On the Bismarck, Admiral Lütjens still refused to give the order to open fire.18 He was biding his time, and allowing the gunnery teams on both ships to complete all their calculations. He also wanted to properly identify his two adversaries. When Hood’s shells landed he immediately learned two things. First, the enemy ships were no mere cruisers. These were capital ships, and the huge columns of water erupting in front of the Prinz Eugen were clearly made by heavy-calibre shells. The same was true of the next salvo, falling a mile away on Bismarck’s quarter. The second point was that the right-hand British ship was firing at the Prinz Eugen, rather than the Bismarck. This made no sense – the cruiser represented no serious threat to an enemy battleship. So, that suggested that at least one British captain hadn’t properly identified his target. Uncomfortable as that might be for the relatively poorly armoured cruiser, it gave Bismarck breathing space.
By now it was 05.54. Hood fired her third salvo at the Prinz Eugen, and while the shells had crept closer to the enemy cruiser, the battlecruiser’s forward guns still hadn’t scored a hit. The faster-loading turrets of the Prince of Wales fired three more salvos in the same time, but again, while their aiming improved, none of them came close to hitting the Bismarck. These were five-gun salvos, too – the crew of the faulty left-hand gun in ‘A’ turret were still trying to get it back into action. At that point both commanders decided to change course. Lütjens did it first, turning 45 degrees to port this time, on to a new heading of 200°. This meant that if the British ships stayed on course, the Germans would cross their T. Holland, however, was too wily for that.
A minute later, at 05.55, Holland ordered his ships to turn 20 degrees to port, to steer a heading of 280°.19 This was probably a reaction to the enemy’s move, but there was also another reason: the after turrets of both of his ships were still masked by their own superstructure. So, to ‘clear the arcs’ of these rear guns he had to turn to starboard. Now, both groups of ships were still closing the range with each other, and all of them were making 28 knots. At that moment, the two German warships were roughly 50 degrees off the starboard bow of the British flagship. The range from Hood to Prinz Eugen was now down to just over 11 miles, while at just under 12 miles, Bismarck was a mile further away from the battlecruiser. It was still too far away to guarantee a penetrating hit on the German battleship, but at 11 miles Hood’s 15in. shells could rip the enemy cruiser apart.
It was at that moment that Admiral Lütjens finally gave the order to open fire. A flag signal soared up Bismarck’s foremast, the signal the yeoman on Prinz Eugen’s bridge had been waiting for. Seconds later, Captain Brinkmann gave the order. The German cruiser fired first, targeting her eight-gun salvo at the Hood. While Prinz Eugen’s 8in. shells couldn’t penetrate her armoured belt, Brinkmann hoped that plunging fire would have some effect. She missed with her first salvo, but the next one, fired 30 seconds later at 05.56, was perfectly aimed and after 45 seconds in the air, the shells straddled their target.20 One struck Hood between her aftermost funnel and her mainmast, where it exploded beside an ammunition locker serving the battlecruiser’s 4in. anti-aircraft guns, and these started a fire. It was fairly small though, and it wasn’t a serious hit.
At 05.55 and 30 seconds, a few moments after the cruiser opened fire, Bismarck unleashed her first salvo.21 Her eight-shell salvo took 32 seconds to reach its target, but the shells landed a little ahead of the battlecruiser, and 400 yards (0.2 mile) short. On Prince of Wales, Captain Leach noted how well grouped they were. The Bismarck’s gunners now had just enough time to adjust their aim before the second salvo was fired 90 seconds later, at 05.57. By now, the range had dropped by 1,000 yards (0.5 mile). It went wide and short too, landing 500 yards (0.25 mile) in front of Hood’s bows. At this point, gunnery direction teams on all four ships were making constant adjustments, trying to achieve a perfect straddle. The battle had been raging for less than four minutes, and the only hit scored was by Prinz Eugen on the Hood. However, things were about to change dramatically.
Chapter 10
Hood Has Blown Up
The fatal blow
At that moment, 05.57, Kapitän Lindemann altered five degrees to port, and increased speed to 30 knots.1 He also ordered Brinkmann to slow down slightly. The idea was that the battleship would pull in front of the cruiser, and so shield her from Hood’s fire. Hood’s turn to port also made her a more visible target. So, for the first time the German commander was able to identify his adversaries – the Hood and a King George V class battleship. Lütjens thought the Prince of Wales was still conducting her sea trials, so throughout the battle he and his staff incorrectly identified the second British ship. Still, he felt Hood had the more experienced crew, and so he saw her as the greater threat.
