Battleship Bismarck (45 page)

In the
Rodney
, senior Lieutenant and Air Defense Officer Donald C. Campbell had been able to observe the whole course of the engagement. The “highest man” aboard in his storm-tossed action station in the lofty, unarmored antiaircraft director, he had an unimpaired view, from which no German aircraft appeared to distract him. He saw the
Rodney’s
first salvo fall far ahead of the
Bismarck
, presumably the result of overestimating her speed. The second British salvo
fell just a little closer and not until the third was one satisfactorily “short.” From the beginning, the
Bismarck’s
shooting impressed him as excellent by any standards and almost aroused fears of a repetition of the
Hood
disaster. The first German salvo was around 180 meters short and drenched the
Rodney
with a spray of evil-smelling water. The second, roaring over like fifty express-trains, struck the water with a deafening detonation around 300 meters in her wake. Campbell could follow the flight of the British 40.6-centimeter shells with his naked eye: black dots growing smaller on their trajectory. As the five dots from the
Rodney’s
fourth salvo were on the point of vanishing he was horrified to see their number almost double as the
Bismarck’s
third salvo appeared on a reciprocal trajectory in a two-way race for seconds to shatter the enemy’s armor and morale, a breathless duel that would decide life and death—and that the
Rodney
would win; for her five shells raised only three waterspouts and the
Bismarck’s
turret Bruno disappeared behind flame and smoke after the impact of two shells, while to Campbell the
Bismarck’s
onracing shells grew in size—he could even see a coppery gleam from their driving-bands, thought of the fate of the
Hood
and, in futile reaction, ducked his head. And then they hit, our third salvo, a straddle, a perfect straddle, port and starboard amidships, throwing great walls of dirty water over the
Rodney
, but not scoring a direct hit, missing her by a hairsbreadth. One of the many splinters flying around, a fist-sized chunk of red-hot iron, ripped into and around Campbell’s directory, smashing instruments, gun-ready lamps, telescopes, and the master-trigger for the antiaircraft battery,, and finally came to rest with a thud, but, thank God, without harming a one of the five men in the station. Not until, that is, one of them, Hambly (“stupid boy”), picked up the three pounds of jagged metal to drop it with a yell, having badly burned his hand.

Campbell reported the director out of action, put his guns under local control and then gave his attention to how the
Rodney
steamed through the
Bismarck’s
frightfully near misses, ahead, astern, and alongside, without even taking a hit. At 6,000 meters he saw the
Bismarck’s
turret Anton explode into a blazing ruin, which meant that both the
Bismarck’s
fore turrets had ceased to exist and only her secondary battery continued to shoot. Then the
Rodney
could maneuver without any danger from the
Bismarck’s
defenseless bows.

Horrified, almost stunned, by the ongoing work of destruction, Campbell saw how the
Rodney’s
heavy shells crashed through the
Bismarck’s
armored sides, how a 15.2-centimeter shell burst against her bridge like an egg against a wall, how another sent the top of her
main fire-control station spinning through the air like a giant trash-can lid—where a yellow-white flame like a scorching thunderbolt consumed its own smoke and incinerated living and dead. Through it all the
Bismarck’s
flag still waved, and Campbell cried out, “My God, why don’t we stop?” And then, as if in answer, the cease-fire gongs rang. All that Campbell could hear then was the keening of the wind in the halyards and the wash of the sea against the ship’s hull as the
Rodney
, the paint of her turrets blistered by ninety minutes of firing, her decks ripped by the tremendous blast of the guns, her guardrails bent by the same, withdrew from the scene of action, leaving the
Bismarck
, down by her smoke-shrouded stern, blazing fore and aft, a smashed but still beautiful ship.

The
Ark Royal’s
aircraft were anxious to get into the fight. Twelve Swordfish were launched at 0926 but, when they reached the scene of the action, they realized the risk they would be taking if they attacked. Four ships were firing simultaneously at the German battleship from several sides at very close range. That meant flat trajectories, and the Swordfish had to fly low to launch an attack. It was much better for them to forgo it.

