Losing Bismark on the radar.

Losing radar contact is a devastating blow for the British, so above, if you imagine you have it, you have a point in the middle of the ocean, but you know. where is that spec and the British are controlling everything they have to get the carriers in range, they bring in the battleships to attack, suddenly they've lost that advantage, they don't know where Bismar is and you're sitting there with a chart. and you know the speed of bismar and you just think that there is a huge circle and the ship could go inany direction within that circle, so this is a catastrophe and needs to be addressed as soon as possible because the more time passes since the last time you had contact, the greater the variety of places you could end up fearing that alone there would be easy prey if you They stumbled upon Bismar in the dead of night.

The three British ships decided to search Bismar together with no better option than to guess what they had altered. headed west and began sailing until dawn, when no contact was made. Rear Admiral Wake Walker aboard HMS Norfolk ordered the three ships to separate and conduct a daytime search for Bismar. They all went in the wrong direction. The time we lost contact was about 3: In the morning, I don't think we knew until 5 or 6:00 because then we were going in all different directions, so it was West North, it was South. Prince of Wes went east, I think, and um, to try. and they discover that the tension in Bismar must have been unbearable at this point because they have lost contact with the radar, this is a good thing, but they know it is just a window, they know that the most powerful navy in the world has almost everything. their assets deployed to find them they know they are losing oil they know the importance of finding them and sinking them this will be for the British so they have this window to try to get back home and every effort they made must have been had gone into doing that to push the ship, they knew they were not out of trouble yet, even though the British had lost them, the British search became more frantic and was compounded by rapidly declining fuel levels aboard all search ships that He had been sailing at full speed to try to intercept the German aboard the Bismar Lutens.

He could never have imagined that her maneuver would be so successful, so in a moment of miscalculation a long message was transmitted from the Bismar to German Navy Headquarters. Just released, that message was intercepted by the British, allowing them to estimate the position of Bism Mar. Those coordinates were immediately sent to toi's King George V flagship, where there was a moment of spectacular incompetence. The position was incorrectly plotted on King George V's charts. He set a course to intercept and spent the next 7 hours sailing in the completely wrong direction as night began to fall. Mar's position had been unknown for almost 24 hours and the Royal Navy was no closer to locating her in the dead of night, the Chan. zero bisar could sail to a safe harbor almost certainly without opposition she could be anywhere within thousands of square miles of ocean when Churchill went to bed on the night of the 25th he announced that these three days had been the worst yet Churchill and the Navy high command waited on the verge of desperation.

The information arriving from Bletchley Park offered a ray of hope: it was a decrypted order from the LFA telling its units to redeploy to protect Bismar as it approached the French port of Now the Navy had an idea of ​​where it was heading. He was running the Bismark and they quickly came up with a plan to stop him as the hours passed. The chances of finding and capturing the Bismar were increasingly unlikely. The searches had been constant. Long-range seaplanes covered thousands of square miles. from the empty ocean looking for bismar, but now with the information that bismar was heading towards the chest, they were finally able to concentrate their search and after more than 30 hours of searching at 10:30 on May 26, he showed Leonard B Smith, an American in a Catalina seaplane.

From northern Iran they saw a rainbow oil slick in the sea and then Bismar Smith immediately called the position. The German was making decent speed and was only 800k off the chest. It was electrifying news that Bismar had been found, but the Navy would have to act. They quickly calculated the Bismar's speed and course and realized that in less than a day the Bismar would be safely back under the chest-protected aerial umbrella of the Leaa planes, which meant that most of the ships of The Royal Navy in the Atlantic had no chance of catching it except the The Navy had one card left to play Force H, so Force H is an interesting beast and is a really classic example of how you have to improvise in times of war, so if you just catch, you go back to 1940.