In fact, the first ship to open fire was the Prince of Wales. Her first salvo had missed by more than 1,000 yards (0.5 mile), and No. 1 gun in ‘A’ turret had malfunctioned.2 The next three salvos drew a little closer, but all of them missed their target. Still, the gun directors were getting their eye in. By then No. 1 gun had been fixed and so just after 05.55, the battleship fired her fifth salvo using all six of her forward guns. It landed 40 seconds later, but it was still a miss, the shells flying over their target. Worse, No. 1 gun malfunctioned again, and remained out of action for the rest of the battle. Meanwhile, Hood fired another four-shell salvo at the Prinz Eugen, but it missed, as did her fifth and sixth salvos, fired over the next 80 seconds. In terms of gunnery, Hood and her crew weren’t having a particularly good morning.
The gunners on board the Prince of Wales were having more luck.3 At 05.56, Prince of Wales fired two more salvos, 35 seconds apart. While the first one was over, the battleship’s sixth salvo straddled Bismarck and hit her on the port side of her hull, near the bow. The shell penetrated the light bow armour of the Bismarck and passed through her starboard side without exploding. Nevertheless, the hit caused an oil leak and some minor flooding. Prince of Wales’ next salvo – her seventh – missed again, as did her eighth. By now, the range had dropped down to 20,000 yards (10 miles).4 All four ships were firing steadily, two aiming at Hood, one at Prinz Eugen and one at Bismarck. At 05.57, Prinz Eugen fired two more salvos at Hood, some 30 seconds apart. Both of them missed, probably because the battlecruiser had turned slightly to port.
Bismarck fired at the same time. This was her third salvo, fired at a range of just over 20,000 yards (10 miles). This time she achieved a perfect straddle of her target.5 All of the shells but one landed around the ship, but Bismarck’s gunners claimed that one struck the battlecruiser on her 15in. gunnery director tower and control top, at the top of the foremast, above Hood’s bridge. British survivors deny this happened, and it may just have been shrapnel damage. In any case, the director tower was put out of action, and her gunnery team there were presumably killed or wounded. As a result, at this crucial moment of the fight Hood lost her all-important fire control. Now her guns would have to fire without the outside help of high-quality rangefinders. The Hood’s control tower and director on top of the bridge were still functioning, but it would take time to recover from the blow. Time that Hood’s crew didn’t have.
While Bismarck’s shell was still in flight, Hood fired her seventh salvo at the Prinz Eugen. Any order to switch targets hadn’t been received by that stage, and the imminent loss of her director tower wasn’t going to help matters. It was another miss, but a close one this time. In fact, it was the best Hood’s gunnery came to scoring a hit during the whole engagement. At the same moment, a five-shell salvo from Prince of Wales scored a hit on Bismarck. 6 The 14in. shell struck the port side of the battleship’s hull near the waterline, below the forward port 6in. gun turret. Although the shell didn’t hit the main armoured belt, which was 12.6in. thick at that point, it hit just below it, where the belt was just 6.7in. thick. The shell penetrated this weaker armour, and while the blast was dissipated in the void space behind it, the hit punctured a fuel tank and caused some flooding in the electrica
l plant room. So, Prince of Wales had now scored her second hit on Bismarck.
At this point in the battle a Short Sunderland flying boat operating from Iceland happened to fly over the Denmark Strait.7 As a result, Fg Off. Vaughn of Coastal Command had a ringside view of the battle. The German ships opened up on him with their anti-aircraft guns, and the lumbering search plane was forced to turn away and hide in the clouds. Before he did, though, Vaughn saw the Hood below him. Two fires were burning on her, one at the base of her mainmast and the other below her bridge superstructure. The first had been caused by the hit from Prinz Eugen at 05.56, which ignited the 4in. gun ammunition, while the second was probably caused by burning debris from the hit on the director tower on top of the foremast. The flying boat turned away, with flak bursting all around, and moments later the panorama below was hidden from view by the clouds. It was now 05.58, and the battle had been raging for six minutes. Already, Hood and Bismarck had taken hits, and with the exception of Hood, all of the warships that morning had played their part.
