So I'm going to repost this on the history forum, I wrote it last year and no-one gave a toss but I thought I'd repost it here now cos I'm bored and I want to see if I can have a discussion with someone or something like that whatever just read it.
The Battle of the Denmark Strait and the Failure of Operation Rheinübung
Backdrop: Aside from the months of June-September of 1940, the 1941 months leading up to June 22nd and Operation Barbarossa - or Hitler's invasion of Soviet Russia - were some of the most hard-pressed in the war, as Britain struggled on alone against the Nazi War Machine in many different oceans and theatres of war. The Battle of the Denmark Strait is symbolic to the years that Britain stood alone against the might of the Third Reich; huge sacrifice, perserverence, and British stoicism. Despite the fact that the United States had not yet joined the war, supplies from North America in the form of U.S. Lend Lease and Canadian troops, aircraft and tanks, were absolutely vital for Britain's survival. Furthermore, the vital supplies that flowed from the Suez and through Gibraltar from colonies as far east as India were to ensure Britain's survival through this tough time. Many, many transport ships were sunk during the course of the war - 14.5 million tons of merchant shipping was sent to the bottom as a result of the German campaign of unrestricted subsurface warfare on the Allies.
To this end, the Royal Navy was widely deployed in the Atlantic - the specific stations being the Home Fleet in Scapa Flow, Scotland, and Force H in Gibraltar. At the same time, the German Navy, the
Kriegsmarine, did not have a full oceangoing fleet like the French, British, Japanese or American navies. Aside from large fleets of submarines and coastal destroyers, what it did have were individual raiding cruisers armed with either 8in or 11in guns that could travel as far South as the Falkland Islands, and were easily capable of outrunning any British 8in cruiser and outgunning any British 6in cruiser. It also fielded a pair of 11in battlecruisers,
Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau, which despite being beautiful and well armed vessels, were no match for their Royal Navy counterparts - the Battlecruisers
Renown and
Repulse, also known as Refit and Repair because of their time in dock - armed with 15in guns and appreciable speed and armour.
Repulse was later sunk as part of Force Z off the coast of Malaya by Japanese bombers.
Gneisenau was heavily damaged and converted to a blockship and
Scharnhorst was chased down by the battleship
Duke of York and various cruisers and sunk. Both German battlecruisers ran the gauntlet of the English Channel successfully in 1942 to escape from their base in Brest, France, to Kiel in Germany. However, the German Navy had one more trump card - their new and modern battleship
Bismarck, named after the famous German statesman who first unified the country. She mounted eight 15in guns (well, 14.9in) in four turrets, a speed of 31 knots, and an armour pattern designed to fight in the close-quarters weather of the North Atlantic, with an extremely strong "turtle pattern" belt armour that covered her side to protect her from short-range fire at ranges of perhaps 15,000 yards or less. She was known by British intelligence, but not much was known
about her.
The Beginning: On May 18th she left port to commence Operation Rheinübung (Excercise Rhine), her goal not to engage the Royal Navy directly but to sink allied shipping in the North Atlantic. It was surely a blow to the morale of merchant marine personnel to know that the German battleship
Bismarck was loose and on the prowl! Rheinübung was the follow-up to Operation Berlin, where Admiral Jutjens had sunk 115,600 tons of allied shipping with the battlecruisers
Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau. Luckily, the two Battlecruisers were out of action, or the story may be entirely different, and
Bismarck was only accompanied by the 8in heavy cruiser
Prinz Eugen. They left Gotenhafen on Monday the 19th, at 2 o clock in the morning. The Royal Navy became aware of their existance at 8 o clock in the evening of Wednesday 21st May. By the next day,
Bismarck and
Eugen's escorts had peeled off and the two ships were free to move at their top speeds, as they far outran the destroyers. Travelling northwest at 24 knots, they were sighted by the British 8in cruiser
Suffolk, and engaged her and her companion
Norfolk, but
Bismarck scored no hits and escaped into a snowstorm with
Eugen, her intent to proceed into the North Atlantic in the most stealthy fashion possible.
However, their cover had already been blown. Their discovery by an RAF reconaissance Spitfire while leaving the Kattegat had resulted in Admiral John Tovey of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet to respond accordingly. He concentrated his cruiser forces, which included the 6in gun cruisers
Manchester and
Birmingham as well as
Norfolk and
Suffolk north in the Denmark Strait. However, most importantly, two R.N. capital ships were deployed to Iceland: these were, the new Battleship
Prince of Wales with her 10 14in guns, and the Battlecruiser HMS
Hood, known throughout the Empire as
the mighty Hood. Superficially,
Hood was an extremely strong ship. She sported an impressive top speed of 33 knots, though that was somewhat decreased with age, and an armament precisely the same as
Bismarck's, although with the latest Royal Navy RADARs that her gunnery crews were not entirely familiar with. However, she was laid down in 1916 and commisioned in 1919. Although she was large - larger than
Bismarck - she weighed several thousand tons less and her armour pattern, while being thick in some areas, was generally poor.
