The news came as no surprise to Tovey. During the night, his staff had received a signal from Captain Henry Denham RN, of the British Embassy in Stockholm. Its contents were brief, but vital. ‘Kattegat today, 20th May. At 1500 two large warships, escorted by three destroyers, five escort vessels, ten or twelve aircraft, passed Marstrand course north-west. 2058/20.’
There had been other indications, too. Intelligence had already established that the two warships had completed their working-up period, and an agent in Germany had reported that new charts had just been delivered to the Bismarck. And there had been a very important signal from agents in France, transmitted to the special Hudson flying its nightly sorties over the Channel. It stated that the Germans were preparing moorings for large vessels at Brest. There had been an increase in enemy air activity, too; reconnaissance flights over Scapa Flow had been stepped up, and Kondors had been sighted over the Denmark Straits and between Greenland and Jan Mayen Island.
So Admiral Tovey knew that the warships had sailed; he also knew the route they were going to take, and their eventual destination. Thanks to wireless intelligence, he even knew the code name of the German operation: Rheinubung, or Rhine Exercise. He also knew that the Bismarck was commanded by Kapitan Ernst Lindemann, the Prinz Eugen by Kapitan Helmuth Brinkmann, and that the Fleet Commander was his old adversary, Admiral Gunther Lutjens.
What he had not known, until now, was where the ships were. And with that knowledge came the realisation that Lutjens had made two critical mistakes. The first was to pass through the narrow waters of the Kattegat in broad daylight, in full view of British agents in Sweden; the second was to enter the Norwegian fjord in order to top up Prinz Eugen’s tanks, instead of making for the Arctic refuelling rendezvous with all speed.
While Tovey was assessing all the information, and laying his plans to intercept the warships, Suckling was in his Spitfire once more, this time in a dash to get the prints to the Air Ministry in London. A quick stop to refuel at Turnhouse and then he was on his way again, racing to beat the approaching darkness. Over the Midlands he ran into thick cloud and had to make an emergency landing at a convenient airfield near his home town of Nottingham. Rousing a friend, a local garage proprietor, he completed his journey in the latter’s car, driving though the blackout at fifty miles per hour.
At one o’clock in the morning, Suckling — unshaven and still wearing his flying kit — handed over the precious package of photos to Air Marshal Sir Frederick Bowhill, Air Officer Commanding RAF Coastal Command. Bowhill studied the prints carefully — and then reached for the telephone.
Less than two hours after Suckling had walked into Bowhill’s office, a force of Whitley and Hudson bombers of Coastal Command was on its way to strike at the Bismarck and her companion. But the weather was on the Germans’ side: thick cloud had descended on the fjord. Only a couple of bombers were able to locate the fjord and drop their bombs, but no hits were registered, and for one good reason: the ships had already sailed and were even now zig-zagging up the long Norwegian coastline, their anti-aircraft crews closed up for action stations. All that day the Coastal Command crews made sortie after sortie into the murk, but it was hopeless — the crews could see absolutely nothing.
At 1630 the following afternoon, with no break in the weather, a Martin Maryland reconnaissance aircraft of No. 771 Naval Air Squadron, an aircraft normally used for target-towing duties, took off from Hatston in the Orkneys and set course for Bergen. As it approached Norway at an altitude of only 200 feet, the pilot — Lieutenant Noel Goddard RNVR — peered anxiously through the rivulets of rain that streamed down the windscreen: too many Fleet Air Arm and Coastal Command aircraft had smashed themselves to oblivion on the dark crags of the Norwegian coast.
Flying in the narrow 300-foot corridor between the grey murk and the sea, Goddard sped through the entrance to Korsfjord. The thunder of the Maryland’s engines echoed and re-echoed from the grim walls on either side as the pilot kept down low, allowing his observer, Commander Geoffrey Rotherham — second-in-command at Hatston and a navigator of long experience — to get a good look at the few vessels anchored in the fjord. When he pulled up into the cloud, pursued by some accurate flak that caused slight damage to their aircraft, Goddard was no longer in any doubt — the Bismarck and her consort had gone.
