Battleship Bismarck (39 page)

2358   Fleet Commander to Führer of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler: “We will fight to the last in belief in you, my Führer, and in unshakable confidence in Germany’s victory.”

2359   Fleet to Group West: “Ship is able to defend herself and propulsion plant intact. Does not respond to steering with engines, however.”

0004   Commander in Chief, Group West, to Fleet Commander: “Our thoughts and good wishes are with our victorious comrades.”

0014   Commander in Chief, Kriegsmarine, to Fleet Commander: “All our thoughts are with you and your ship. We wish you success in your hard fight.”

0113   Group West to Fleet: “Tugs have been dispatched. Three Focke-Wulf 200 near the
Bismarck
at dawn. Three bomber groups start between 0500 and 0600.”

Soon after the signal of 0113 had been read out, a report circulated that at daybreak eighty-one Iunkers-88 bombers would take off from France to attack the British fleet. Where this precise figure originated, I have never been able to discover, but it may be that the Luftwaffe officer on his staff, Hauptmann
*
Fritz Grohé, told Lütjens that a bomber group consisted of twenty-seven aircraft. If he did, Grohé did not say and probably did not know how many of them were operational. In any case, the news gave the crew a big lift.

Radio signals continued:

0147   Group West to Fleet:
“Ermland
*
leaves La Pallice 0500 to assist.”

0153   Adolf Hitler to Fleet Commander: “I thank you in the name of the entire German people.”

0153   Adolf Hitler to crew of
Bismarck:
“All Germany is with you. What can be done, will be done. Your performance of duty will strengthen our people in the struggle for its destiny.”

0217   Fleet Commander to Commander in Chief, Kriegsmarine: “Recommend bestowal of the Knight’s Cross on Korvettenkapitän Schneider for sinking
Hood.
”

0221   Group West to Fleet: “Send directional signals on 852 meters wavelength for five minutes at 0 and 30 minutes every hour for U-boats.”

0235   Commander in Chief, Group North to Fleet Commander and
Bismarck:
“We think of you all with loyalty and pride.”

0351   Commander in Chief, Kriegsmarine, to Korvettenkapitän Schneider, Fleet Commander to be informed: “The Führer has bestowed Knight’s Cross on you for sinking battle cruiser
Hood.
Hearty congratulations.”

0419   Group West to Fleet: “For Luftwaffe, weather reports every two hours with cloud ceiling. First report needed immediately.”

0443   Group West to Fleet: “For bombers send directional signals on 443 kHz. for five minutes at 15 and 45 minutes every hour. Begin at 0615.”

0500   Fleet to Group West: “Partly overcast, ceiling 600 meters, [wind] northwest 7.”

0542   Group West to Fleet: “Two Focke-Wulf 200 took off 0330. Reconnaissance 0445 to 0515. Three bomber groups 0530.”

0652   Fleet to Group West: “Situation unchanged. Wind strength 8 to 9.”

0745   Group West to Fleet: “Fifty-one bombers took off 0520 to 0645, appearance from 0900.”

0835   Group West to Fleet: “Today, around 1100, Spanish cruiser
Canarias
and two destroyers leave El Ferrol [for the position of the
Bismarck]
as a precaution to render assistance. Speed 20 to 22 knots.”

I do not recall the signal of 0835 being announced to the ship. When it arrived the
Bismarck
must have been in her battle with the
King
George V
and the
Rodney
, which began at 0847. The cooperation of the neutral Spanish was the result of a request that the chief of staff of the Seekriegsleitung, Admiral Otto Schniewind, had transmitted to the Spanish Navy through the German naval attaché in Madrid, Kapitän zur See Kurt Meyer-Döhner.

0900   Group West to Fleet: “Important for Luftwaffe. What is in sight where?”

This signal was not answered.

The destroyers’ attacks, their maneuvers, and their firing of star shells naturally meant tension-filled, exciting minutes for us. They claimed our attention and all our actions were concentrated on defense. The news the Fleet Commander and the ship’s command gave us over the loudspeakers took our minds off the hopeless situation, raised morale, and revived sinking hopes. However, defending ourselves and listening to reports of the radio traffic were only brief episodes and were interspersed with long, indeed endless-seeming, periods of inactivity, which gave us time to talk or think.

Most of the time during the lulls between destroyer attacks we proceeded at very low speed, but occasionally we stopped. At such times the
Bismarck
lay athwart the seas and rolled quite heavily. Of course, except for helping us to defend ourselves, it did not matter whether we made headway or not, because when daylight came on 27 May, Tovey’s battleships would find us one way or another.

Besides the assigned midshipman, the fire-control petty officers, and an ordnanceman, there were at my station two prize-crew officers and one of the reporters assigned to cover Exercise Rhine. Fate had decreed that the prize officers would never take a captured enemy merchantman with a valuable cargo into a German port. And the journalist, who in his eight days at sea had collected a wealth of dramatic material for publication at home, would never be able to write his story. Naturally, we chatted about the prospects of our situation changing for the better. The men were full of hope and seemed convinced that somehow we would reach France. They lived in the expectation that the promises from home would be fulfilled and were sure that “our bombers will mop up in the morning.” For the sake of the crew in my station, I had to show optimism, so I agreed. Actually, I assessed our situation quite differently, but could not share my deep uneasiness with anyone.