Tovey also had five cruisers, six destroyers, the battleship
King George V, the battlecruiser
Repulse and the Aircraft Carrier
Victorious, as well as land-based aircraft which he had used to locate the German ships on 21st May. As the Home Fleet assembled in Scapa Flow, Tovey ordered Admiral Lancelot Holland’s
Hood into the Denmark Strait with
Prince of Wales in tow, leaving behind their destroyer screening escort as they headed towards the German ship. Holland’s tactical plan was to set the bows of the two battleship slightly ahead of the German ships, so that eventually they would intercept them directly – Tovey did not want to chase the
Bismarck, nor did he want to fight it head on. The
Prince of Wales was fresh out the slip and still had civilian engineers onboard, adjusting her temperamental 14 inch quad gun turrets. It took two days for
Hood and
Prince of Wales to reach the B
ismarck, as
Norfolk and
Suffolk kept up the chase, keeping
Bismarck on their radar.
The Game's Afoot: At 0015 on the 24th of May, 1941,
Hood and
Prince of Wales went to action stations, flying their battle flags. At this time,
Bismarck was zig-zagging to avoid a constant radar contact from
Suffolk and
Norfolk so that the British ships could not plot her direct course or speed. This was mostly successful. With two battleships bearing down on him, the German commander, Admiral Lutjens, was in an uncertain position. His order was that if he was facing a superior or equal force, he was to retreat – in no way should the
Bismarck fight an enemy it might not be able to overwhelm. However, Lutjens was penned in – the British cruisers on his tail, the ice sheet to his north, and two battleships somewhere to his southwest. There was no way to evade detection. At 0549, the first shells were fired. Admiral Holland’s
Hood opened fire at a range of 25,000 yards. The British opened fire on the lead ship, which they thought were
Bismarck, but was actually
Prinz Eugen – the silhouettes being remarkably similar.
Prince of Wales, however, noticed this and corrected the fire, but not before
Hood’s first salvo was let forth.
Hood fell slightly short of
Prinz Eugen and
Prince of Wales' slightly long of
Bismarck. Captain Lindemann returned fire, but the first German salvo also fell short. In the North Atlantic waters and mist, with water spraying over the rangefinders of the British ships, accuracy was not the prime that was possibly in the clear Mediterranean and Pacific. All ships fired a second salvo, and all missed.
Bismarck’s rate of fire was slightly faster and her third salvo straddled the
Hood, alongside
Prinz Eugen’s fire. It is still disputed whether it was Bismarck or Eugen who began the fire that set alight
Hood’s 4in gun magazines – it is likely we will never know, but that third salvo ignited a fire in the ship.
At 0557 the range had deceased to 19,000 yards and
Bismarck had fired her fourth salvo. By this time,
Hood had turned to port far enough so that her rear guns could also open fire.
Disaster: Three minutes later, John Leach, Captain of the Prince of Wales, blinked in disbelief as the
Hood exploded in a great leaping mushroom of bright orange fire and within half a minute had totally disappeared from view. Within ten minutes
Prince of Wales was pulling off, one of her turrets having jammed and having taken a hard hit to the ship’s bridge. However, critically, the
Prince of Wales’ gunners had scored three hits across the
Bismarck, one penetrating and causing an oil leak. Lutjens now had to turn back, and headed the
Bismarck for occupied France, detaching the
Prinz Eugen for hunting duties in the North Atlantic.
At nine o clock that night, the Admiralty issued a communiqué across the Empire. "British Naval Forces intercepted early this morning, off the coast of Greenland, German Naval Forces, including the battleship Bismarck. The enemy were attacked and during the ensuing action HMS Hood received an unlucky hit in the magazine and blew up."
There were a total of three survivors, of a crew numbering 1,418.
Why the
Hood blew up in a single hit is a subject of debate and it is likely nobody will ever know. However, there are some theories which are clearer than others. The witnesses agreed fairly unanimously on the cause of the first fire on
Hood’s deck. Most believe that the explosion was a cordite or wood fire which would indeed indicate a smaller explosion due to the fire on
Hood’s 4in gun magazines. However, on the last and most destructive hit, none of the officers really agreed. Rear Admiral Wake-Walker onboard
Norfolk saw a mushroom shaped explosion and a “red glow”. His subordinate guessed the plume to be perhaps 700 feet tall. This much is agreed on – others say a large cone, or a flash higher than the mainmast, either way indicative of a large and extremely potent explosion. Leach himself, perhaps one of the most qualified to say, saw a n explosion "twice the height of the mainmast." Many of the officers also say the explosion was near the centre of the ship or near X turret, which would agree with the theory that a shell penerated and blew up
Hood’s rear magazine – with a hundred odd 1,300 pound high explosive shells it would have been enough to cause the large explosion, and because the magazine is located slightly behind X turret (a rear turret) and on the bottom of the ship, it would have "broke her back|, causing the almost instant sinking. Another suggestion is that
Hood’s torpedo tubes were detonated and the ensuing explosion triggered the magazine destruction.
