By the end of January the Halifax Relief Commission had organised the repair of nearly 3,000 houses. Temporary housing for those who needed it most was being constructed so quickly that new apartments were completed at the rate of one an hour. With so many families left bereaved if not homeless, the Halifax Relief Commission became important to almost every community in the city. They handled rehousing, pensions, claims for damages, as well as supplying money, clothes and furniture to the most needy. Only in 1976 was the Commission finally disbanded.
4 War at Sea
From the Spanish Armada to the Bismarck
The defeat of the Spanish Armada by an outgunned English fleet in 1588 came to set a pattern for the merciless sea battles that would follow in subsequent centuries. The King of Spain, Philip II, mustered the full might of his empire at its peak to invade England, overthrow Queen Elizabeth I, bring the English back to the Catholic fold, and ensure that Spain would become the dominant naval power in both the Atlantic and the Pacific for generations to come. It would end with less than half of his ships and only a third of his men ever making it back home. England’s decisive victory helped generate the idea – which arguably wouldn’t be true for another 300 years – that Britannia ruled the waves.
Less than 20 years before, Philip II had secured a stunning naval victory over the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto, and he probably hoped to repeat his success when he sent 151 ships, manned by 8,000 sailors and ferrying nearly 20,000 men, to Gravelines, Flanders, the closest part of his empire to England. There the fleet would pick up an additional 30,000 soldiers and carry them across the Channel to invade England. The Armada was so big that it had taken over two days for every ship to get out of the harbour at Lisbon, Portugal. Though the English sent 200 ships to intercept the Spanish fleet at Gravelines, combined they only had half the firepower of the whole Armada.
Sacrificial vessels were loaded with tar, brimstone, pitch and gunpowder, set on fire and directed towards the enemy.
Yet the English were victorious. They sent several fireships – sacrificial vessels loaded with tar, brimstone, pitch and gunpowder, set on fire and directed towards the enemy – into the midst of the Armada, driving the Spanish ships from their anchorage before the extra 30,000 soldiers could board at Gravelines. As the Spanish scattered, the English ships took advantage of their own greater manoeuvrability and speed to come in on the attack and then get out of the firing line before the ships of the Armada could counterattack. The Spanish wanted to use hand to hand fighting techniques, getting close enough for soldiers to board enemy vessels, which had been so successful for them in the past. The English kept their distance, and in the course of the Battle of Gravelines used up every last piece of ammunition they had brought with them from Plymouth. In the end they were firing lengths of chain at the Armada.
But the English decision to fight a defensive battle worked. The Pope had seen the invasion of Protestant England as a holy crusade, so the Armada carried more priests than it did gunners. Inexperienced infantrymen expecting to march across countryside to arrest Queen Elizabeth found themselves firing guns at fast English ships they could barely see in the distance. The Spanish realised they were losing.
The invasion routed, the Armada began its retreat. With the English in control of the Channel the Spanish fleet would have to go the long way home, up into the North Sea and then around Scotland and Ireland. Though victorious, the English did not want to let the Spanish return home to King Philip, most of his fleet intact and able to try again sometime later. So the English pursued the Armada for over a thousand miles, and it was during their retreat that 20,000 Spaniards lost their lives. Beset by stormy weather, running out of food and water, chased by the relentless English who would not let the Armada either rest or escape, the Spanish numbers dwindled. One ship, the Girona, rescued survivors of another lost ship, only for all 1,300 to die – leaving only nine survivors – when the Girona also foundered off the Irish coast. Those who made it to shore were hunted down by English soldiers. Few escaped alive.
Up until this point in history, many of the battles between European powers ended not in the annihilation of one side or the other but in the restoration of the status quo, give or take a disputed territory or two. The defeat of the Spanish Armada marked a change in direction that would reach its bloody culmination in the tactics of total war adopted during the world wars. Victory now had to be absolute, with no prospect of recovery and retaliation. Thousands would lose their lives in the Battles of Jutland (1916) and Midway (1942), but even these death tolls would be surpassed by the worst maritime disasters caused by war at sea.