British strategy in the Mediterranean is based. about operating with the French the French will cover the western Mediterranean the British will cover the east and that's it France abandons the war in the summer of 1940 and the western Mediterranean is discovered, so what would have been a French responsibility: the British They have to gather some ships from elsewhere and create a jalter-based force that can operate in the western Mediterranean and also the Atlantic, which is what the French would have. Vice Admiral Somerville's Force H was centered around his flagship, the small battlecruiser Renown, was accompanied by the aircraft Arc Royal and a cruiser, a light cruiser, the Sheffield, so they were now heading north through Bisque Bay and continuing to try to intercept.

Bismar Force H needed to get its aircraft carrier Arc Royal into position to launch its torpedo boats to repeat the attack a few days before that time, however the Navy even more desperately needed success as they closed to within just 70 miles of Bismar on Atlantic swell began to rise and the weather closed in. It was now or never the swordfish had to be released or it would surely never be caught. The bismar the swordfish was fitted with new magnetic torpedoes and then, in the early afternoon, with the deck tilted at 55 feet waves in the teeth of the violent Gale 14 swordfish planes lumbered toward the sky, carrying not only their bombs but also the hopes and expectations of the entire nation and we climbed to about 8,000 9,000 feet and although it was blowing strong and There was a The sea was large, the weather at that time was good, there were many broken clouds and we could see the target as we were led through gaps in the clouds and down, we dived and headed to the attack now.

I had my doubts as we were going down because I could see the ship and she wasn't shooting at us and I thought, well, that's strange, you know, in previous attacks I'd done, the ship was shooting at us from a dive and as I leveled off. in the water I saw other planes dropping their torpedoes and I looked at the ship and said it's a city class cruiser, I don't know which one, but it's a city class cruiser and it had its battle target sense, so I didn't release my torpedo my leader dropped yours but I kept mine most had just launched their torpedoes at HMS Sheffield the Force H cruiser that set sail with Arc Royal from pulling was another colossal mistake by the Royal Navy Well now when we got back to the ship they told us that It was Sheffield, but in the briefing we were never told that Sheffield had been separated, we didn't know she was there, the signal to separate the Sheffield to Shadow, the bismar was.

It was not repeated at Art Royal, fortunately for Sheffield the torpedoes missed or failed, but it was another horrible mistake. More precious hours were wasted in that race to win business. Mark, so the clock is ticking now and you know the odds are starting to stack up. against the British, the failed attack on Sheffield is really a disaster because it just costs time, so what they have to do now is return those attack planes to the Art Royal, lower them below deck, put new torpedoes on them. she retreats again and redeploys the attack force, that takes a long time.

You can imagine how hectic it would have been in the Art Royals hangar as each plane goes down and those new weapons are turned on very quickly. You look tired. crew that has already done a mission but yet they make the decision to try to make one last attack before it gets dark and really, if it gets dark and they haven't done something significant to stop Bismart, it diminishes her chances. getting home safely are increasing if you have another night of steam in 1910 the rearmed swordfish was launched from a reeling Ark Royal the battleships that had the best chance of defeating the bismar Rodney and King George were still some distance away and beginning to Running out of fuel, Rodney was only able to continue his chase for another 12 hours.

King George V radioed Rodney in foul weather. The swordfish pounced on its target. It was now or never a sign of things to come for Naval Warfare. One of the most important attacks. in the

history

of the Royal Navy, it was now done by plane when the attack actually occurred, it was in packs of Little Penny planes that dropped through the clouds, found this German battleship in front of them and then carried out their attacks, We turned and headed. our attack went down to 90 feet, dropped the fish, turned hard in the wind and spun all over the sky and of course the ship itself could see all the cannons firing at you and the Tracer in green, red, orange , white, everyone coming towards you, suddenly there were huge eruptions of spray rising into the air and we realized that she was shooting at us with her main armor in the hopes that they would drop a fish somewhere nearby and we would be swamped by Dew.

