Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II. Len Deighton

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СКАЧАТЬ Prinz Eugen, which had been mistaken for Bismarck. Then all the other big ships started firing. The Prince of Wales’s first salvo fell 1,000 yards beyond Bismarck.

      The Bismarck’s first salvo was fired at the Hood, which was in the lead. Its improved Seetakt 90-cm radar provided the correct range but the shells fell ahead of Hood and she steamed into the spray they made. The second salvo from Prinz Eugen scored a direct hit on Hood. A shell burst on the upper deck, igniting anti-aircraft ammunition stored there in ready-use lockers. The midship section of Hood was soon enveloped in flames and giving off dense smoke. Bismarck’s third salvo was the high-trajectory fire to which British battleships were so vulnerable. Still today experts disagree on whether an armour-piercing shell penetrated the Hood’s thin deck armour to explode in an aft magazine or whether this 42,100-ton battleship was blown in two as a result of fires spreading to a magazine from the earlier hit. The explosion was horrendous. After separated bows and stern had risen high from the water, Hood disappeared leaving only a smoky haze over the disturbed water. An officer on a destroyer which went to pick up Hood’s survivors wrote:

      But where were the boats, the rafts, the floats? … And the men, where were the men? … far over to starboard we saw three men – two of them swimming, one on a raft. But on the chilling waters around them was no other sign of life.³

      Of the crew of 1,419 men, only one midshipman and two ratings survived. The midshipman’s survival was especially miraculous. He was in a spotting top, 140 feet above the water. He told his rescuers that ‘he didn’t know what the hell was happening, save that the compartment was filled mysteriously with water’.

      Korvettenkapitän Jaspers, Prinz Eugen’s gunnery officer, who was watching the Hood said: ‘The aft magazine blew up, shooting into the air a molten mass the colour of red lead, which then fell back lazily into the sea – it was one of the rear gun turrets … And in the midst of this raging inferno, a yellow tongue of flame shot out just once more: the forward turrets of Hood had fired one last salvo.’

      Now the Prince of Wales became the target for both German ships. The compass platform was hit by a 15-inch shell. It didn’t explode but fragments of the binnacle killed or wounded everyone there but the captain and the yeoman of signals. The difficulty of making shells that would penetrate thick steel and then explode was demonstrated now as six more German shells struck home, all of them detonating only partially or not at all. Undeterred, Prince of Wales continued on course until it had closed to 14,600 yards. Six salvoes were loosed at Bismarck before one of the shells found its mark, flooding the forecastle, rupturing one of the fuel tanks and disconnecting tanks forward of it, so that 1,000 tons of fuel were cut off. Two other shells had hit Bismarck: one damaged a dynamo, the other was a dud that glanced off the deck causing only slight damage.

      Either ship might have gone on and destroyed its opponent but both had had enough. Prince of Wales was badly damaged as well as having trouble with the gun turrets. She turned away under a smoke screen.

      In London, as in Berlin, the news that the action had been broken off was not welcomed. Churchill saw the prospect of a rampaging Bismarck as a direct challenge to Britain’s traditional role, and feared that it would be ‘trumpeted round the world to our great detriment and discomfort’. The disengagement was a ‘bitter disappointment and grief to me’. Hitler felt the same way and said that Bismarck should have immediately dealt with the Prince of Wales too, and not run away.

      Out in the cold grey ocean, Prince of Wales and Norfolk were joined by the carrier Victorious. So grave was the emergency that the carrier had been detached from escorting Troop Convoy WS 8B to the Middle East. These warships trailed the two Germans using the Suffolk’s radar to keep in contact, but again the operators found it difficult to keep radar contact at extreme range. That night the pursuers decided to use the carrier’s aircraft in an attempt to slow the Bismarck.

      With the equipment available at that time, carrier take-offs and landings at night were sometimes permitted in perfect weather. Now the carrier was pitching and rolling in a rising gale and rainstorms from low scudding clouds made visibility zero. The air crews were fresh from training school; some had never made a carrier take-off or landing before. (The desperate shortage of navy pilots had sent these aircrews to Victorious to be instructed while the carrier was on convoy duty.) It was 2200 hours (Double Summer Time), and light was changing and deceptive. Dutifully Victorious flew off a striking force of Swordfish torpedo-carrying biplanes and Fulmar fighters.

      One of the Swordfish was equipped with an ASV Mk II radar and its operator ‘saw’ a ship through cloud. But when the plane descended it was identified as a US coast guard cutter on Atlantic weather patrol. Now that the planes were below the cloud, they spotted Bismarck about six miles away, but the element of surprise was lost. It was through heavy gunfire – Bismarck had 84 anti-aircraft guns – that they made the slow, low, straight and steady approach that is required for torpedo dropping.

      Despite the way in which the aircraft came in from different angles, Bismarck was able to swerve violently and avoid seven torpedoes. The eighth one hit the starboard side, near the bridge. This hit shifted one of the heavy side-belt armour plates but its backing of thick teak wood absorbed much of the armour’s displacement. The Bismarck reported to Naval Group Command West that the torpedo had done no more than ‘scratched the paintwork’. It had achieved more than that, but its immediate effect upon Bismarck’s performance was negligible.

      To find a carrier at night over the ocean is a daunting task, and the Victorious’s homing beacon was not working. Upon hearing the planes returning the carrier’s captain ordered searchlights on to help them, but they were swiftly doused on the repeated order of the vice-admiral. Despite the admiral’s exaggerated caution, and with the help of the flight leader’s ASV radar, the ‘Stringbags’ found their home ship again and landed in the dark. Not all the Fulmar aircraft were so lucky. It was midnight. The crews had had an eventful Saturday night out and a memorable introduction to carrier flying.

      Bismarck was not slowed. When the Swordfish aircraft attacked, it had already parted company with Prinz Eugen. Now it turned south-west on a direct route for the Bay of Biscay and the French ports. The Suffolk, unready for such a move, lost both German ships on the radar, and when daylight came, more flights from the Victorious failed to discover any sign of the enemy. Low on fuel, the force – Prince of Wales, Victorious and Suffolk – turned west, still failed to find Bismarck, and soon headed for various ports to refuel.

      There was no rejoicing aboard Bismarck. It was Sunday 25 May 1941 and the 52nd birthday of Admiral Lütjens. He addressed the ship’s company, delivering a melancholy message of doing and dying. Gerhard Junack, one of the Bismarck’s engineer officers said: ‘The admiral wished with these words to rid the crew of their over-exuberance and bring them into a more realistic frame of mind; but in fact he overdid it, and there was a feeling of depression among the crew which spread through all ranks from the highest to the lowest … The crew began to brood and neglected their duties.’

      Examples of this neglect now played a vital part in the battle. Because Bismarck’s electronics specialists were still picking up radar impulses from Suffolk they didn’t guess that Suffolk’s radar could not ‘see’ Bismarck’s pulses. Bismarck’s decrypt specialists were neglectful too. They were intercepting Suffolk’s regular radio transmissions, and failed to notice that the shadower was no longer sending position reports. And so it was that Admiral Lütjens didn’t know that he had given the slip to his pursuers. He betrayed his position by sending a very long signal to the German Naval Command Group West (Paris). They replied telling him that the British cruisers had lost contact СКАЧАТЬ