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

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СКАЧАТЬ long message gave the Royal Navy a chance to fix Bismarck’s position on the map, but owing to confusion and misunderstandings at the Admiralty – compounded by the fact that the flagship navigator used the wrong charts – the big ship was not found. In the ensuing muddle, signals from other ships were intercepted and plotted and declared to be Bismarck. The German navy’s radio traffic looked identical as regards letter-grouping, spacing, serial numbers and so on. At 1320 on 25 May, when the search was at its most frantic, a signal from a U-boat was intercepted. The Admiralty intelligence officers decided that this was from the Bismarck pretending to be a U-boat, and using the U-boat radio signals and transmitting frequency.

      The bungling began to be sorted out when these transmissions were compared with oscilloscope photos of the radio wave of Bismarck’s transmitter (taken when it passed Denmark on the outward leg). By that time Bismarck’s approximate position had been estimated by someone in signals intelligence who noticed the flurry of German naval signals was no longer coming from Wilhelmshaven; it was coming from Paris. This suggested that Bismarck could probably be found somewhere along the line from its last known position to one of the French ports.

      Still it was only guesswork; the Bismarck might have escaped but for a curious misfortune. The only Enigma signals that the British could read regularly and quickly were those of the Luftwaffe.

      In Athens in connection with the Crete invasion, the Luftwaffe’s chief of staff, Hans Jeschonnek, worried about his youngest son who was in the crew of the Bismarck. Anxiously he called his staff in Berlin to ask what was happening to the ship. His staff in the Berlin Air Ministry found out and transmitted a radio signal (using Luftwaffe Enigma), telling him that his son’s ship was heading for the west coast of France. It was a parent’s anxiety that provided London with the information that settled the fate of the Bismarck.

      An RAF flying boat crew of 209 Squadron, Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, and the flyers on the aircraft-carrier Ark Royal were briefed on the supposition that Bismarck was somewhere on a line drawn from there to Brest. It seems that no one at the Admiralty was aware that the only French port with a dry dock large enough to hold the Bismarck was St Nazaire.

      It was 31 hours later, on 26 May, that a Catalina flying boat using ASV Mk II radar found Bismarck. About 45 minutes later a Swordfish from the aircraft-carrier Ark Royal flew to the spot and confirmed the sighting. HMS Sheffield, equipped with an old Type 79 radar designed for air-warning, used it to make contact with the Bismarck, and trailed along waiting for Ark Royal and the battleship Renown.

      With the end of the flight deck pitching 60 feet, and a wind over the deck recorder wavering between 45 and 55 knots, the deck crews readied the aircraft aboard Ark Royal. No one there had ever tried to fly-off planes in this sort of weather but there was no alternative. One Swordfish pilot gives us this account:

      Ranging the Swordfish that morning called for the strength of Hercules and the patience of Job. Time and time again, as the flight deck tilted at fantastic angles, a plane would slide bodily towards the catwalks, dragging with it forty to fifty ratings who were struggling to man-handle it aft. But somehow by 8.30 am ten planes were ranged and ready to fly off on a broad fronted search to locate Bismarck. At 8.35 am the carrier reduced speed and swung into the wind. [Deck officer] Traill choosing his moment carefully, dropped his flag, and aboard both Ark Royal and Renown ship’s companies held their breath as the leading plane gathered way. Would she make it?

      As the flight deck tilted down, the take-off degenerated into a frantic, slithering glissade. It looked for one terrible moment as though the aircraft were plunging straight into the maw of an approaching wave. But Traill had timed his signal well. At the last second the deck swung up and the plane was flung off through the spume of a sixty-foot wave as it cascaded over the carrier’s bow. And the almost unbelievable thing was this. The miracle was repeated not once, but nine times, until the whole of the searching force was airborne.⁴

      The weather was foul, but the Swordfish made good radar contact from above cloud using ASV Mk II radar and launched a low-level attack that failed completely. The torpedoes were set to activate their magnetic pistols but most of them exploded as they hit the water; others dived and disappeared. This was just as well, for the ship they attacked was HMS Sheffield! ‘Sorry about the kippers,’ the attackers signalled the angry men aboard Sheffield as they flew back to their carrier. Three of the aircraft crashed on to the pitching deck.

      The pilots of the 15-plane second strike were prudently ordered to locate HMS Sheffield first and then go to attack the Bismarck. And this strike force did not try the magnetic pistols again; its torpedoes were set to ‘contact’ and they would run at ten feet. It was old technology but more reliable. Three planes attacked just as Bismarck went into an evasive turn. One torpedo ‘ripped a large hole in the stern structure beneath the steering room gear’. This probably weakened a weld aft of the transverse armoured bulkhead at Frame 10.⁵ The immediate effect was damage to the starboard propellers and steering gear and a jammed rudder.

      It was dark, late and overcast as the planes returned. All the Swordfish got back safely, although most of them had been damaged by gunfire and many were wrecked on landing. One plane had been hit 175 times. The aircrews claimed no strikes with the torpedoes. The failure of the airstrike was received with mixed feelings. Admiral Tovey in command had never had much faith in the torpedo planes, and the captain of nearby HMS Rodney personally took the microphone to tell his crew, over the ship’s loudspeakers, that the planes had failed.

      But the strike had not failed. The first indication of this was a surprising signal from Sheffield that said that Bismarck was doing a U-turn and reversing course. Admiral Tovey refused to believe the report and added a sarcastic remark about the Sheffield’s seamanship. But the men aboard Sheffield were right and Bismarck was in a desperate situation. With steering jammed, it could only go round in gigantic circles. An attempt to cut the rudder away with underwater equipment proved impossible in the heavy swell. A suggestion that explosives should be used was rejected because it would inevitably damage the finely balanced propellers.

      Now, in his final hours, Admiral Lütjens signalled to Germany ‘ship unmanoeuvrable’ and to Hitler ‘We shall fight to the end trusting in you, mein Führer.’ During the night, four destroyers, one of them Polish, attacked Bismarck with torpedoes. The German gunnery radar demonstrated its effectiveness in the hours of darkness, and none of the torpedoes scored a hit. No progress was made in mending the ship’s rudder.

      Afterwards there were those who thought that the melancholy Lütjens had some sort of death wish. At the start of the voyage he had chosen to go through the Kattegat (between Sweden and Denmark) where the gigantic battleship was sure to be noticed by the Swedes, instead of through the Kiel Canal; then, against the advice of his staff, he had chosen the Denmark Strait where pack-ice and a minefield left him only a narrow and predictable course; and after that he had failed to hammer the Prince of Wales and escape. When safe at last, he sent a radio message that endangered him. The survivors also remembered that, before leaving Norway, Lütjens had declined the chance to have the fuel tanks topped up.

      On Bismarck’s long last night afloat it was decided to catapult the three undamaged Arado Ar 196 aircraft and fly them to France with the ship’s log and other valuables. Men were invited to send mail home, and many last letters were written. Lütjens asked Berlin if his gunnery officer could be awarded the Knight’s Cross for his successful sinking of HMS Hood and the ceremony took place at 4 am. When daylight came, and the first Arado plane was loaded with mail, it was discovered that none of the planes could be launched because the catapult had been damaged beyond repair. That morning, at 7 o’clock, a doleful radio message from Lütjens asked for a U-boat to collect СКАЧАТЬ