The first was radar gunnery. Radar was still a new and temperamental invention for the British that hadn’t yet been fitted to all of her smaller warships. None of the Royal Navy’s cruisers that day had were equipped with it (some of The RN’s older battleships hadn’t received radar either), while all of the Kriegsmarine’s warships from light cruiser and above were fitted with search and ranging radars, and the ability to accurately determine distance, bearing and speed of their enemy would prove vital almost from the start.
The other important factor was Admiral Graf Spee. Classed as a panzerschiffe, or ‘armoured ship’, by the Germans, she and the others in her class were known in allied circles by the somewhat diminutive title of ‘pocket battleship’. Her armour and guns however were nothing to be mocked in comparison to the heavy cruisers she was now facing up against at the head of her line. Twelve thousand tonnes’ displacement at standard load, she was 186m long and almost 22m across her beam, and could steam at almost 29 knots with the aid of her powerful MAN diesels. She was also quite heavily armoured for her size, and carried two triple turrets that mounted a total of six hard-hitting, accurate 11-inch guns.
Even as the leading British ships were firing their first ranging shots, accurate fire from Graf Spee, Blücher and Prinz Eugen was already falling about them, with 150mm shells from the three German ‘City’ class light cruisers close behind. With plenty of warning of the British approach on radar and by aerial reconnaissance, the Kriegsmarine ships had been able to place themselves directly across their opponents’ line of approach, crossing their ‘T’ and enabling all six German vessels to concentrate broadside fire on the leading enemy ships, while only the British warships’ forward guns could respond. Within fifteen minutes, the intense bombardment left Kent, Exeter and York severely damaged and burning furiously, with Exeter and York seemingly out of control. The former wandered out of the battle line to the east at low speed with all guns silent, while York circled aimlessly, chasing her own tail with her steering gear out of action.
Kent was still firing back with her rear turrets as the ship came about, but was receiving a savage battering in return as the three British light cruisers turned away to the north under orders and attempted to break from the battle, trailing a thick smokescreen in their wakes. With all three heavy cruisers damaged and out of effective combat, they’d be seriously outnumbered and stood little chance even of survival, let alone success. Their German counterparts continued the chase, and the cruiser skirmish quickly moved off to the east.
Taking counsel from Kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann commanding Bismarck, Lütjens initially gave orders for the aircraft of Graf Zeppelin to hold off, thinking that superior German radar-directed gunnery should be able to deal with the fleet on its own. Based on the evidence at hand, it certainly seemed a likely possibility: only one of the approaching British ships – Nelson – was armed with 16-inch guns, while the rest mounted the superbly-accurate but smaller 15-inch gun that had become the standard RN capital ship main armament from World War One onward. Although radar surveillance had originally detected seven large warships in the British fleet, continued monitoring had revealed two of those ships had dropped behind the main formation in the last hour or so. Lütjens knew that at least two Type-X U-boats were patrolling the area through which the enemy fleet had travelled, and that there’d been several unconfirmed attack reports from the submarine service so far. It therefore seemed reasonable to deduce that torpedo damage was behind the delay of those two lagging vessels. That left five capital ships against their four, but Lütjens was still confident his fleet would get the better of their English opponents, and taking into consideration the line of ships behind him, that belief was understandable.
At the rear of the formation, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were easily the equal of the battlecruisers Hood and Renown, each armed with three twin turrets of 15-inch guns that were accompanied by the most modern fire directors and radar assistance in the world. Although the Kriegsmarine classified the vessels as a schlactkreuzer (battlecruiser), at 40,000 tonnes full-load, they were easily large enough to be considered battleships in their own right. The ships had originally been designed to mount three triple turrets of the same 11-inch guns now arming Admiral Graf Spee, but this had been revised to their current, heavier armament prior to completion.