Meanwhile, Tovey became increasingly irritated by the
Bismarck’s
refusal to sink. She endured a hail of shells, such as he could not have imagined. How much more would it take? How much more time would her obstinacy cost him? He had no more time. His fuel supply was almost exhausted; every additional half-hour he spent on the scene would make his return home that much more hazardous. Once again he examined the
Bismarck
through his binoculars. She lay deep and sluggish in the water; it now appeared certain that she could never reach port. And with that certainty he had to be content. At 1015 he ordered the
Rodney
to follow in the wake of the
King George
Von a northeasterly course at 19 knots. It was the course home.

At 1022, Admiral Somerville with Force H, out of sight to the south of where the action was, ordered the
Dorsetshire
to torpedo the
Bismarck
. Two minutes earlier, Captain Martin, acting on his own initiative, fired two torpedoes at the
Bismarck’s
starboard side at a range of 3,000 meters. One was observed to hit below her bridge, the other astern. Thereafter, the
Dorsetshire
went over to the battleship’s port side and, at 1036, launched a third torpedo at 2,200 meters. This was the last of all the projectiles fired at the
Bismarck
on 27 May.

Suppressing a desire to retrieve a few personal belongings from my stateroom, which was not far away on the port side, I joined a little
group of men assembled to starboard, forward of turret Dora, where they were waiting to jump overboard. For the moment, that seemed the best refuge. Many men were already in the water, and those with me were wondering whether this was the moment for them to jump. I told them to wait: “There’s still time. We’re sinking slowly. The sea is running high and we’ll have to swim a long time, so it’s best we jump as late as possible. I’ll tell you when.”

Before joining the group, I had seen the
King George V
and the
Rodney
steaming away to the north in line ahead and concluded that they would not take part in rescuing our survivors. But that other ships would do so, I was firmly convinced. “Some ship will surely come along and pick us up,” I told my companions, but I had no idea which it would be. Had I given them false hope? Looking around us far and wide, I saw only empty ocean.

The ocean. Yes, it would soon accept us and, to all appearances, bring an end to us. Could this really be all there was—my death for Hitler and, as I saw it, against Germany—this merciless failure of my one-time expectation of someday being able to serve a normal state system? Was the closing balance of my life really to be the perversion of national life—the extinction of all one’s own conceptions of the German way, the desiccation of Germany into a spiritual desert as a result of a dictator’s insane excesses? I did not want to believe it. God would not allow it; he would still give me a chance not to have to see my life as a senseless waste. He would do it. And from that moment I had no doubt that I would be saved.

My thoughts also went back to Berlin once again. Hitler would be sitting in his Reich Chancellery and someone would give him a brief report on the sinking of the
Bismarck
. How angry he would be! Hadn’t he told Raeder often enough that he would much prefer keeping his handful of big ships at home rather than baiting the superior British fleet on the world ocean, especially by sending them out on contemptible operations against merchant ships? But the grand admiral would not listen and thick-headedly kept biting off more than he could chew. And now this loss—moreover, of a ship bearing the name of the founder of the Reich, what a needless loss of prestige—it would make him absolutely furious. Two thousand men would die with the ship. Would anyone mention that to him? Would it interest him at all—interest him if fifty, five hundred, or five thousand men died at one stroke? I thought not.

Aside from Hitler’s theatricals, Rauschning’s conversations with Hitler, which had just been published, were still fresh in my mind.
“When I send the Germans in their prime of life into the storm of steel of the coming [!] war,” as Rauschning recorded one of Hitler’s remarks, “I will not feel the least regret over the precious German blood that will flow.” Obviously, I felt, no human sacrifice would be too much for the maintenance of his personal power. “It’s striking,” Hitler’s army adjutant, Major Gerhard Engel, recorded in his diary after some weeks, “how little, when he comes to speak of it, the fate of the
Bismarck
appears to affect F. [ührer].”

No, when I went overboard, it would definitely be without a
“Sieg Heil,
” without a “Heil Hitler,” without an arm upraised in the Nazi salute, without any sort of gesture in reminder of the worst enemy Germany ever had. My powerlessness prevented anything stronger than this unobserved quid pro quo.

