The Sinking of the Bismarck Read Online Free PDF Page A

Admiral got off a third message about another plan. This was addressed to German submarines in the north-central Atlantic. He ordered them to assemble at a point south of him and to be there by dawn. He explained that he was approaching from the north and intended to draw the British heavy units shadowing him into this area.
    The plan of the German admiral was for his two ships to separate. The Bismarck would elude her pursuers during the night, but in so doing she would lure the shadowing British warships into a German U-boat trap.
    Actually this was exactly what Admiral Tovey on his flagship King George V feared. As the evening of May 24 approached, he was concerned that the Bismarck might put on high speed during the night and give him the slip. At the same time he might well be drawn into a nest of U-boats. His squadron was still some 200 miles almost due east of the German battleship.
    But the cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk and the damaged Prince of Wales were still hanging on to her, just out of range. It was an increasingly difficult task in the foul weather. Several times during the afternoon one or the other of the shadowing cruisers lost sight of the Bismarck in the fog and mist. And there were anxious periods when the Suffolk could not even maintain contact with radar.
    The commanders of the two cruisers had to be careful. Any moment the Bismarck , lost from sight in the fog, might turn suddenly on them and blow them out of the sea. Actually at 6:30 P.M. the German battleship made just such a maneuver.
    On his radar screen, Captain Ellis suddenly saw the speck that represented the Bismarck coming at him full speed. He could not see the enemy ship but he could spot her on his radar. Fearing an ambush he turned quickly to port. But, as he swung around, the Bismarck appeared out of the mist at only 20,000 yards. Captain Ellis ordered a smoke screen to be made. But before he could disappear behind it the Bismarck opened fire on him. Luckily her first shots were wide, and the Suffolk soon steamed full speed out of range.
    The crippled Prince of Wales , in the meantime, opened fire with what guns she had, and a second battle between the two big ships seemed under way. But the Bismarck , after unlimbering a few shots, hauled off out of range.
    Why? …The Bismarck had simply turned and opened fire on her pursuers in order to mask the getaway of the Prinz Eugen . Once that had been successfully accomplished she resumed course. She did not want to battle a British battleship in her present condition.
    The British, however, knew nothing of her wounds. Not even the Bismarck ’s avoiding battle that late afternoon made them suspicious. In fact they had assumed, after the sinking of the Hood , that the Bismarck had not been hit. Here, as so often during this drama on the high seas, a human error had played a role.
    Actually, one of the two shells from the Prince of Wales which hit the Bismarck had penetrated deep down. It had exploded among some of her oil tanks and blown a hole in the ship’s side. This had not only let water into the damaged tanks, making the oil useless for fuel, but had resultedin a loss of oil. Soon afterward both the cruiser Suffolk and a British Sunderland flying boat arriving on the scene from Iceland observed that the German ship was leaving a heavy track of oil behind her.
    The Suffolk signaled this interesting discovery to the Norfolk , but the latter ship failed to get the message. Then the flying boat, circling above the Bismarck , radioed the Norfolk: “Losing oil.” But since the plane had been under the Bismarck ’s anti-aircraft fire, the captain of the Norfolk assumed that it was the aircraft which was losing oil. Not until late in the afternoon did a report reach the various British ships from Iceland that the plane’s crew had definitely seen the Bismarck leaving a carpet of oil in her wake.
    Even then Admiral Tovey did not take the report seriously. A rather unimportant small leak, he