Battleship Bismarck (53 page)

The heavy traffic in the Kattegat on 20 May made it obvious that there was a danger of enemy agents learning about the movement of our task force. That risk increased when the
Gotland
came into view.

I do not know how Lütjens evaluated the danger we faced from agents in Scandinavian waters, but we do know from his radio report that he had misgivings about having been seen by the
Gotland.
That he did not take that risk more seriously may be attributed to the response his radio report brought from Generaladmiral Carls. As it turned out, the
Gotland’s
report and its transmission to London led to the loss of the
Bismarck
on 27 May. On 28 May, the Admiralty
wired Denham in Stockholm: “Your 2058 of 20th May initiated the first of a series of operations which culminated yesterday in the sinking of the
Bismarck
. Well done.”

On the evening of 20 May Viggo Axelsen saw our task force off the coast, near Kristiansand. His ensuing radio message confirmed for the Admiralty Denham’s earlier report.

Whether Lütjens took a risk of this nature into account is beyond my knowledge. Even though Axelsen’s message did not tell the Admiralty anything new, it was extremely valuable confirmation.

After entering the fjords near Bergen, we spent a whole day within reach of British short-range aerial reconnaissance. Tovey wrote later: “The
Bismarck
and the
Prinz Eugen
were contemplating a raid on the ocean trade routes, though, if this was so, it seemed unlikely that they would stop at a place so convenient for air reconnaissance.”
*

This was a risk that Lütjens did accept. Consequently, British aerial reconnaissance identified the
Bismarck
and an
Admiral Hipper
-class cruiser around noon on 21 May. Further aerial reconnaissance on the evening of 22 May ascertained that the task force had left Norway.

Upon leaving the fjords on the evening of 21 May Lütjens learned that a British radio message had instructed the Royal Air Force to be on the lookout for two German battleships and three destroyers that had been reported on a northerly course the day before.

Lütjens, apparently unperturbed, continued on his way. He thereby accepted the risk that the enemy, once alerted, would extend his search to the latitudes through which the task force was to pass.

On the evening of 23 May, when he first met the
Suffolk
, Lütjens did not turn away. After the subsequent appearance of the
Norfolk
, he continued to hold his course, followed by both cruisers.

During the commanders’ conference in the
Bismarck
on 18 May Lütjens had indeed said that, should he encounter enemy cruisers, he
would attack them if the circumstances were favorable, but that his highest priority would be to preserve the
Bismarck
and the
Prinz Eugen
, so that they could continue their operation for as long as possible. In the above instance, he applied the principle of preserving his ships by pressing on without engaging. In so doing he may have hoped, not unreasonably in the light of experience, to shake off the
Suffolk
and the
Norfolk
during the night. Yet, he thereby unavoidably accepted the risk that he would not succeed and that instead, the cruisers would call up heavier ships.
*

Lütjens was poorly served by German aerial reconnaissance, misinformed about the ships at Scapa Flow in the decisive days, and encouraged by Group North to continue an apparently unendangered operation. He did not realize it, but he was in fact operating with his task force in a goldfish bowl.

The battle of Iceland deprived Lütjens of the freedom of tactical decision he had had before he encountered the
Suffolk
and the
Norfolk
the previous evening. Thereafter, the damage that the
Prince of Wales
had inflicted on the
Bismarck
determined the course of Exercise Rhine. It forced Lütjens to head for the west coast of France through an ocean area that could be covered by British long-range aerial reconnaissance. The pursuit of the
Bismarck
which began on her 1,700-mile run for St. Nazaire, was fraught with almost unbearable suspense on both sides. It led to exciting changes of fortune, hopes alternately rising and falling, and continuous fluctuations between high optimism and profound disappointment. The enemy lost contact with the
Bismarck
and regained it. We suffered from the hits scored by the
Prince of Wales
and from our failure to take on fuel in Norway or from the
Weissenburg
, which prevented us from steaming at higher speeds and thus, perhaps, saving ourselves. Then, there was the rudder hit that crippled our ship and led to her destruction—the end of a journey nearly 3,000 nautical miles in length which, since
her discovery in Norway, had brought the
Bismarck
nine-tenths of the way to her destination in France.

The loss of the ship and most of her crew was a bitter, heartrending blow. But it remains to be said, and in the interest of historical truth it must be said, that in view of the risks that the Seekriegsleitung and Lütjens knowingly accepted, the loss could not be ascribed to an unforeseeable fate, nor was it tragic in the classic sense, because it was not the result of a fatal flaw in the character of the Fleet Commander.

The sinking of the
Bismarck
had a decisive effect on the war at sea. Shortly thereafter, British forces sank six of the steamers belonging to the resupply organization for the conduct of the war in the Atlantic, thereby dealing that force a devastating blow. It was no longer possible for our surface forces to undertake large-scale operations of any duration in the Atlantic. Tovey’s words of 26 May came true: “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.”

It has been nearly fifty years since the
Bismarck
sank at 1039 on 27 May 1941. She lies at 48° 10’ north and 16° 12’ west, not very far out in the North Atlantic, and yet the distance of an eternity from the shores of France. The end of her brief career foreshadowed the passing of the battleship era, of which she was a technological triumph and upon which she and her brave, fallen crew left an indelible mark.

