On 27th May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck was sunk by units of the Royal Navy.
Bismarck.
Prinz Eugen.
She had left Germany in the company of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen on 19th May, and after sailing through the Kattegat (where she was spotted by the Swedish cruiser HSwMS Gotland) and reached Norwegian waters on the following evening. By midday on 21st May, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen and a small flotilla of destroyers reached Bergen and anchored in Grimstadfjord.
HSwMS Gotland.
At 7.30pm on 21st May, Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, and the three escorting destroyers left Bergen, The destroyers part company with the battleship and the cruiser at not long after 4.00am on 22st May, and at midday the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen turned towards the Denmark Strait and thence into the North Atlantic.
By this time the British Home Fleet were aware that the two German ships had left Norway and units had begun to deploy to intercept them.
At 7.22pm on 23rd May, the German warships detected the cruiser HMS Suffolk at a range of approximately 12,500 m (13,700 yd). HMS Suffolk was joined by HMS Norfolk at 8.30pm, and the pair of cruisers shadowed the German ships using their radar equipment.
HMS Suffolk.
HMS Norfolk.
At 05.45am on 24th May, the Germans spotted the smoke of the fast aproching HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales on the horizon, and at 5.52am HMS Hood opened fire on Prinz Eugen. HMS Prince of Wales opened fire a minute or so later, and by soon afterwards the two German ships began to return fire.
Eight minutes after opening fire, HMS Hood was hit by several heavy shells, exploded, and sank. The Bismarck switched her fire to HMS Prince of Wales and immediately hit the ship's bridge. This, coupled with a serious problems with the ship's main armament that reduced her to a broadside of five rather than ten 14-inch guns, caused her captain to turn away and break off the action. She then joined the two British cruisers who continued to shadow the German warships.
After ascertaining the extent of damaged caused by the British three shells that had hit Bismarck, Admiral Lütjens, who was in command of the two German ships, ordered the Prinz Eugen to sail towards France, which she did at 6.14pm during a squall.(One shell had hit the forward part of the Bismarck causing approximately 2,000 tons of water to flood into the ship, contaminating fuel oil stored in the bow tanks and flooding in one of the boiler room).
Bismarck then turned towards the shadowing British ships, and HMS Prince of Wales fired twelve salvos at the Bismarck, which returned fire. Neither side scored any hits. The Bismarck then resumed her previous course and the three British ships continued to shadow her from a distance.
At 10:00pm, the recently commissioned HMS Victorious launched an attack on the Bismarck by nine Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers. Of the eight torpedoes they launched, only one hit the Bismarck, and it caused minor damage amidships. However, the violent manoeuvres Bismarck undertook to avoid the torpedoes increased the flooding in the forward part of the ship and resulted in the loss of a second boiler room. This caused Bismarck to reduce speed to 16 knots until repairs could be completed. She was then able to increase speed to 20 knots.
HMS Victorius.
Admiral Lütjens now decided that Bismarck should set course for France. At 03.00am on 25th May Lütjens ordered an increase in speed and for Bismarck to turn to the west and then northwards. As a result of the manoeuvre, Bismarck caused the shadowing British ships to lose contact.
The German admiral then sent a long radio signal to Naval Group West headquarters in Paris. This enabled the British signal interception service to take bearings that provided an up-to-date position of the German battleship. Unfortunately, this was misplotted on HMS King George V (which was leading the search for the Bismarck) and it was not until an RAF Consolidated Catalina flying boat spotted her at 10.30am on 26th May that the Bismarck's accurate position and course were known to her pursuers.
HMS Ark Royal.
HMS Sheffield.
HMS Ark Royal, which was part of Force H, mounted an torpedo bomber attack on Bismarck. The Fairey Swordfish aircraft mistakenly attacked HMS Sheffield ... and discovered that the magnetic detonators fitted to their torpedoes were faulty. The aircraft returned to HMS Ark Royal, rearmed with torpedoes fitted with conventional contact detonators and made a second attack on the German battleship. At 8.47pm, the Swordfish began their attack, and despite undertaking violent manoeuvres and firing at the aircraft with every available gun, two torpedoes hit the Bismarck.
One torpedoe hit her amidships on the port side, just under the main armour belt. This caused minor damage and some flooding. The second torpedo also hit Bismarck on the port side near the stern and close to the port rudder shaft. More importantly, the port rudder assembly was badly damaged by this torpedo hit and jammed the rudder at an angle of 12° to port. This caused her to steer in a very large circle.
The Bismarck was now unable to escape her pursuers. HMS Sheffield, which was now in visual range of the Bismarck, was driven off by several salvoes of 15-inch shells. Her shadowing role was now taken on by five destroyers that were under the command of Captain Philip Vian. They intercepted the German battleship at 10.38pm on 26th May.
During the night of 26th/27th May, the destroyers mounted several torpedo attacks on the Bismarck, none of which were successful. Just after daybreak on 27th May, HMS King George V and HMS Rodney came in to view and at 8.47am the latter opened fire on the Bismarck at a range of approximately 25,000 yards (23,000 m).
HMS Rodney.
HMS King George V.
Moments later, HMS King George V also opened fire, and at 8.50am the Bismarck began firing at HMS Rodney. As the range reduced, the British heavy cruisers HMS Norfolk and HMS Dorsetshire began firing salvoes of 5-inch shells at the Bismarck and at 09.02am, one of HMS Rodney's 16-inch shells hit the Bismarck's forward superstructure, killing hundreds of men (probably including Admiral Lütjens and Bismarck's captain, Captain Lindemann) and seriously damaging the battleship's two forward turrets (Anton and Bruno).
Bismarck's forward turrets ceased firing at 9.27am, and by 9.31am her rear turrets (Caesar and Dora) were also no longer firing. At 9.30am, the Bismarck's executive officer Fregattenkapitän Hans Oels ordered:
- Any crew remaining below decks to abandon ship.
- The opening of the ship's watertight doors to enable crew to escape quickly and to assist in the scuttling of the ship.
- The preparation of the ship's scuttling charges.
At around 10.20am the ship's chief engineering officer (Gerhard Junack) set of the scuttling charges, by which time the British battleships were firing at the helpless Bismarck at a range of approximately 3,000 yards (2,700 m). At the same time, HMS Dorsetshire was ordered to close in and torpedo Bismarck. She fired three, two on the target's port side and one on the starboard side ... and by 10.40am Bismarck had sunk.
HMS Dorsetshire.
Only 114 of Bismarck's crew of over 2,200 men survived.
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