It was the news for which Admiral Tovey had been waiting, and he immediately mustered every available warship to hunt down the German warships and destroy them. Leaving Scapa Flow, the main body of the Home Fleet sailed for Icelandic waters to reinforce the heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk that were now patrolling the Denmark Strait. Three more cruisers were patrolling Lutjens’s alternative breakout route, between Iceland and the Faeroes.
First to arrive were the Home Fleet’s two fastest ships, the battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Hood. Behind them came the King George V, four cruisers, nine destroyers, and the new aircraft carrier Victorious, which had sailed into Scapa Flow from her exercises a day earlier. The Victorious was not yet fully worked up; her complement of aircraft consisted of only nine Swordfish and six Fulmars, flown in from Hatston.
With her went Lieutenant Commander Dickie Baird, eager and happy at the prospect of action, and pleased to find that the commander of the Swordfish squadron, Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde, was an old friend. Like Baird, Esmonde was a devout Catholic, but there the resemblance ended. The Esmondes came from Drominagh, set high on the wooded slopes of Lough Derg in Tipperary, and they were proud Irish nationalists to their fingertips. One of Eugene’s ancestors, John Esmonde, had been hanged by the British during the rebellion of 1798, a fact that had not prevented his son from joining the Royal Navy and working his way up to become captain of the frigate Lion. Another member of the family, Colonel Thomas Esmonde, had won the Victoria Cross in the Crimea; yet another had died in battle at Ypres. Every one of Eugene’s five brothers had joined the British forces when war broke out; even his sister was in the WAAF.
The sudden switch from her forthcoming task in the Mediterranean to active duty in northern waters had caused some surprise among Victorious’s complement. Instead of their tropical ‘whites’ they were now muffled in cold-weather clothing. Many believed that their forthcoming task would be a lot less dangerous than the Malta run, although the carrier was to have flown off her Hurricanes at a respectable distance from the beleaguered island.
From the eastern Mediterranean, the news was grim. On 20 May, in the wake of a massive air bombardment, German airborne forces had landed on Crete, and the next morning the Luftwaffe had launched a series of heavy air attacks on British warships in the area, sinking the destroyer Juno and damaging the cruiser Ajax. The latter had got her revenge during the night, when, together with two more cruisers and four destroyers, she had intercepted a convoy of twenty motor sailing vessels laden with German reinforcements and scattered it, but by nightfall on 22 May the British naval forces off Crete were coming under almost constant air attack. Since then, there had been no further news.
There was no further news, either, of the whereabouts of the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. It was now two days since Suckling had sighted them in the Bergen fjords. The strain of keeping a constant lookout was beginning to tell, particularly on the crews of the two cruisers keeping watch on the Denmark Straits.
At 1915 on 23 May, a young lookout called Able Seaman Newall on HMS Suffolk, his eyes watering in the cold, was sweeping the sea with his powerful binoculars. The ship was patrolling the ice shelf between Iceland and Greenland, and although the visibility towards Greenland was good, there was thick mist in the direction of Iceland.
It was from that direction, now, that a great black shape emerged from a patch of mist. Newall focused his glasses on it, and let out a yell loud enough to wake the dead.
“Ship bearing Green One Four Oh! Two ships bearing Green One Four Oh,” he added, as a second sinister silhouette swam into view.
The cruiser sprang into action. As her crew scra
mbled frantically to action stations, her captain, Robert Ellis, ordered hard-a-port and full speed ahead, making for the safety of a fog bank as the battleship bore down on him less than seven miles away. He waited for the Bismarck’s first shattering salvo. It never came.
The Suffolk ran through the fog, her radar keeping track of the enemy ships as they passed her. Ellis held his course for thirteen miles and then swung out of the fog, taking up station in the wake of Prinz Eugen. By now Norfolk was already coming up fast, having picked up her sister ship’s signals, and she emerged from the fog to find Bismarck only six miles ahead, coming straight at her. The cruiser’s captain, Alfred Phillips, at once ordered a turn to starboard, and at that moment the battleship opened fire.