The attack by Arc Royal's bombers was much more successful than previous attacks. Again due to luck, but this time the luck had shifted in the British direction and away from the Germans. When the bombers first approached, the conditions were very similar to those that had spurred Victoria's planes, the weather was harsh, Bismar had freedom to maneuver, so even though it was a large target, it was giving them a hard time. tough stuff and that impressive anti-aircraft battery of his was drawing a lot of criticism, which is notable. under the conditions is that two torpedoes hit their target, one like the previous attack hit the ship where her anti-torpedo protection was strongest and caused no appreciable damage, but the second was much more effective and much more dangerous for the Bismar than the torpedo that hit.

She hit right AF in the vicinity of the propeller and her rudders. Fortunately for the Germans, the propellers were not damaged by the explosion which could have been even more fatal, but what happened was that the torpedo hit just as the Bismar was making an evasive turn to port. and that meant that her rudders were now locked at 15° to port if that damage could not be repaired. Bismar, who was so close to escaping the pursuing British, was now trapped, only able to sail in circles even immediately after the attack. The identity of the man who dropped the crucial torpedo was unclear until recently.

It was accepted that Jock Moffett made the decisive attack, but recent research has suggested that in fact the man who disabled the Bismar was Kenneth Patterson and when we turned my Observer over he looked up. Next to the CFT air aft and I saw our torpedo running, you could see her wake in the sea and I knew that she had aimed at her speed and as she was in the best position to attack. I'm pretty sure it was my torpedo, it was a one in a million shot. The Bismar was now helpless ruling in a wide circle.

They tried to repair the ship, but it was useless. Lin knew the game was over. The British fleet would be in her position. Within hours, at 9:40 p.m., he radioed his headquarters with Bismar's position and a declaration of defiance. That night, Bismar's crew was allowed to raid the warehouses, gorging themselves on ham, canned pineapple, and rum. An announcement was made over the public address system: the German people are with you. and we will fight until the barrels of our guns are red hot and the last shell has left the barrels for us. Sailor, the question now is Victory or death at the moment the torpedo disables the steering mechanism, the heart must have been ripped out of the Bismark ship company by the The Germans cannot win at this time, so the odds They were starting to get a little bit in their favor, if they just managed to evade that last torpedo attack, they might have had a very good chance of making it home under the umbrella of the LT Raffer fighter and taking it into their chests that possibility has now been gone they can really paraphrase Raider at the beginning of the war their only option now is to die bravely they are not going to win this action they are going around in a circle they are leaving a A telltale trail of oil they can't, if you imagine it, it's not only an easy and predictable target, but they also can't fire their own weapons properly because they sail in circles and the entire Royal Navy is looking for them and they have to spend so much time.

Night waiting for this to happen, absolutely unbearable tension on board, but it would not be a peaceful night of rest and preparation for the Germans. British destroyers swarmed around the Bismar harassing the Leviathan as the British fleet approached at dawn on the 27th. King George V and Rodney finallywere within range once again the British had big guns trained on Bismar. He was now within range of Admiral Tovi on the King George V and the even more powerful battleship Rodney. One way north was the Royal Arch with her planes waiting to launch another attack and then to the south and northeast were two British heavy cruisers Dorset coming from the south and Norick, which had been following her since the Initially, it was approaching from the northeast, so Bismar was eventually surrounded by these British. force the British battleships that are closing in to finish off the bismar in its final hours are a rather strange and unequal pair, on the one hand, du of King George V, which is a very modern battleship completed around the same time, a bit before the bismar um and in many respects, it is a comparable ship, it has different guns a little smaller, 14 inches, but it has 10 of them, its armor protection is as complete as that of the Bismar and, in some respects, its Armor protection in vital areas is marginally better.

Like the Bismar, she also has very comprehensive anti-flooding arrangements, although some would say she is not as comprehensive as the Bismar, but she has objections to small changes. The only area in which she is slightly behind the Bismar is in speed as designed, she is a knot or two slower so it is not unfair to say that King George. V and bismar are very similar under ideal circumstances. Rodney is a rather curious Beast completed in 1927. She is a much older ship but also extremely powerful. Rodney and her sister Nelson were the first Royal Navy ships to mount 16-inchers. weapons and she has nine of these weapons, so her broadside is much heavier than the bismar's in terms of armor protection.

