Battleship Bismarck (42 page)

The
Bismarck’s
last battle was about to begin.

*
Jochen Brennecke,
Schlachtschiff Bismarck
, note 329, quotes statements I allegedly made to the Zurich
Weltwoche
in 1959 on the subject of this meeting with Lindemann. I have never made any statement, either oral or written, to that newspaper. I disavow both the content and the form of the remarks ascribed to me there. My impression of Lindemann on this last morning and the thoughts I had about my meeting with him are described in this book.

†
In the Kriegsmarine a “brown” ship was one in which no force commander (usually from the rank of Konteradmiral upwards) was embarked, and consequently the captain was the highest-ranking officer on board.

*
Paragraph 3 (the “Aryan Paragraph”) of the “Law for the Reconstitution of the Civil Service” of 7 April 1933 read as follows:

Paragraph 3

(1)   Civil servants who are not of Aryan origins are to be placed in retirement; insofar as honorary civil servants are concerned, they are to be dismissed from official connections.

(2)   Section 1 shall not apply to civil servants who have been civil servants since 1 August 1914 or who fought at the front for the German Reich or its allies during the world war or whose fathers or sons fell in the world war. The Reich Minister of the Interior can permit further exceptions in agreement with the minister of the responsible department or the highest state authorities for civil servants abroad.

This law was also employed, in part arbitrarily, against members of the three branches of the armed forces.

32    Tovey Sets the Time of the Final Action

At about 2130, after the second air attack on the
Bismark
, its leader, Lieutenant Commander Tim Coode, reported to Admiral Tovey in the
King George V
, “Estimate no hits.” It was bitter news, for it buried Tovey’s last hope of being able to stop the German battleship. However, he found it strange that shortly before this the
Sheffield
had reported the
Bismarck
on course 340 degrees. A northwesterly course? Towards his own formation? Highly improbable, not to say unbelievable. For, after Coode’s negative report, reason argued against the
Bismarck
making such a drastic course change, and Tovey sarcastically remarked to his staff, “I fear Larcom has joined the Recriprocal Club.”
*
Scarcely had he said this than a message came in from one of the aircraft shadowing the battleship,
“Bismarck
steering northerly course.” Really? Was Larcom right? Nine minutes later, a second aerial signal told him that the
Bismarck
was on a northerly course. Then a second report from the
Sheffield
confirmed the news.

If the
Bismarck
had not been damaged, why in the world would she steer this suicidal course towards the main body of his fleet? She must have been hit; indeed, she must be seriously damaged. No other explanation was possible. Now the opposing sides were coming towards
one another at a relative speed of almost 40 knots. That meant Tovey could force an action before it got dark. The
King George V
and the
Rodney
turned on a southerly course, towards the
Bismarck
.

It was somewhere about 2230 by the time the
Ark Royal
had recovered all her aircraft from the second attack. Captain Maund’s debriefing of their crews revealed that a hit amidships on the
Bismarck
had been observed. Tovey was so advised but he was still mystified. If she really had been hit amidships, how could that have anything to do with her present course?

It being completely dark by this time, Tovey realized that the last reconnaissance planes would have returned to the
Ark Royal
and no more reports would be forthcoming from them. He consoled himself with the knowledge that Vian’s destroyers would still be in contact with the
Bismarck
and, indeed, their subsequent reports convinced him that she was so seriously damaged that she could not change materially the course she was on. She was obviously compelled to run into the wind and, fortunately, towards Tovey’s position.

His German opponent would not escape him now. But, not being absolutely certain of the positions of either Force H, to the south of him, or the
Bismarck
, he decided to delay any action until dawn rather than risk collisions on this pitch-black night. Around 2230 he and the
Rodney
turned to a north-northeasterly and, later, a northerly and westerly course. What he wanted to do was come out of the northwest the next morning, so that the
Bismarck
would be silhouetted against the glowing, eastern horizon and he would have the most favorable conditions possible for directing his guns.

Tovey had no sooner made his first change in course than a report from Somerville, in the
Renown
, informed him that the
Bismarck
had probably received a second hit—this one on her starboard quarter. That was what Tovey had been hoping for. It told him that the
Bismarck’s
rudders or propellers must have been damaged and she was therefore as good as incapable of maneuvering. Now nothing could prevent a fight in the morning. He dashed off a handwritten note to the commanding officer of his flagship, Captain W. R. Patterson: “To K.G.V. The sinking of the
Bismarck
may have an effect on the war as a whole out of all proportion to the loss to the enemy of one battleship. May God be with you and grant you victory. JT 26/5/41.”

Tovey received the
Ark Royal’s
last reconnaissance report shortly before 0100 on 27 May. According to this message, immediately after the air attack the
Bismarck
turned two complete circles and came to
rest on a northerly heading. If there was any lingering doubt about her inability to maneuver, it was now dispelled. After days and nights of almost unbearable tension, Tovey and his staff felt immeasurable relief. Only seven hours earlier, hope of stopping the
Bismarck
had been virtually abandoned. The odds against it were a thousand to one. Only a miracle could help, and a miracle had happened, one that allowed him not only to determine almost to the minute the time of the action but to choose his tactics against the crippled enemy.

