Target Tirpitz: X-Craft, Agents and Dambusters - The Epic Quest to Destroy Hitler’s Mightiest Warship. Patrick Bishop

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СКАЧАТЬ sleeve of green water, flecked with floes, but saw nothing. Then, early that evening, the voice of Captain Robert Ellis sounded over the tannoy. He broadcast news that was both exciting and alarming. Bismarck had left Bergen. Her destination was unknown but there was a strong chance she was heading their way. The ship’s officers did not allow the revelation to disturb their sangfroid. They gathered, as usual, in the wardroom for a drink before dinner. The captain had just walked in to join them when a klaxon blared, calling all hands to their action stations. The officers slammed down their sherries and pink gins and dashed to their posts. ‘It was the enemy!’ Lieutenant Commander Charles Collett recorded afterwards. ‘[And] they were only six miles away, slinking along the edge of the ice in a snowstorm.’¹

      The moment that Winston Churchill and the Admiralty had been waiting for had arrived. Bismarck was at sea. Simultaneously, a great threat and a great opportunity had materialized. Sinking her would count as a magnificent naval victory. It would also provide some longed-for good news after a succession of setbacks, failures and disappointments. The relief of surviving the Battle of Britain had given way to the bleak realization of the nation’s isolation and the immensity of the difficulties ahead. The country was now engaged in another struggle for existence, which Churchill had christened the Battle of the Atlantic. Having failed to bring Britain to terms by the threat of invasion, Germany had switched strategy and was trying to starve her into submission, by cutting the lifelines that connected her with the rest of the world. Churchill was to judge later that ‘amid the torrent of violent events one anxiety reigned supreme … dominating all our power to carry on the war, or even keep ourselves alive, lay mastery of the ocean routes and the free approach and entry to our ports’.

      It was the navy’s principal duty to defend these routes but the task was overwhelming. It no longer had the resources of the French fleet, a large part of which lay at the bottom of Mers-el-Kebir harbour, sunk by British guns. America gave all the help it could, but had yet to enter the war. Early engagements, in the battle for Norway and on the high seas, had failed to neutralize the threat from the German navy. Instead, in the spring of 1941, the Kriegsmarine was setting the pace in the struggle.

      The main battleground was the vital sea lanes of the North Atlantic. In March and April 1941, nearly half a million tons of Allied shipping had been sent to the bottom. Most of it was sunk by U-boats, whose effectiveness had been badly underestimated by a complacent Admiralty in the interwar years. Until now the surface raiders that Admiral Pound had feared would ‘paralyse’ the sea lanes had played a secondary part in the campaign. That seemed about to change. A foray by the battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in February and March had resulted in the destruction or capture of twenty-two ships totalling 115,600 tons. Now it was Bismarck’s turn and the transatlantic convoys, already ravaged by bombardment from land-based bombers and ambush by prowling U-boats, would be at the mercy of the most powerful German warship yet put to sea.

      When the news of the sighting came through, Churchill was embarked on a weekend at Chequers with his wife Clementine, his daughter Sarah and her husband, the comedian Vic Oliver, as well as the devoted Major General Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay, his Chief of Staff as Minister of Defence. He had also invited Averell Harriman, President Roosevelt’s special representative. Before dinner that Friday night the Prime Minister was pondering a stream of unwelcome progress reports on the operation to seize Crete. The British effort was faltering. After being caught off guard, the Germans had fought back strongly. Paratroopers seized the vital airfield at Maleme and reinforcements were flying in. Luftwaffe fighters had begun to arrive that day as well as artillery units. Bismarck’s detection raised hopes that some better tidings might be on the way. Churchill waited up until 3 a.m., for the latest developments, but eventually gave up and went to bed.

      The Bismarck’s breakout had been expected for days. An initial report from Captain Henry Denham, the busy British naval attaché in neutral Sweden, that the battleship had left the Baltic was soon reinforced by sightings by RAF reconnaissance flights and German naval signals decrypted by the Bletchley Park code breakers.