She is a very different animal. It follows a very different protection scheme. Whereby the most vital areas have extremely thick armor and the least vital areas barely have The only area where Rodney falls behind Bismar is in speed as designed. She can only make 23 knots, so if Bismar had been free to maneuver, she could have simply fled from Rodney if she hadn't imagined the possibilities of her exhausted crew having been in action. stations and therefore without sleep for almost 24 hours, they had been constantly attacked, they had been harassed during the night by destroyers. They were tired, they were demoralized and now here were two brand new British battleships that had not yet seen action, with crews who were ready, who were well trained and familiar with their ships.

Under ideal circumstances, either British ship would have had a chance of 50/50 to defeat the bismar. I believe that in the circumstances of 27 May 1941, both British battleships made the defeat of the Bisma Mar a certainty at 0847. HMS Rodney opened her doors with her huge 16-inch guns, followed shortly after by King George V. Bismar had now been pursued as she needed the sun at 08.50. Bismar's guns roared in response, but hit by Heavy Seas, unable to steer properly, Bismar found it impossible to fire accurately, this allowed smaller British ships, such as jackles, to close in to begin firing their 8-inch guns at In the disaster of 902, on Bismar, one of Rodney's enormous 16-inch shells crashed into the ship.

Survivors suggest she might even have hit the bridge. killed, including probably Linderman and Luchin Bismar, the command and control had been shot down, now it was just a matter of time, we closed the range and finally got from 27,000 yards to about 4,000 yards and we were pumping stuff into her pretty hard and she kept a strong fire for a long time, a very, very brave action, because although we did not manage to sink it, we certainly hit it and it was very far away in many places, a lot of smoke and you could see the shells hitting us. side so what we have now is a really brutal one sided battle and the British have no choice, they can't, there is no room for sentimentality in this, this ship needs to be sunk and unless the Germans attack their colors and surrender , which they are not going to do, there is no other option than to continue hitting and hitting at close range.

These 14-inch and 16-inch shells, as well as lighter shells, were joining even from the cruisers. 18 shells were beginning to pound the bismar into submission despite colossal damage to the ship and our chain of command bismar fought a wounded animal to its death lance 927 bismar fired its last Salvo before more British shells hit the ship at 09 :31 the four main action R turrets the fighting was almost over toi had ordered that there would be no truce until the Germans attacked and basically removed their battle flag as a sign of surrender, the problem was that witnesses remember that at this stage the The deck of the Bismar was a smoking, ruined inferno, there was no The flag had to be raised and lowered at that point anyway the abuse continued Ed non-stop on board Rodney the chaplain took the extraordinary step of confronting the captain directly to beg him to stopped the attack.

He was politely ordered to mind his own business and the shells stayed blown up. It was rather a bloody affair, one had to go sink the ship, but from time to time there were people. I saw some of them running behind and jumping overboard while we were still engaging her, so imagine this ship being hit relentlessly by 16 and 14 inch armor piercing shells and then from a torpedo attack she is on fire, she is listing that the conditions on board were absolutely appalling, we know this from witnesses who survived the sinking, now the evidence appears to be that the crew eventually sank their own ship, um.

There is a tradition of this in the German Navy probably beginning with the High Seas Fleet at the end of the First World War. It is considered a more honorable way to know how to end the battle if you have sunk your own. than letting the enemy do it um, it's academic and I can't emphasize enough that Bismar is sinking. Bismar will be sunk. This was a fight to the death and it was not just a matter of Revenge for the Hood, although that was probably an element of it, which was essentially about ending that threat to Britain's Atlantic roofs.

At 10:20 the demolition charges exploded at approximately the same time as the HMS Dorset show. He was told to approach and sink the Bismar with her torpedoes. 20 minutes later, at 10:40, the firing finally stopped and the Bismar, the pride of Adolf Hitler's Navy, sank beneath the waves of the Atlantic. The bismar had a crew of 2,200 men, only 114 survived the ordeal in a short time. After the Bismar sank, the message was transmitted to the Admiralty. Admiral Toy later said that the Bismar had put up a very brave fight against impossible odds, worthy of the old days of the Imperial German Navy and she went down with her colors flying on the Bismar.