The deadliest sinking of the First World War is not, as commonly thought, that of the RMS Lusitania, on which 1,198 lost their lives when the ship was sunk by a U-boat torpedo in May 1915. In June 1916 another U-boat sank the Principe Umberto, an Italian transport ship carrying 2,000. Up to 1,750 died. During the Second World War, especially in the latter stages, such death tolls became almost standard.
Birth of a Nazi superweapon
In 1940, the Royal Air Force having won the Battle of Britain, secured control of the British skies and delayed a German invasion, the Kriegsmarine refocused its tactics. Now the aim for much of Hitler’s navy was not to seek out enemy vessels and engage them in strategically risky sea battles, but to deliberately target shipping between the United States and the United Kingdom. Cut off Britain’s supply lines and Churchill would soon run out of the near endless supply of American munitions that had helped the British keep the Nazis back thus far.
Their armament would include eight 15in (38cm) guns, which could fire 1-ton shells at targets 24 miles (40km) away.
The German warships that would carry out such attacks were already being built as early as 1936, when the British public and their government still wanted to believe that Hitler desired peace, and the few figures who drew attention to his rearmament found themselves at best ignored and at worst ostracised. In July 1936 the first ship in a new class of battleship was laid down, to be launched in February 1939 and be ready to enter service in August 1940, before the Battle of Britain was even lost. The ships in this class would be the largest, heaviest and most powerful warships ever built in Europe, displacing over 50,000 tons at full load. Crewed by over 2,000, they would be 823ft (251m) long, 118ft (36m) across the beam, have a range of over 10,000 miles (16,000km) and a speed in excess of 30 knots. They would be protected by armour nearly 5in (127mm) thick on the main deck and 13in (320mm) around the belt, and their armament would include eight 15in (38cm) guns, which could fire 1-ton shells at targets 24 miles (40km) away. The first ship in this class was named for the chancellor held largely responsible for the unification of Germany in 1871 – Otto von Bismarck.
The Bismarck only ever took part in a single operation, but in the course of that week-long mission she acquired the reputation that has maintained her infamy to this day.
The Bismarck only ever took part in a single operation, but in the course of that week-long mission she acquired the reputation that has maintained her infamy to this day. Between leaving the port at Gotenhafen (now Gdynia), in occupied Poland, on 19th May 1941 and receiving the final, fatal blow from HMS Dorsetshire on the 27th, the Bismarck claimed over 5,000 lives. Despite the worst other Royal Navy ships could throw at her during that time, the Bismarck kept on going, seemingly unsinkable.
Originally the German naval command intended to keep the Bismarck waiting until her sister ship the Tirpitz was ready. Together the two battleships would constitute an almost unbeatable, unstoppable force. However, when delays hit the Tirpitz’s construction, the Nazi strategists decided it was more important to hit British targets sooner rather than wait until late 1941. When the Bismarck left port at 2am she joined the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and sailed with three destroyers plus a small fleet of minesweepers and supply vessels instead. In addition, four U-boats were placed along the convoy routes between Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Britain, though they would not
attack, just report numbers, directions, speeds and the convoys’ level of protection. However, a Swedish cruiser spotted the Bismarck leaving the Baltic Sea, and soon British code-breakers at Bletchley Park confirmed that an attack was imminent. The Royal Navy sent a fleet to intercept the Bismarck, which they did in the Denmark Strait.
Much of the reason why the Bismarck was almost peerless as a warship at the time was because her designers had found a way around the problem that had decided the outcome of sea battles since long before the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Evasion was the best form of defence, so warships needed to be fast to escape enemy attack. But at the same time they needed to be well armed to actually win, and heavy firepower slowed ships down. The Bismarck managed to be both fast and well armed.
The explosion tore the Hood in half with such ferocity that the bow kept moving forward for a while.