Finding it rather close in the station, when a lull in the battle allowed I walked out to the open searchlight-control station. In the
darkness I could discern the outlines of our superstructure, but the sea was empty. It happened to be a moment when we were lying athwart the seas and rolling heavily. Some distance below me on the upper deck a heavy door was making a metallic clang as it swung open and shut in rhythm with the movement of the ship. It was enough to get on one’s nerves. A symptom of slackening discipline? Of course not. A death knell for us? That was more like it. Thank goodness, someone finally closed it tight.

Thoughts rushed in on me. There we were, in the Atlantic 400 nautical miles west of Brest, in the most modern and most powerful German battleship of the time. A highly refined work of technology, she was virtually without equal, yet one small part of her, the rudder, was the cause of the situation we were in. It was amazing that our principle of carrying replacements for all important components apparently did not apply to the rudder. That omission proved to be a real Achilles’ heel. There was nothing wrong with our propulsion plant and our hull was in good enough condition to get us to port. If only we had some sort of replacement rudder, a bow rudder or a rudder that could be lowered from the keel in deep water. Yes, if only we had! Then perhaps on this moonless night we could slip away from the enemy. But what use were these hypothetical reflections? They were only wishful thinking, illusions born of the abundance of time and the impossibility of doing anything.

The northwest wind increased steadily throughout the night and chased low rain clouds even faster across the water. I thought the likelihood that tankers and tugs would be able to bring us relief in the morning was nil. What about the eighty-one Junkers-88s? In weather like this and at the limit of their range? They would never find us. These doubts, too, I kept to myself. Suddenly it began to blow more violently. In a matter of seconds the wind strength seemed to increase by two or three numbers. It must now be Force 9. That would have to happen, I thought, to create still another complication. The wind howled through the signal halyards. Before I went back to my station, I glanced up at Leutnant zur See Hans-Joachim Ritter’s flak-control station “C,” where a lookout was on duty. How drafty it must be up there! A strange thought flashed through my mind—you up there, unknown shipmate, it will be all over for both of us on 27 May. In the gray of morning the British battleships will arrive long before help can get anywhere near us.

The minutes crept past. It didn’t seem to want to pass, this sinister night of waiting, and waiting for nothing but the end. Enforced inactivity
and the certainty of approaching defeat made it doubly depressing. The end must and indeed would come, but it was coming in agonizingly slow motion. Action was the only thing that could relieve the almost unbearable tension.

What did the men think about the situation they were in? For days they, too, had been at their action stations, cut off in their compartments and turrets from all but a few of their comrades, often without an officer near. They did have in common the experience of listening to what Lütjens had to say two days earlier about the predicament their ship was in, but his somber way of presenting things had created an atmosphere of depression. Lindemann’s ensuing words gave some comfort and the intervening time had quieted many of their fears—but with the news of the jammed rudder, their dejection returned. They were told about all the efforts that were being made to repair the damage, but not in detail and only at long intervals. They could not have heard much that was encouraging, and so they had once again to prepare themselves to face the fate they had drawn. When, after midnight, it was announced that work on the rudders had ceased, hope evaporated. The older men took the news as a sentence of death for ship and crew. Everyone had to find his own way of dealing with the inevitable. Some fell into a mood of total indifference, in which nothing more could have any effect on them.

In the damage control center Kapitänleutnant (Ingenieurwesen) Jahreis had filled a sudden silence with the words, “We have some time now, let’s think once more of the homeland!” and Pumpenmeister Sagner added, “Ja, and of wives and children most of all.” Then Sagner lay his head on the table and shut everything out; absolute silence reigned in the compartment. Statz had already concluded that he would never leave the center, but after a minute or two everything was back to normal.

After the news of the cessation of the rudder repair every eye turned to the First Officer, as always in critical moments. But also as always, no word came from him, no word of reassurance or any kind of encouragement—only instructions in the line of duty, nothing about him had changed. A picture of devotion to duty, no doubt, a soldier out of a picture book. One look from him sufficed and everyone went back to work. Inwardly, the men in his area felt abandoned by him.

Later in the night permission was given for everyone to help himself to anything he wanted. This was a clear sign that the ship’s command knew the end had come. And the men, above all the young ones, clung more than ever to the radio signals from home, to the
promised help, the planes, the U-boats, the tanker, and the ocean tugs. Repeatedly, the word came over the loudspeaker, “Watch for our planes”—“Watch for our U-boats.” Over and over again new hope was built.

Hope, so useful and so fragile, how often it had come and gone in these days and nights.

Down in the engine rooms, where endurance had been strained to the utmost during the destroyer attacks, things were calmer that morning. The tension and stress of the last hours gave way to irresistible fatigue. Four days without sleep were too much, and they had been followed by this frenzied night. Men, hardly able to stay on their feet, lay down where they were and slept the sleep of exhaustion. Some of them were aroused only by the firing of our guns and the explosion of enemy shells.

*
Russell Grenfell,
The Bismarck Episode
, may have been describing this incident when, on page 168, he wrote: “As the
Maori
retreated those on board her were sure they saw a torpedo hit [on the
Bismarck].
A bright glow seemed to illuminate the enemy’s waterline and shortly afterwards another vivid glare appeared to betoken a second explosion.”

*
Ludovic Kennedy,
Pursuit
, p. 184.

*
In his book,
The Loss of the Bismarck
, Vice Admiral B. B. Schofield remarks on page 59 that the
Maori
observed one certain torpedo hit on the
Bismarck
during the night. On page 60, he writes, “The question of how many torpedo hits were obtained during these attacks will never be known with absolute certainty.” I can certify that the
Bismarck
was not hit by a single torpedo from a destroyer that night.

*
Captain (Army and Luftwaffe)

*
A supply ship

30    Attempts to Save the Fleet War Diary