The Sinking of the Bismarck Read Online Free PDF

knew, could leave quite an oil track at sea. After all, the Bismarck had been making good speed all day. There was every likelihood that during the night she could even increase that speed and have a good chance of getting away. Therefore he must find some means of slowing up the German battleship before dark.
    There was only one means of doing it—by torpedoes from the Swordfish planes aboard the carrier Victorious . Only by air could he get to the Bismarck and attempt to damage her. Sir John therefore ordered the Victorious to launch an attack with her torpedo-carrying planes. This could not be done until the carrier was within one hundred miles of the enemy since the range of the planes was very limited. Admiral Tovey calculated that the carrier would reach that point about 9:00 P.M. —in the very last hours of the fading daylight.
    This meant that after the attack the inexperienced pilots would probably have to land on the carrier deck in the darkness—a tricky feat that none of them had ever attempted before. Still, it was this attack by air, or nothing. The risk had to be taken. And it was.
    The Victorious did not get within striking distance until after 10:00 P.M. Her nine planes were clocked off the flight deck at 10:30 P.M. Little more than two hours remained before sunset. (Because the British navy operated by double summer time and because of the position in mid-Atlantic,the ships’ clocks were actually about four hours ahead of actual sun time. Sunset, by this reckoning, would not come until 12:52 A.M. ).

    The Bismarck Is Lost
    Chart showing the relative positions of the Bismarck and her British pursuers on May 24–25.
    After an hour’s flight the Swordfish pilots sighted what they thought was the Bismarck about twenty miles away. But when they flew over the Norfolk , on the way to close in, the British cruiser signaled frantically that they were flying in the wrong direction. She gave them the correct bearings, and they again formed for the torpedo attack. Keeping cover in the clouds, they closed in on their target, which they could see on their radar screens.
    But when they swooped down into the clear again to loose their torpedoes, they discovered that the target was neither the Bismarck nor any British ship. It was a mysterious vessel which apparently neither the German nor the British ships had noticed. Actually, as they learned much later, it was the United States Coast Guard Cutter Modoc , out on neutrality patrol.
    The Bismarck , however, was not far away. Her lookouts saw the little Swordfish planes and gave the alarm. Thus when the torpedo-carrying aircraft finally attacked, the Germans were ready for themwith their anti-aircraft guns. Though the German fire was murderous, the Swordfish pilots pressed home their attack, skimming in just above the waves to launch their torpedoes against the German warship. They saw one torpedo hit home and explode.
    In the meantime the Norfolk had sighted the USCG Modoc and in the poor visibility mistook her for the Bismarck . The British cruiser turned sharply away. As she did so, Rear-Admiral Wake-Walker signaled the Prince of Wales to open fire on the Modoc . Fortunately for the American vessel there was a momentary mechanical failure aboard the Prince of Wales . By the time it was fixed, the Modoc had slipped out of sight. By this narrow margin she escaped being blown out of the sea!
    It was dark and raining hard before the planes, returning from the attack, approached their carrier. Aboard the Victorious there were anxious faces. Not one of the pilots had ever before landed at night on a carrier deck. To add to their difficulties the ship’s homing beacon, by which the planes were usually guided in at night, would not function.
    In desperation Captain H. C. Bovell, commander of the carrier, switched on his bright searchlights. An order to shut them off came immediately from the vice-admiral in command of the escorting cruisers of the Home Fleet. The