Although we all must have heard many of the same terrifying sounds and must have shared a sense of incredible desolation that morning, we did not all have the same experiences or see the same things. Here, then, are accounts, in more or less their own words, of the events that stand out most vividly in the memories of some of the other survivors.

Soon after the battle started, water began pouring through the ventilator shafts into Junack’s action station, the middle engine room, below the armored deck in Compartment VIII. It was clear that the enemy’s shots were striking close to us. After a while, red-orange fumes coming through the ventilators forced the crew to put on gas masks. The bridge issued hardly any orders over the engine telegraph but, when the din of battle was reduced to an occasional explosion, Junack received the order through the engine-control station, “Clear ship for scuttling.” That was the last order given aboard the
Bismarck
. At this moment, the entire communications system broke down; the central turbine room was cut off from the engine-control station and the bridge. When scuttling charges had been brought to the cooling-water intakes and things became quieter above, Junack sent his best petty officer to get further orders. The petty officer did not return, and Junack had no choice but to act on his own responsibility. He had all bulkhead doors to the shaft alleys opened, then sent his men to the main deck and ordered the chief machinist to set the charges with a nine-minute fuze. He was the last to leave the engine room, where the lights were still burning and the turbines turning in accordance with the last order, “Slow ahead.”

Not until he reached the battery deck did Junack see the devastation
of the battle. As he made his way through the wreckage, he heard the charges in the engine room exploding. There was no getting forward and, on his way aft, he ran into a crowd of men, scared because they found their passage blocked. Telling them not to panic, he pushed his way into the midst of them and, as soon as they realized he was an officer, they calmed down. They tried to shove their way through an armored hatch that was jammed half-open, but their gas masks and inflated life jackets made it a tight squeeze. Things went faster when, at Junack’s suggestion, they took off their life jackets and jettisoned whatever other equipment they had. He had mastered the chaotic situation at a glance. Junack waited until last to climb through the hatch to the upper deck. There, five junior officers and several hundred men were gathered around the after turrets, getting ready to go over the side. By this time, the enemy was doing very little firing. A curtain of flame amidships hid from view what was forward of it. All he could see were some dead and wounded scattered about the deck. Our ensign still flew from the mainmast, but seawater was spilling over the quarterdeck in the brilliant sunshine and the ship was sinking ever deeper. There was no doubt that the
Bismarck
was slowly capsizing.

Far aft, the leader of Damage-Control Team No. 1, Stabsobermaschinist Wilhelm Schmidt, could tell whenever our guns fired by the shuddering of the ship. Five enemy shells penetrated the upper deck in the area of his responsibility and exploded on the battery and main decks. One landed in Compartment I and another in Compartment II, where it produced a huge flash. Nitrogen gas seeped through the closed armored hatch to the vicinity of the damage-control command post in Compartment III. Shell splinters from the third hit put the lighting and ventilator for the main deck out of action. All that was left was emergency lighting. Hits four and five were in Compartment IV where, among other things, they demolished the companionways. Fumes from fires penetrated everywhere. A messenger arrived from the damage-control center with an order to Schmidt to send some men to put out a fire on a superstructure deck aft. A party went, but none returned. Schmidt had already lost some of his people to shell splinters. A chief gunner rushed up with the news that there was fire in turret Dora, and Schmidt, reversing pump No. 2, flooded the ammunition spaces below the turret. Schmidt continued to receive reports of fires, some of them on the superstructure decks and in compartments on the battery and main decks.

Finally the order came from the bridge to all areas, “Scuttle ship.”
Schmidt reversed whatever pumps were still in operation in his area and flooded the compartments. He heard the condenser intakes and the seacocks blowing up in the engine and boiler rooms. A messenger brought another order, “All hands on the upper deck.” All the armored hatches on the main and battery decks were jammed and the companionways gone. The only way they could get to the upper deck was by using a narrow shell hoist. When they reached topside, Schmidt and his men joined the life-jacketed men waiting on the quarterdeck. The
Bismarck
was lying in heavy seas, fire and dark columns of smoke belching from her superstructure. There was no sign of the enemy near or far, only a few wheeled aircraft circling overhead.