Radiomen on the Prinz Eugen picked up radio transmissions from heavy cruiser HMS Suffolk, so the Bismarck’s commander, Captain Ernst Lindemann, was expecting the battlecruiser, HMS Hood, pride of the Royal Navy, as well as six destroyers. During the course of the Battle of Denmark Strait the British came to think of the Bismarck as the Nazis’ superweapon. Despite three direct hits from HMS Prince of Wales, the Bismarck barely slowed. Within eight minutes of the first salvoes being fired, the battle ended for the Hood. The Bismarck may only have hit her with a single shell from her 15-inch guns, but it struck straight through her armoured deck and exploded in her rear ammunition magazine. The explosion tore the Hood in half with such ferocity that the bow kept moving forward for a while. What was left of the ship then flooded so quickly that only three of over 1,400 crewmen aboard her survived.
Following this display of the Bismarck’s power, the captain of the damaged Prince of Wales ceased his attack on the German warship and ordered a retreat. He knew his vessel was no match for the Bismarck. When the news of the Hood’s sinking reached the Admiralty, the order came back direct from Winston Churchill himself, and it went to every ship in the vicinity: sink the Bismarck.
Sinking the Bismarck
As dozens of British warships rallied to join the hunt for this Nazi superweapon – which had not only wounded national pride but now presented the biggest threat to Britain’s war effort since the previous year’s battle for air supremacy – the Bismarck herself set course for occupied France for repairs. Despite the impression she had given her opponents in the Denmark Strait, she had suffered some serious damage. As well as a bad oil leak, flooding had caused a 9-degree list to port, and she also dipped 3 degrees toward the bow. No longer able to reach 30 knots, but still able to outrun many British ships, it would take her until 27th May to reach the protection of U-boats and Luftwaffe planes. Before they could even attempt to destroy her, the British needed to slow her down and make sure she didn’t reach safety in time.
The German ship managed to evade many of the torpedoes, sometimes firing shells into the sea to create a wall of water in front of low-flying planes.
The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was closest to her, about 60 miles (97km) away. Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers raced through terrible weather conditions – so bad that they first attacked the HMS Sheffield by mistake – to reach the Bismarck. The German ship managed to evade many of the torpedoes, sometimes firing shells into the sea to create a wall of water in front of low-flying planes. Others hit but barely caused any damage to her armour. Caught in a gale, she was riding 60ft (18m) waves; huge seas that would have thrown some of the torpedoes off course anyway.
British success ultimately came down to luck rather than superior firepower. The torpedo that finally snared the Bismarck hit her rudder but did not explode. Instead it damaged the rudder to the extent where it could no longer be disengaged. Jamming the Bismarck’s steering gear, the torpedo rendered the ship unmanoeuvrable. She could still maintain her high speed and outrun her approaching enemies, let alone outgun them, but she was now trapped in a permanent circular course, turning perpetually 12 degrees to port. By the time Captain Lindemann may have been ready to consider using explosives to destroy the rudder, it was too late. The Royal Navy was closing in, and the Bismarck no longer had the Prinz Eugen to offer any protection.
On an entirely predictable and unchangeable course, the Bismarck proved quite an easy target for the battleships HMS King George V and HMS Rodney, as well as the heavy cruisers HMS Norfolk and HMS Dorsetshire. The Bismarck fired back, making HMS Sheffield retreat from the fight, but the other vessels hounded her through the night and into the next morning. Illuminated by star shells to make it even easier to see her in the dark, the Bismarck received hundreds of direct hits from many of over 700 shells the British warships fired at her. By morning she could no longer fire back, all of her turrets destroyed, so the British moved in to finish her off at close range.
He saw a man on deck waving semaphore flags to surrender, and a Morse code message flash to convey the same.
Aboard the Bismarck, Admiral Gunther Lutjens, who was in overall command of the mission, sent a message through to naval command that the ship would be destroyed before he would surrender. However, as the British turned the Bismarck into a wreck, burning from end to end, listing 20 degrees to port and settling by the stern, a British sailor on the Rodney claimed he saw the black flag raised – the naval sign to cease hostilities and begin talking. He also claimed he saw a man on deck waving semaphore flags to surrender, and a Morse code message flash to convey the same. Another sailor on the Dorsetshire corroborated the report of the Morse message. It is entirely possible that crewmen on board the Bismarck wished to surrender, even if their commanders didn’t. The British ships did not call off the attack. Not only had Churchill ordered the ship be sunk, but the very conventions of war at sea required the national flag to be lowered to indicate surrender. Nobody on the Bismarck did this. Nor were men seen abandoning ship, another indicator that could induce captains to assume capitulation.