      The question was, which way would she come? There were two possibilities. She could aim for the Denmark Strait. Or she could take the shorter route and dart at the gap between the Faroe and Shetland Islands. The Commander of the Home Fleet Sir John Tovey had dispatched Norfolk and Suffolk under the command of Rear Admiral William Wake-Walker to deal with the first eventuality. At the same time he had detached a squadron under Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland consisting of the battle cruiser Hood, the battleship Prince of Wales and six destroyers to plug the Faroes–Shetlands gap.

      This was at first sight a formidable force. Hood was the biggest ship in the British fleet. Prince of Wales was brand new – so new that she had yet to complete working up and still had workers from Vickers Armstrongs on board when she sailed. On the evening of 22 May Tovey himself left Scapa Flow aboard his flagship King George V, and together with the aircraft carrier Victorious led the Home Fleet westwards.

      With the assets at his disposal, Tovey had every chance of intercepting Bismarck and bringing her to action. It was a thrilling prospect. Great sea actions were rare, yet they were the unspoken end of all naval training and preparation. From early puberty, naval cadets were steeped in the legends of Trafalgar and the Armada. Below decks, the pride in tradition though more subdued was present nonetheless. An epic battle offered those who fought in it the chance of distinction and to those who directed it the prospect of greatness. Tovey knew that if he sank the Bismarck his place in the Royal Navy’s history was assured. He accepted, too, that his peers were harsh judges and failure would bring ignominy.

      The odds on an interception were in his favour. Even so, there was still a good chance that Bismarck would reach the Atlantic unscathed. It had happened before. In February, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had evaded the Home Fleet to squeeze through the Faroes–Iceland gap to begin their Atlantic raid. If Bismarck repeated the feat, a ripe cluster of targets awaited her. There were eleven convoys plying the Atlantic, some of them perilously close to Bismarck’s likely point of arrival in the ocean’s northern reaches.

      It was important for Hitler’s long-term war plans that the battleship made it through. He was about to turn his armies eastwards against the Soviet Union and he needed a cowed and docile Europe at his back. The war at sea presented the best chance of bringing his last enemy in the west to heel. The original operation, codenamed Rheinübung, or Rhine Exercise, had been correspondingly ambitious. Admiral Räder’s plan had been to combine his four biggest ships in a powerful task force that could, temporarily at least, cause a suspension of the convoys, cutting off Britain’s maritime life-support system. Bismarck and Tirpitz would sail from Germany, and meet up with Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, now lying at Brest on the French Atlantic coast. One by one, though, his force had been whittled away. A lucky torpedo dropped by a Beaufort of RAF Coastal Command had done Gneisenau enough damage to put her out of action for six months. Then it was discovered that the boilers powering Scharnhorst’s steam turbines needed replacing. The battleships would have to operate on their own. For both it would be their first operation.

      There was one more blow to fall. Tirpitz’s progress from launch to commissioning had been slower than her sister’s. She had finally gone into service on 25 February that year. Spring sea trials in the Baltic had revealed numerous niggling mechanical difficulties. Räder decided he dare not risk her on a long and testing operation. The decision dismayed the crew and their new commander, Kapitän zur See Karl Topp. When Hitler paid a visit to the battleships as they lay at Gotenhafen, as the Germans called the Polish Baltic port of Gdynia, a fortnight before Rhine Exercise was to start, Topp begged him to overule Räder. Hitler refused. When Bismarck left Gotenhafen just before noon on 18 May, she had with her only a single big ship consort – the 14,000-ton heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen which, although new, had limited firepower and a short range.

      The operation was led by Admiral Günther Lütjens, the commander of the German fleet. His reputation stood high. It was he who had led Gneisenau and Scharnhorst during their late winter rampage. Lütjens’ down-turned mouth and hard eyes seldom broke into СКАЧАТЬ