Over the next minute Hood fired two more salvos, her eight and ninth, both of four shells, and both aimed at the Prinz Eugen. 8 With her gun director tower out of action there was little chance of achieving a hit, and sure enough both salvos fell short. The German cruiser fired back with an eight-gun salvo – her sixth and last at the battlecruiser. The range was now a little below 17,500 yards (8.25 miles), and so the flight time was 24 seconds. The salvo straddled Hood a little forward of amidships, and one of the shells struck her at the base of the foremast, just forward of the front funnel. This area was already littered with fallen debris from the director tower and foremast, and some of it was already burning.
This fresh hit from an 8in. shell caused the fire to intensify, its flames licking around the single 4in. gun mounting there. At that moment, Captain Brinkmann received a signal from Lütjens, ordering him to switch targets from the Hood to the ‘King George V’, which is what he called the British battleship throughout the battle.9 Now that Bismarck had the range of the battlecruiser, he wanted Brinkmann’s 8in. guns to do what they could to distract the enemy battleship’s gunners.
Meanwhile, Bismarck opened up with her fourth salvo at Hood. The range was 18,600 yards (9.2 miles), but this time the eight German shells fell short, sending up huge columns of water off the battlecruiser’s starboard bow. This was largely because of the battlecruiser’s most recent turn to port. So, the German gunnery direction teams compensated for this and readied their next salvo. Meanwhile the Prince of Wales was firing rapidly, letting loose her tenth salvo at 05.58, and her 11th one 30 seconds later.10 Both of these were with five guns – the forward armament, less the broken-down gun from ‘A’ turret. Both missed, and landed short. The range was 17,100 yards (9.2 miles), so the shells were taking around 26 seconds to reach their target. This gave no time to correct the aim between salvos; the gun direction teams were correcting aim every two salvos.
Meanwhile, on board Hood, V. Adm. Holland and Captain Kerr largely disregarded the fires burning behind them. Kerr’s only visible response to the loss of his foretop director tower came when it rained scrap metal and body parts down on the compass platform and the teak deck of the platform surrounding it, whereupon he sent a midshipman out to identify a body that had landed outside the compass platform door. The ashen-faced youngster returned, saying there wasn’t enough to identify, save that he had been a lieutenant. As for Holland, he was concentrating on the battle. In a few moments Hood would pass through her ‘zone of vulnerability’ – the outer range band where she was at risk from plunging shells hitting her deck, and so after evaluating the rapidly closing range he had to make a decision.
At 05.59, he ordered another small course change of 20 degrees to port.11 This would put Hood on a course of 260°, and would finally clear the arcs of her two rear turrets. This meant she would be firing full eight-shell salvos at her target, which by now should have been Bismarck. However, for some inexplicable reason her forward 15in. guns were still trained on the Prinz Eugen, a little over 17,000 yards (8.4 miles) away. The order was passed to the helmsman, and the battlecruiser slowly began to turn. Astern of her, the Prince of Wales had drifted slightly to starboard of the flagship, thanks to the battlecruiser turning first, and the battleship was now lying about 750 yards (0.3 mile) off Hood’s starboard quarter. Meanwhile, both sides continued to fire at each other. By now, Prinz Eugen had switched her fire to the Prince of Wales, and she fired three salvos at her in two minutes. These, her seventh, eighth and ninth salvos of the battle, all missed. Her gunnery direction teams were still trying to acquire the new target.
At 05.59, Hood fired her tenth salvo at the German cruiser, but once again all four of her shells fell short.12 Soon, her turn would allow ‘X’ and ‘Y’ turrets to bear, and their gun teams were loaded and ready. Her 11th salvo would thus be her first full broadside of the battle. Behind her, the turn to port had already done the trick for the Prince of Wales. ‘Y’ turret with its four barrels now had a clear arc of fire, and so the battleship fired two salvos at Bismarck – her first with all three turrets. Instead of ten 14in. shells, however, only eight of them were fired towards the Bismarck. One of the four barrels of ‘Y’ turret malfunctioned before it could even fire, and so with the permanent loss of another barrel in ‘A’ turret, that brought her broadside down to eight shells. The British battleship’s 12th salvo was fired at 05.59, at a range of just over 16,200 yards (8 miles), while the 13th salvo followed some 30 seconds later.