Ahead of them, Bismarck and Tirpitz were something else again. At 71,000 tonnes, the superbattleships were, save for the carrier based on the same hull layout, the largest warships to ever sail the seas. Along with their two completed sister ships, Von der Tann and Derrflinger, their construction had been maintained under the heaviest veil of secrecy and misinformation, and two further ships – Rheinland and Westfalen – were yet to be completed. The ships also carried the heaviest armament ever put to sea on a warship: nine huge guns of 18.1-inch calibre (460mm), mounted in three gigantic turrets that could fire armour piercing shells weighing almost 1,500 kilograms out to ranges of over forty kilometres. They were also backed up by a morass of secondary turrets and flak guns that surrounded the vessel’s towering central superstructure in multiple layers of 128mm, 37mm and 23mm weapons. Although yet to be ‘blooded’ in actual combat, their crews’ training and morale was high, and they were ready for their baptism of fire. For that reason – morale as much as superiority – Lütjens decided to hold back their carrier air wing and give the men of his warships a real victory in battle.
That decision would eventually cost the Kriegsmarine far more dearly than they expected on a number of counts. Only as a rather unexpected, low-level mass of aircraft appeared suddenly on their search radars did the German fleet realise that at least one of the capital ships that’d fallen behind the enemy formation was actually an aircraft carrier, rather than a damaged battleship. At that point, the order for launch of Graf Zeppelin’s air group was given, but this time with a new target – the enemy carrier. The Swordfish and Skua attack aircraft of the British Fleet Air Arm were well known in Wehrmacht circles to be obsolete, however their presence still needed to be taken seriously, particularly as the enemy had gotten the ‘jump’ on TG186 by launching first. Defence was first priority of the day, and J-4Bs of the carrier’s fighter gruppe were the first to lift from the flight deck.
On the other side of the ‘battlefield’, the squadrons launched from Ark Royal were under no such illusions as to the composition of the forces they too could see quite clearly on radar. Reports of the morning’s attacks on RAF bomber bases had been enough to indicate that a carrier force was definitely operating somewhere in the North Sea, and armed with that extra information, it needed no great leap of logic to identify the large contact some miles behind the main enemy force and designate it as a prime target.
Ark Royal carried five squadrons within her hangars – two of Blackburn Skua fighter-bombers and three of the Fairey Swordfish – and all five of those squadrons had launched, heading off in two separate waves that’d taken a clear detour to the west of the enemy battleships to avoid AA fire. The Skuas of 800 and 803 Sqns were in the lead – twenty-four planes in all – a single 227kg (500lb) bomb recessed beneath each aircraft’s belly. There were just a handful of Graf Zeppelin’s J-4Bs in the air and on combat patrol as the Skua’s headed in for their final approach, several blown from the sky in moments as the German fighters engaged, but the majority made it through the fighter screen and fell upon the huge carrier from high altitude.
Clouds of heavy flak began to burst about the Skuas as twenty of them came out of the grey sky in staggered pairs, long streams of tracer from the ship’s 37mm and 23mm automatic cannon joining in as they drew closer. Although eager and well-trained however, Graf Zeppelin’s gun crews had never fired on an enemy aircraft in combat until that moment, and they found, initially at least, that the diving Skuas were far more difficult to hit than the gunnery targets they’d become used to in training.
The pilots of 800 and 803 Squadrons, by contrast, knew exactly what they were doing. As well-trained as the
ir opponents, the airmen of the Fleet Air Arm also had actual combat experience; something that counted for a great deal as the first attack wave came out of the clouds toward the carrier below. Even from a height of several thousand metres, the clustered aircraft gathered on the long flight deck were clearly visible preparing for take off, and the attacking pilots instantly recognised their importance: those aircraft could inflict serious damage to both the Home Fleet and, more importantly, Ark Royal herself. The fact that the British fighter-bombers had gained a momentary advantage of initiative was something they couldn’t afford to squander, and the flights’ commanding officer gave a few radioed words of instruction and encouragement before pointing his Skua even closer to vertical and darting through the clouds of flak, bombsights centred on the enemy carrier’s flight deck near the bow.