*
Patrick Beesly,
Very Special Intelligence
, says in a note on page 85: “There seems little doubt that scuttling charges were fired but whether they actually caused
Bismarck
to sink is doubtful. It would have been a remarkable coincidence if they [the charges] had taken effect at exactly the same moment as
Dorsetshire’s
torpedoes.” I do not see that any meaningful coincidence would have been involved even if steps to scuttle the ship had been taken at the same moment the
Dorsetshire’s
torpedoes arrived. After all, the scuttling actions did not produce instantaneous results, and by the time the torpedoes arrived, some twenty minutes later, the
Bismarck
was irretrievably sinking.

*
Erich Raeder,
Mein Leben
, Vol. II, p. 266 ff.

*
Jochen Brennecke,
Schlachtschiff Bismarck
, p. 15.

†
Russell Grenfell,
The Bismarck Episode
, p. 196.

*
”Sinking of the German Battleship
Bismarck
on 27th May 1941.” Dispatch by Admiral Sir John Tovey, Supplement No. 3 to the
London Gazette
, 14 October 1947.

*
In the corresponding phase of his operation with the
Gneisenau
and
Scharnhorst
, on 28 January 1941, Lütjens did turn away when he encountered cruisers of the British Home Fleet in the ocean area between Iceland and the Faeroes. He then postponed the operation until the beginning of February, at which time he broke out unseen through the Denmark Strait. Presumably, the Denmark Strait was his first choice for Exercise Rhine because he knew that visibility in that area was usually poor—indeed, he had found it so before—and therefore he would minimize the chance of being discovered. Moreover, in the Denmark Strait he would not have to worry about running into British battleship squadrons as soon as would be the case in the ocean area around the Faeroes, which was much nearer to Scapa Flow.

37    Cockfosters

The way into captivity began by leading Junack and me from Newcastle to London. After a train ride in a pleasantly outfitted first-class compartment purposely secluded from the traveling public, we reached the “London District Cage” in the Kensington district, which served as a sort of shuttle station for newly arriving prisoners of war. The cage was located on Kensington Palace Gardens Road, otherwise known as Millionaires’ Row, which ran along the west side of Hyde Park; no one could have foreseen that today it would serve as the chancellery of the Soviet embassy.

The cage was operated by the British Army for the initial confinement of prisoners of war. Its commander was a major of Boer origin, a thickset, gray-haired, hard-boiled and taciturn man with a thin mustache, who spoke a very good, guttural German. The major himself was not authorized to interrogate prisoners, but he willfully disregarded this restriction from the start. The Royal Navy and the Air Force repeatedly had to complain that the major was present at initial interrogations by their representatives. He noted what had not been answered and afterwards grilled the prisoners with sledgehammer tactics. Some prisoners were manhandled and even beaten. By this method, the major certainly succeeded in obtaining one answer or another, but it was very frequently false. In any case, prisoners who had been treated in this manner were “spoiled” for further interrogations, so the major became involved in many discussions with the navy and air force over his methods.

In the case of captured naval personnel, representatives of the Royal Navy decided whether these should be transferred to a regular camp immediately or first subjected to an examination. During their visits to the cage, they did not actually interrogate the prisoners and never in the least intensively. They merely noted the naturally talkative, the former holders of important commands, and those who openly declared themselves ready to cooperate. The latter were without exception enlisted men; some of them had come from the merchant navy and remained Communists at heart. Members of these three categories were candidates for dispatch to the Combined Services’ Detailed Interrogation Center (CSDIC) in the Cockfosters district. From the beginning, as the
Bismarck’s
senior surviving officer and as one of the ship’s gunnery officers, I scarcely doubted that I would be questioned at the interrogation center.

This center, which we always referred to simply as Cockfosters, lay inside Trent Park, opposite the northernmost station of the Picadilly underground line. It was a majestic eighteenth-century mansion, whose magnificent, gently rolling grounds, then closed to the public, included a wood, a lake, a golf course, and tennis courts. Converted into an interrogation center after the beginning of the war, the estate had formerly belonged to Sir Philip Sassoon, the art connoisseur, who had filled the house with choice furniture and paintings, which the army had replaced with simple government-issue furnishings. But it was still evident that in time of peace, the “Upper Ten Thousand” had gathered here for romantic parties at which the guests, well shielded from the eyes of the uninvited, had frolicked in the garb of eighteenth-century shepherds and shepherdesses. Now the British navy, army, and air force had their respective offices on the ground floor; the interrogation rooms were on the second floor; and the prisoners’ cells on the third.

“One hundred eighty centimeters tall, slender, high-domed forehead.” After my arrival at Cockfosters I heard these and other descriptive phrases applying to me being said in a loud voice. It belonged to a powerful man in his late fifties with bristling hair and a distinctly Teutonic appearance, who obviously made quick work of routine. I soon found myself alone and, as it turned out—following policy to isolate new arrivals—separated for three months from the other
Bismarck
survivors in a rather roomy cell on the top floor. Its barred windows provided an extensive view of lawns, lake, and forest—a seeming island of idyllic peace in a warring world. Of course, on the far horizon the barrage balloons tethered over London recalled reality. In my cell, however, there was only me and time—time in an apparently endless perspective.