The final hours are a tribute to the bravery of her crew and the quality of her design and construction, the British had used everything from battleships to destroyers in the final action and there were even bombers on standby to finish the job if necessary. . uh bismar took a very impressive number of kills, but it is worth noting that, although it took him hours to defeat and sink the Unsn ability that was so prized in his design, he could not guarantee the maintenance of his combat power and is worthy of mention that very quickly in their final fight.

The Sea's combat power is progressively breaking down so rapidly that, unlike her victory on May 24, this powerful warship failed to deal a single significant blow to any of her tormentors before she arrived. the end. People say the Navy was lucky to get it. far with Bismark's action I really don't think it's fair at all I think there's luck in any action they say no plan survives contact with the enemy the moment the projectiles start flying and things start to break down and things they start to malfunction you need luck the Germans have some luck you can argue that they are lucky to destroy Hood um they are lucky to break radar contact the British are that lucky with the torpedo attack in the end you can't hold out Luck was out of the question equation in any battle.

Bismar's first and only operation had lasted only 9 days, but it was nine days of great drama for both sides and an action that would cast a long shadow. Bismar's entire campaign was a turning point for both of them. for the Cs Navy and the Royal Navy for the Germans they essentially stopped any idea of ​​sending large capital ships to the Atlantic from that point on, that could only be done with uots, the other instruction coming from the top in Germany is that um The ships German warships, surface warships, when operating primarily in the Arctic, cannot take on a British force that has an aircraft carrier with them and there is a constant question about whether they know whenever they contemplate sending turits or shanor to attack the Arctic.

Convoy routes the first question is where are the aircraft carriers? There is fear of aircraft carriers within the German Navy. From this point on, it meant for the British that they no longer had to keep as many units defending their convoy routes, some of the vitally important capitals. Ships and aircraft carriers could be sent to places where they could make a big difference in the Mediterranean or even the Far East. The British are well aware of how close the Germans came to achieving it if it really wasn't for the Catalina finding her in the middle of the Atlantic and then the swordfish putting a torpedo in her steering mechanism bismar they could have returned home and so what the British learned from this whole thing is that they actually deployed almost the entire Royal Navy countless Capital Ships Destroyer Cruisers two aircraft Carrier CFT and this German Raider almost made it back home after sinking a British capital ship, so which then imposes real problems on the British when turits's identical sister appears bism Mar now turits does almost nothing in the Second World War she does very, very little, she sits in Norway as the lone Queen of the North, but the Royal Navy is still obsessed with it and maintains an incredibly strong local fleet in the escape stream in theory, basically because of the turits because they are afraid that if the turits break up they will have to do this all over again and they may not be so lucky. next time.

The hunting and sinking of the Bismar was also a key stage in the changing nature of Naval Warfare. The final battle was almost something straight out of Jutland and all. it was one of the last adventures of the battleship the first half of world war ii was characterized by the realization that battleships were no longer the capital ship and they were vulnerable and they were vulnerable to carrier-based aviation um it's a lesson that that It was learned in Toronto, then it was learned in the action of Bismark, it was learned again in Pearl Harbor and with the loss of the Prince of Wales and the rejection of Japanese aircraft, battleships have had their day, what they are now are large floating weapons platforms that have to be surrounded and protected by other ships and by air routes but the bismar had been sunk Britain had successfully overcome the greatest naval challenge it had faced so far in the second world war The supply lines of Britain across the Atlantic remained intact the price had been high The loss of Hood and Bismar had shown deficiencies in British naval doctrine and equipment, but even though it was closer than it would have liked, Britain still dominated the waves thank you for watching this video in

history

.

Visit the YouTube channel, you can subscribe here to make sure you don't miss any of our great upcoming movies, or if you're a real history fan, check out our hit special dedicated to the History Channel. you're going to love television