At a thousand metres, he dragged back on the stick and released his single 500-pound bomb, the weapon swinging out on a long, crutch-like cradle to throw it clear of the propeller disc as the Skua powered away and manoeuvred heavily to avoid the mass of flak that followed his retreat. The next aircraft in line had dropped and commenced similar evasive action before his bomb struck, with the remainder of the two squadrons following on in a loose line behind them.
The first bomb missed the carrier by a few metres and punched into the water ahead of her bow, sending a towering geyser of foaming water skyward as it detonated. The second bomb also missed, this time to starboard with a similar lack of result, while the next three Skuas were shot from the sky as flak gunner began to find their range. The sixth aircraft however managed to make it through the clouds of enemy AA to land its single 500-pounder right in the middle of Graf Zeppelin’s flight deck, perhaps eighty metres aft from the bow. The damage done to the actual ship itself was relatively minor to begin with: the carrier had been had been designed to withstand air attack, and as such, the British practice of using an armoured steel flight deck had been adopted rather than the more common use of vulnerable wooden planking that was common with many other navies.
There was nothing that could be done however to protect the scores of fighters and attack aircraft gathered on her deck awaiting take off, and the damage inflicted on them was great indeed. With engines running, and filled with fuel and ammunition, the aircraft nearest the point of impact exploded instantly as the blast tore them apart, setting off a ‘domino effect’ that leapt from aircraft to aircraft along that crowded deck. More Skuas were shot down by the fighters already airborne, but fire from the Zeppelin’s flak guns began to trail off as the explosions spreading across the carrier’s deck either engulfed the gun emplacements completely, or the intolerable heat forced crews to abandon their posts and seek safety elsewhere. Four more bombs from the first wave struck the carrier, adding to the inferno as thick, black smoke poured from almost the entire length of the flight deck. One of those bombs punched its way through the much thinner armour of the island’s superstructure, exploding deep within and spreading fire and chaos through the vessel’s command and control areas. The impact struck near the forward end of the superstructure, killing most of those on the bridge, including the captain and many of the ship’s higher ranking officers. Out of control, Graf Zeppelin began to veer off to port as fires continued to build and spread.
No more than ten of 800 and 803 Squadrons’ original twenty-four aircraft came through the attack in one piece, and the survivors now made off to the west at full speed in an effort to avoid pursuit now their primary mission was accomplished. Their retreat also served to draw the defending J-4B fighters away from the stricken carrier, and although just five of the Blackburn Skuas would eventually make it back to Ark Royal, they’d managed to drag out the air battle long enough to exhaust the ammunition and fuel reserves of many of the enemy fighters. With the damage suffered by Graf Zeppelin, those same aircraft of TG186 were now also deprived of a place to land, and they were now forced to turn away to the east and the distant European coast in search of sanctuary.
This left the way clear for the second British attack wave to go in relatively unopposed, and the twenty-seven Fairey Swordfish of 810, 818 and 820 Squadrons found the burning bulk of Graf Zeppelin an easy target. The biplanes roared in at low level in pairs, the low speed that made them so vulnerable in aerial combat now serving to make them an excellent and stable launching platform for the 18-inch torpedoes beneath their bellies. Flak from the ship’s supporting destroyers managed to damage or destroy several of the Swordfish, but the gunners’ effectiveness was substantially reduced by the need to manoeuvre around the out-of-control carrier, and also by the thick clouds of smoke pouring from it’s burning deck.
As the burning ship slowed at the completion of a huge circle to port, fire from her deck began to spread to some of the lower levels, and the Swordfish were able to score no less than a dozen torpedo hits against her main armour belt below the waterline. The torpedoes the Swordfish carried mounted a relatively weak warhead that would be hard-pressed to penetrate Graf Zeppelin’s armour belt in some places, and effective damage control, had there been any, should’ve been able to restrict the effects of their impacts quite well. The fire already raging across her flight deck became the deciding factor, however. Throughout the history of naval warfare, from the age of sail through to modern times, fire was the deadly enemy of any ship… an enemy that if left to its own devices could quickly sweep through a vessel and destroy it. The inferno raging on the ship’s decks, combined with the loss of the ship’s commander and bridge officers, meant that no coherent damage control orders were ever given. Graf Zeppelin began to list notably to port as her speed dropped off even further and tonnes of seawater flooded unchecked into her hull below the waterline.