A few moments later Norfolk was surrounded by great geysers of water. Shell splinters whined through the air; some ricocheted off the cruiser’s decks, but caused no damage or casualties. The cruiser reached the sanctuary of the fog bank and Phillips took similar action to his counterpart, keeping his ship concealed until she was a safe distance away before re-emerging to trail Suffolk.
*
Joint Operations HQ, Admiralty — 23 May 1941: 2200 Hours
“Well, at least we know where they are,” Captain Merriman said. “The question now is, how quickly we can bring the big guns into action.”
Air Commodore Glendenning looked at the plotting board, on which Wren plotters had placed counters representing the warships. “Which is which?” he asked. “Ours, I mean.” The naval officer pointed out the dispositions of the various British ships.
“That’s Admiral Tovey’s force, with the KG V,” he said, “about six hundred miles to the south-east. This plot here, about eight hundred miles to the south, is the battleship Rodney, she sailed for the Clyde yesterday for a refit in Boston, but we can use her if we have to. Hood and Prince of Wales, just here at a range of three hundred miles, are the closest: they should come up with the enemy tomorrow morning.”
Glendenning, who had just hurried over to the Admiralty upon receiving the news that the German warships had been sighted, pointed to another plot, a long way to the south. “What’s that?”
“That’s Force H from Gibraltar,” Merriman told him. “The carrier Ark Royal, the cruiser Sheffield and destroyers. We’ve ordered them out to block the approaches to Brest, just as a precaution.”
Glendenning nodded. “Good. On the air side, we’ll keep the long-range reconnaissance patrols from Iceland and Northern Ireland at their present high level in case your shadowing cruisers lose contact during the night. I’m also going to recommend to the AOC that we move 42 Squadron to St Eval, alongside 22. And I’ve told Armstrong at Perranporth to hold his Beaufighters in readiness. Incidentally, I’ve managed to secure the loan of a couple of Halifaxes from Bomber Command to augment the reconnaissance force. I’m assigning them to Armstrong, and they’ll be with him tomorrow.”
“Well, then, it seems we’ve done all we can for the moment,” Merriman said. “We’ll have to wait and see what the morning brings.”
*
It was a long night, and throughout it the pursuit continued through patches of fog and squalls of snow. Prinz Eugen was now in the lead, having overtaken Bismarck when the latter’s electronic steering gear temporarily jammed, causing her to heel over to starboard. The shadowing cruisers were between ten and fourteen miles astern, all four warships racing on at thirty knots, the cruisers juddering and vibrating as they ploughed on through a peppermint-green sea.
Just before midnight, Bismarck disappeared into a snowstorm and the cruisers lost contact with her, both visually and by radar. After a couple of anxious hours Suffolk regained radar contact at 0250, and thirty minutes later, in improving visibility, she sighted the battleship. The cruiser’s visual lookouts were having trouble with mirages, which were producing some extraordinary effects. Once, it seemed that the Bismarck had turned round and was heading directly towards them.
The four ships were now running south-west through the Denmark Strait, having passed the north-west tip of Iceland, and were steaming parallel with the limit of the pack ice. And all the while, the Hood and Prince of Wales were drawing closer to a fatal rendezvous.
In the cruisers, excitement mounted. Their crews had been unaware that British heavy warships were racing into action until 0445, when they intercepted a signal from an accompanying destroyer. Thirty minutes later, Norfolk’s lookouts sighted two smudges of smoke on the port bow, and a few minutes later they made out the shapes of the Hood and Prince of Wales. The German warships were also in sight, sixteen miles off the port bow. The men on the cruisers were about to have a grandstand view of the coming battle. Little did they realise what they were about to witness.
The signal that the big warships had the enemy in sight brought the Joint Operations Room wide awake. While the Wrens manoeuvred their counters into fresh positions, a signals officer passed on constant updates to Glendenning, Merriman and their respective staffs.
At 0553, the opposing forces opened fire almost simultaneously. Great orange flashes and huge clouds of black smoke belched from the forward turrets of the Hood as she fired her first salvo. It fell just astern of the Bismarck, sending fountains of water 200 feet into the air. The German battleship’s salvo was still coming in.