Torpedoes fired from the Dorsetshire – first into the starboard side, then into the port – probably landed the fatal blows. Soon afterwards the Nazi superweapon capsized, sinking rapidly by the stern and disappearing beneath the waves completely within 15 minutes. The Dorsetshire and a destroyer came to the aid of hundreds of survivors in the water, but when lookouts reported what they believed to be a U-boat, the rescue was abandoned and the British ships left the scene. Just over 100 had been saved, and another five would be picked up by German vessels in the next couple of hours, but about 2,200 went down with the Bismarck. For the British, their winning this greatest prize from the Kriegsmarine helped bolster national confidence. However, as survivors from the Bismarck later revealed, it might not have been the British who sank her.
Secrets of the deep
The Bismarck sank to a depth of 17,500ft (almost 4,800m) – over three miles (4.8km) down. Her wreck ploughed down the side of an underwater mountain for the last mile, coming to a rest before reaching the very bottom. Here she was found in 1989 by Robert Ballard, the undersea archaeologist who had discovered the Titanic’s wreck four years previously. Her hull remained surprisingly intact for a ship supposedly sunk by torpedoes, lacking even the damage Ballard had discovered on the Titanic’s hull. Others who visited the wreck also began to believe the half-century old claims that the Bismarck hadn’t been sunk by the British, but that she had been scuttled by her crew.
The Bismarck’s first officer ordered the crew in the engine room to open all the watertight doors throughout the ship and prepare scuttling charges.
According to some of the survivors, the Bismarck’s first officer came to them below decks in the middle of the ship’s final battle and ordered them to prepare to abandon ship. He then ordered the crew in the engine room to open all the watertight doors throughout the ship and prepare scuttling charges. Some of the survivors even claimed to have been involved in setting the charges themselves, intending to damage weaker parts of the keel and allow the vessel to flood. These were apparently detonated h
alf an hour before the Bismarck finally sank, before the Dorsetshire’s last torpedoes struck. Whether this caused the sinking or simply made the inevitable happen sooner is debatable, but the Admiralty took the claims seriously enough in 1941 to acknowledge in its report of the sinking that scuttling charges may have helped. Of course, that wouldn’t have had the same propaganda effect as the decisive victory which was reported.
Robert Ballard found holes in the Bismarck’s hull, but they were mostly above the waterline, and he posited that the rest of them weren’t severe enough to have sunk the ship, even if she was taking on water through all of them. Meanwhile, dents in her armour showed that many shells and torpedoes had exploded against her hull rather than penetrated it. Most importantly, there was no sign of any implosions inside the ship. The Titanic sank as soon as the two separated pieces of the ship filled with sufficient water to drag her down. However, she was not completely flooded, and as she sank deeper and deeper, air pockets inside the hull were crushed by the rising water pressure. These implosions shattered the Titanic’s hull in several places. That the Bismarck’s hull was not shattered in such a way suggests there were no air pockets – that she was completely flooded before she went down.
Some of the survivors claimed it was an unspoken requirement that Kriegsmarine commanders should sink their ships rather than let them fall into enemy hands.
From studying the damage she received from the British ships, Ballard theorised the Bismarck could have stayed afloat for another day. In this time the Royal Navy could have easily captured the vessel. Some of the survivors claimed it was an unspoken requirement that Kriegsmarine commanders should sink their ships rather than let them fall into enemy hands. For the Bismarck, they would have had every reason to. With an identical design – and identical weaknesses – the Bismarck would have provided the Royal Navy with unprecedented intelligence regarding her sister ship, the Tirpitz. The Germans were going to lose the Bismarck anyway. At least this way they would lose her in a way that would protect the Tirpitz.
Final Voyage Page 6