From the bridge of Bismarck, reports from the retiring fighters of TG186 and the lack of any response from Graf Zeppelin gave the officers there grave concerns regarding the heavy pall of smoke visible on the southern horizon. Lütjens belatedly requested urgent assistance from land-based units of the Kriegsmarine Air Arm on the Dutch mainland, but he knew that in reality, any assistance would be some time in coming by the time aircraft were reassigned from their original missions and rearmed. The cruiser battle moving off to the east looked likely of becoming a crushing German victory, but the main engagement was yet to be joined, and the Royal Navy had already dealt Schlactflotte-1 a telling blow.
The two forces were now no more than twenty kilometres apart, and lookouts and fire controllers could see the enemy capital ships quite clearly. Tirpitz was already calling for permission to open fire, but Lütjens, in accord with Lindemann, had so far refused the request, neither man seeing any point in wasting valuable ammunition at longer ranges that couldn’t guarantee decent accuracy. The distance between the two fleets fell as the minutes wore on, both approaching at oblique angles intended to prevent either from gaining a firing advantage. A tense period of manoeuvring began at the northern edge of the Dogger Bank, as the German ships took the initiative with their superior speed and attempted to cross the British ‘T’. A man of vast naval training, Tovey kept his cool despite his ships’ slower speed, and kept the Home Fleet zigzagging this way and that in tight turns of copybook precision that foiled each attempt, and continued to reduce the distance, enabling the Home Fleet to engage without any disadvantage of range or position.
After almost ten minutes of pointless manoeuvring, Lütjens finally, grudgingly gave up his optimistic attempt to outsail the commanders of the most well-trained navy on the planet, and fell back into formation in preparation for firing. It was therefore the British Home Fleet that won the initial moral ‘high ground’ and fired the opening salvo of the battle at a range of 15,000 metres. With five ships now operating in tight, well-drilled line ahead formation, the battlecruisers Hood and Renown and battleships Nelson, Warspite and Queen Elizabeth would make every effort to capitalise on their one-ship numerical advantage. The obvious size and danger presented by the two leading German warships was clearly apparent to Tovey and his captains
, and orders were given for the first two ships in the line –Hood and Renown – to engage Bismarck simultaneously with their 15-inch armament. Nelson, next in the British line, would fire on Tirpitz with her 16-inch guns, while Warspite and Queen Elizabeth were free to engage Scharnhorst and Gneisenau respectively.
Although the sky was as overcast and visibility was moderate at best, as it had been throughout the trip south, the surface of the water of the Dogger Bank had calmed enough to provide no great hindrance to stable gunnery for either side. The British ships fired almost in unison, the flame and smoke of their broadsides simultaneously terrifying and inspiring as their guns reached out for the distant invaders. The crew in their turrets went through their thirty-second reloading cycles as the first of the enemy shells began to fall about them, and although the British ships were inferior in weight of shell in comparison to Bismarck and Tirpitz, they were able to offset that disadvantage to some extent by a higher rate of fire, made even faster by well-drilled and experienced crews.
The German battleships had none of the advantages their cruisers had exploited earlier: all the RN capital ships on the firing line were equipped with gunnery radar and, more to the point, were well-trained in its use against moving targets. Last in line, Queen Elizabeth landed a glancing blow on Gneisenau with just her second salvo, and was immediately able to change her gun status from ‘acquiring’ to ‘on target’. Her next shots were fired for effect with a full broadside of eight 15-inch guns on narrow dispersion, and she fairly bracketed her target with her next three barrages, in the process landing no less than five direct hits. Queen Elizabeth was the only British ship not currently under returned fire, and as such was able to concentrate on her opponent unhindered.
England Expects (Empires Lost) Page 87