*
0610. In the Joint Operations Room, the signals officer rose from his station and turned to face the men and women at the plotting table. His face was white with shock, and when he spoke his voice was barely above a whisper.
“They’ve sunk the Hood,” he said dully.
“What?” Merriman’s voice broke the sudden silence.
“The Hood’s been sunk, sir. That’s all it says.”
“Oh, my God!” At the plotting table, one of the Wrens began to weep silently.
For the ship that had been the Royal Navy’s pride, the end had come swiftly. Two shell splashes rose beside her, and almost immediately the horrified spectators on the Prince of Wales saw a vast eruption of flame leap upwards from between her masts, accompanied by a great incandescent fireball.
The volcanic burst of fire lasted only a second or two, and when it disappeared the space that had been occupied by the Hood was obscured by a great column of smoke. Through it, the bows and stem of the ship could just be seen, each rising steeply up as the central part of the ship collapsed. Within a minute or so she was gone, taking with her all but three of her complement of 1,416 officers and men, including the force commander, Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland.
Captain Merriman’s quiet but authoritative voice cut through the stunned silence in the Operations Room.
“All right, there’s work to be done. Let’s get on with it.”
At 0620, the signals officer received another message.
“The Prince of Wales is breaking off action under cover of smoke. She’s been heavily hit and has many casualties.”
The destruction of the Hood had left Admiral Lutjens free to concentrate his warships’ fire on the British battleship, and in ten minutes she was hit by four 15-inch and three 8-inch shells. One 15-inch missile wrecked her bridge, killing or wounding everyone except Captain John Leach and his Chief Yeoman of Signals. Apart from the human carnage it caused, the shells severed communications to the steering wheel and destroyed some of the gunnery control telephone leads.
Another 15-inch shell hit the superstructure supporting the gun directors that controlled the forward secondary armament of 5.5-inch guns and put them out of action. A third hit smashed the wings of the ship’s spotter aircraft, which was on the point of being catapulted off; the crew scrambled clear and the dangerous, fuel-laden wreck was tipped over the side. Yet another heavy shell had penetrated the side deep under water, passing through several bulkheads and coming to rest without exploding near the diesel dynamo room. It was only discovered after the battleship returned to harbour.
Two of the 8-inch shells had pierced the ship’s side aft, on the waterline, allowing 500 tons of water
to pour into the ship. The third entered one of the 5.25-inch shell handling rooms, bounced around the confined space like a streak of lightning, then fell to the floor, also without exploding. By some miracle, no one was hurt.
With five of his 14-inch guns out of action, and the range down to 14,500 yards, Captain Leach had no choice but to break off the engagement. Lutjens, at that moment, might well have decided to close in and finish off the Prince of Wales, but he had no notion of the damage his battleship had inflicted on her.
Besides, he had problems of his own. The exchange of gunfire had not been entirely one-sided. The Prince of Wales had fired eighteen salvoes, and one of them had found its mark. Bismarck had been hit by three shells, one of which caused an oil leakage from two fuel tanks, and the contamination of others by sea water. At 0800, the German admiral decided to abandon his sortie into the Atlantic and head for St Nazaire, the only port on the Atlantic coast with a dry dock big enough to take his flagship. He would detach Prinz Eugen en route, to make her way to Brest alone.
Still shadowed by the cruisers, the Bismarck ploughed on through the ocean, leaving a tell-tale slick of oil behind her.
A Hudson aircraft from Iceland had observed the brief battle. It now circled the spot where the Hood had gone down, directing destroyers to the scene. The rescuers found three Carley rafts close together, each with an exhausted, shell-shocked man clinging to it. They were Midshipman Dundas, Able Seaman Tilburn, and Signalman Briggs.
The destroyers searched for a long time, the rescuers wondering what had happened to the rest of Hood’s crew. It was only slowly that the realisation dawned on them — there were only three survivors. The rest of her crew lay a thousand fathoms down, amid the wreckage of their ship.
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