I should note one thing: it is a fallacy to say
Hood’s armour was too thin. It was not in fact thin, but badly placed. On battleships, the “belt armour” only lasts for a certain proportion of the hull, and it slowly thins out towards the deck. It is possible, that if the German shell was traveling at the correct angle, although it would not be traveling at sufficient speed to break through the belt, it could have struck the thinner transition area of the belt and penetrating at the correct angle to reach into the magazines. One thing was sure: the Royal Navy’s greatest ship had been sunk with practically all hands, and that the German ship was heading to escape. It must not be allowed to reach France and meet up with
Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau. Winston Churchill issued the General Order to the Admiralty – "Sink the Bismarck!"
Hitting Back: At ten o clock that night, nine Fairey Swordfish planes of 825 Naval Air Squadron ran off the decks of the Aircraft carrier
Victorious and headed towards the last seen position of the Bismarck, torpedoes slung underneath their fuselages. The attack is unsuccessful, and one hit is scored, though it does no damage. All aircraft are retrieved unharmed, and one thing is discovered – that the aging Swordfish biplanes travel
too slowly! Design to attack modern aircraft, the targeting radar of the
Bismarck’s anti air guns were not able to accurately track the slow-moving Swordfish.
Bismarck, however, escapes. In a tense two days, she is rediscovered heading south to France by a Coastal Command flying boat, west-north-west of Brest, Brittany, France. Force H, with the aircraft carrier
Ark Royal was detached from Gibraltar on the 24th and had headed north. Lutjens, a mere couple hundred miles from the French coast, was now confident that he would reach homeport.
On the 26th of May, the 6in cruiser
Sheffield sighted the
Bismarck at a quarter to eight at night. By this time the whole Royal Navy is out in force, and three quarters of an hour later, fifteen Swordfish from the carrier
Ark Royal press the attack on
Bismarck, scoring two hits. In a flash of karma for the
Bismarck, an extremely lucky single torpedo hits the rudder machinery gear, jamming it at 12 degrees.
Endgame: Bismarck is unable to maneouvre. Lutjens knows his fate, and asks Hitler to send a u-boat to pick up the war diaries, informing him that the
Bismarck will fight to the last shell. At eight o clock on the 27th of May, the British battleships
Rodney and
King George V, as well as the 8in cruisers
Norfolk and
Dorsetshire are sighted off the port and astern at 26,000 yards. It takes three hours for the
Bismarck to be systematically destroyed, losing her fire control and gun turrets, rendering her totally useless. The invulnerability of her belt armour is proven wrong at range when a full salvo of
Rodney’s 16in shells tears apart her hull –
Rodney’s commander comments, ironically – "Hold fire! This is a genocide!" as he sees German sailors jumping overboard from the burning wreck of the
Bismarck. The range now is a mere 3,000 yards as the British ships rain fire onto the mostly defenceless
Bismarck.
At 10:00,
Bismarck is totally incapable of combat. Had she moved another fifty miles,
Rodney and
King George V would have not been able to engage, as by this 10:16 they turned away due to fuel constraints. The order is given to scuttle the
Bismarck, and demolition charges are planted. However,
Bismarck takes three torpedo hits from the
Dorsetshire and begins to sink as her scuttling charges detonate. The last and perhaps saddest tale of the whole battle was that as
Dorsetshire closed to pick up the 700 survivors, she was forced to withdraw as the presence of the German submarine U-74 is discovered. Only 116 men are rescued.
The impact: The sinking of the
Bismarck had a profound effect on the Battle for the Atlantic, but little else. While
Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau did continue raiding operations for years to come,
Bismarck's sister ship
Tirpitz never left port and was sunk by continuous allied raids while holed up in the fjords of Norway. The destruction of
Bismarck was an eye for an eye in retaliation for the sinking of the
Hood and in terms of propaganda, this was reflected in the morale of both Germany and Britain. But more importantly, Hitler lost the confidence to continue with full effect the surface war against the allies on the seas, turning to unrestricted submarine war. Despite the loss of the
Hood, British naval confidence did not dwindle. The sinking of the
Hood and
Bismarck had little material effect on the war, unlike the attack on Pearl Harbour, and did not herald a new age of warfare like the Battle of Taranto. Yet they changed the fundamental dynamics of the War at Sea, by ensuring that Germany lost her interest in challenging the Royal Navy on the surface.
Sources:
Various internet sources
Nelson to Vanguard Warship Design and Development 1923-1925 by D.K. Brown
HOOD: Life and Death of a Battlecruiser by Roger Chesneau
Battleships and Battle Cruisers 1905-1970 by Siegfried Breyer
Anatomy of the Ship: The Battleship BISMARCK by Jack Brower
Anatomy of the Ship: The Battlecruiser HOOD (revised edition) by John Roberts
Anatomy of the Ship: The Aircraft carier VICTORIOUS by Ross Watson
kbismarck.com
I DID NOT USE THE MOVIE AS A SOURCE.
History discussion, revision and homework help.
Useful Resources:
The Failure of Operation Rheinübung