The first of the two salvos fell short, but the second one straddled the Bismarck, and one of them struck her after superstructure, on her after boat deck just below the mainmast. It exploded on the deck but did no real damage, apart from wrecking one of the battleship’s wooden 37.8ft picket boats, and damaging another. She carried four of them on the deck, and the shell landed next to the pair mounted on the port side of the small, cluttered deck. A small fire started, but it was soon extinguished by a damage control party that was based a little further aft below the after gunnery director, where Müllenheim-Rechberg was stationed. He was ordered to keep an eye on Norfolk and Suffolk, shadowing the battleship 12 miles away to the north. As he put it: ‘I found it very difficult to deny myself glimpses of the morning’s main event.’13 Suffolk fired the occasional salvo, but it fell far short, and Bismarck never replied – her gunners were too busy duelling with the Hood.
Apart from these brief glances forward, Müllenheim-Rechberg was only able to listen to the commentary supplied by Korvettenkapitän Schneider, the battleship’s first gunnery officer. As the minutes ticked by and the duel continued, Müllenheim-Rechberg could hear Schneider order gunnery corrections after watching the previous salvo’s fall of shot, and offered a brief commentary on the action. At 06.00 Bismarck fired her fifth salvo at the Hood. The range was 17,200 yards (8.5 miles), and the flight time was roughly 23 seconds. The salvo was a perfect straddle. Müllenheim-Rechberg heard Schneider exclaim: ‘Wow, was that a misfire? That really ate into him!’ He stepped over to the port director, which was trained on the Hood rather than the Suffolk and was rewarded with a sight he would never forget.
The Hood was still turning to port when the salvo landed, but the battlecruiser was 860ft 7in. long, so it took time for the water pressure on the rudder to push that long, slim hull around to its new course.14 Prince of Wales was only 745ft 1in. long, and if Hood had been 115.5ft shorter things might have worked out very differently. Bismarck’s fifth salvo had landed a little short, and without the course change it would have landed just off the battlecruiser’s starboard quarter. Instead, thanks to the turn and the ship’s length, it straddled her. One of the Bismarck’s eight shells struck Hood behind her mainmast, just in front of the squat tower that was topped by her searchlight control position. What happened next is still a matter of some conjecture. The basics, though, were quite straightforward. The 15in. shell carved its way through the 2in.-thick upper deck armour and then travelled through it
to explode in a compartment on the deck below.
Almost certainly, that main deck compartment was the working space for the battlecruiser’s 4in. ammunition.15 This set off charges stored there, and the resulting explosion triggered more ammunition in the small arms magazine beneath it, on the lower deck. In an instant, the fireball continued down to the 4in. main ammunition magazine below it. Just beyond it, through this magazine’s after bulkhead, was the magazine for the propelling charges for ‘X’ turret. While the exact sequence of events may never be known, the most likely theory is that the explosion in the 4in. magazine went on to ignite these propelling charges, and in turn the rest of ‘X’ turret’s magazine. Within a second, the resulting explosion blew the huge turret into the air, amid an enormous pillar of orange flame. The blast ripped the stern clear off the ship.
On the Prince of Wales, Captain Leach was on the battleship’s compass platform, and while concentrating on his fight with the Bismarck, he also kept glancing over at the Hood, just 750 yards (0.3 mile) off his port bow.16 He’d seen the fire erupt amidships and was hoping it was being brought under control. He was looking at the battlecruiser when Bismarck’s fifth salvo landed. He recalled the moment:
There were, I think, two shots short and one over, but it may have been the other way round. But, I formed the impression at the time that something had arrived on board Hood in a position just before the mainmast, and slightly to starboard. It was not a very definite impression that I had, but it was sufficiently definite to make me look at Hood for a further period. I, in fact, wondered what the result was going to be, and between one and two seconds after I formed that impression an explosion took place in the Hood which appeared to me to come from very much the same position on the ship. There was a very fierce upward rush of flame the shape of a funnel, rather a thin funnel, and almost instantaneously the ship was enveloped in smoke from one end to the other.
Hunt the Bismarck Page 16