Tovey was not the only one who, on 26 May, was making calculations that seemed to have only the slightest chance of being correct. His almost vanished hope corresponded with our remote fear that the
Bismarck’s
steering gear would be hit. How likely was it that that would happen? During our training period, we occasionally practiced the battle problem “hit in the steering gear.” The drill was that two or three compartments were “flooded” and the men in them had to stay where they were. “How would it work in reality,” they asked their training officer, “if a hit penetrated, would we all be dead?” “Well, yes,” the officer replied, “and you should pretend to be dead. Put your caps on backwards and you’ll be counted as dead.” Then after a pause, he added, “But the chances of such a hit are a hundred thousand to one, practically nil.”

Within a matter of seconds, a half-buried British hope became a miracle, and a piece of almost impossible German bad luck became a catastrophe!

Soon after he heard that the
Bismarck
had turned two complete circles, Tovey, wanting to be sure he didn’t get too far away from the enemy, returned to a somewhat southerly course. He ordered Somerville to keep his task force at least twenty nautical miles away from the
Bismarck
, which would be close enough for air operations by the
Ark Royal
yet far enough to keep the
Renown
from being exposed to the
Bismarck’s
superior gunnery. About 0230 Tovey, as previously mentioned, instructed Vian to have his destroyers fire star shells periodically so that a better continuous watch could be kept over the position of the
Bismarck
. However, Tovey was not particularly chagrined when Vian decided some half-hour later that the firing of the shells was endangering his destroyers and ordered it to cease. Numerous rain squalls were reducing visibility to the point where hardly anyone in the
King George V
could see the flares, anyway.

At daybreak, still not sure of the exact position of the
Bismarck
and visibility being poor, Tovey decided to wait an hour or two after it had
become completely light before beginning to fight. Thus, the
King George V
and the
Rodney
did not sight their enemy until 0843—0843 on 27 May.

It might be said that this was Tovey’s fourth effort to bring about this encounter. The first, 0900 on 25 May, was missed because the
Suffolk’s
radar contact with the
Bismarck
had been broken a few hours earlier. The second, on the evening of 26 May, was missed because, by the time he knew the
Bismarck
had been hit, night had fallen. The third, dawn on 27 May, had had to be passed up because he did not have the
Bismarck’s
precise position and the weather was not favorable. It wasn’t really a very long time since the evening of 26 May but it seemed to me then like eternity.

Besides the
King George V
, the
Rodney
, and Force H, two other British ships were trying to reach the scene of the coming battle on the morning of 27 May.

From the north came the ubiquitous
Norfolk
, our old “friend” from the Denmark Strait. Although she was running low on fuel, she had kept up the chase all day long on 26 May and, naturally, wanted to be in on the kill. As early as 0753 she sighted us to the southeast, at a distance of nine nautical miles. Assuming that we were the
Rodney
, Captain A. J. L. Phillips, the skipper of the
Norfolk
, ordered visual recognition signals to be made. He had no sooner done so than he realized that he was heading straight for the
Bismarck
at a speed of 20 knots. As he made an immediate, sharp turn to get his ship out of danger, he saw the
King George V
and the
Rodney
coming over the horizon and signaled Tovey,
“Bismarck
bearing 130°, range 16 nautical miles.” Thereupon, recognizing that he was a bit too far to the north, Tovey turned southward.

From the west came the
Dorsetshire
, which had been escorting a northbound convoy. When, at about 1100 on 26 May, Captain Martin received the Admiralty’s radio signal reporting that a Catalina had found the
Bismarck
again, he calculated that she was 360 nautical miles north of him. He immediately recognized that he had a good chance of intercepting her if it was true that she was making for the coast of France. On his own initiative, he decided to intervene and proceeded towards the
Bismarck
on an easterly course at high speed and with a following sea. When he appeared, unannounced and unexpected, at the scene of action, Tovey’s forces took him to be the
Prince Eugen
, and he narrowly missed being fired on by the Home Fleet.

When Tovey, with the
King George V
and the
Rodney
, finally steered towards the
Bismarck
, he did so in the hope that the sight of his two battleships heading straight for them would unnerve the German range-finding and fire-control officers. After all, the four anxious days and nights through which they had lived must have taken their toll.
*

*
An expression used in the Royal Navy when a 180–degree error is made in reporting a ship’s course or bearing. It is easy to make such a mistake because, when a warship is lying almost bow-on or stem-on to the observer, her stern and bow are sometimes indistinguishable. Captain Charles Larcom was commanding officer of the
Sheffield
.

*
“Sinking of the German Battleship
Bismarck
on 27th May 1941.” Dispatch by Admiral Sir John Tovey, Supplement to the
London Gazette
, 14 October 1947, Item No. 80.

33    The Last Battle