The Sinking of the Bismarck (12 page)

There was little chance, Admiral Luetjens thought, that this new Swordfish attack—the very last one he would have to face before reaching Brest—would be any more successful. Carrier planes, he remarked to Captain Lindemann, had never seriously damaged a battleship in history. They were like a swarm of bees. They could sting but not injure you. For one thing their torpedoes were too light.

Nevertheless, he did not intend to risk being hit again by any of them. He directed Captain Lindemann to zigzag to avoid torpedoes and to employ some of his smaller guns in exploding them should any come near. This soon became necessary. The torpedoes came skimming through the water from all points of the compass. Most of them were exploded harmlessly some distance away by gunfire.

Two were not. In a split second one of these changed the whole course of this nearly week-old drama at sea and brought it swiftly to a climax.

Curiously enough, that one fatal British aerial torpedo might not have been launched at all if a certain German U-boat, an hour earlier, had not found itself in the strangest position imaginable.

This was the
U-566
, commanded by Lieutenant Wohlfarth. It was returning from a long operation at sea when, on the late afternoon of May 26, a lookout reported sighting enemy warships. The submarine crash-dived. When it edged up again toward the surface, Lieutenant Wohlfarth saw through his periscope that he had come up right between the battle cruiser
Renown
and the carrier
Ark Royal
. The battle cruiser was just ahead of him. The carrier was just behind. In fact the U-boat commander could see, he later reported, the planes on the
Ark Royal
’s deck warming up for a take-off.

All he had to do to prevent that take-off was to launch torpedoes from his stern. At the same moment he could fire torpedoes at the
Renown
from his bow. He was so near both ships he couldn’t miss. It was one of those positions a submarine skipper dreams of having but rarely, if ever, has. Here were two big enemy ships in line with each other, and he was directly between
them. It was not even necessary to aim his torpedo tubes, because the bow and the stern of his ship were pointed directly at the two big targets.

There was another, more important reason why it was not necessary to aim them, as Lieutenant Wohlfarth bitterly realized. His torpedo tubes were empty! He had fired every single one of his torpedoes at British merchant ships during his previous operation.

Completely frustrated, the U-boat commander watched in his periscope the two great sitting ducks speed out of range. He saw the Swordfish take off from the carrier and sweep away toward the
Bismarck
. If only he had had a torpedo or two, they would never have got off that flight deck! There would have been no deck left. And the mighty
Bismarck
—though Lieutenant Wohlfarth, of course, didn’t know this at the time-might have been saved.

As soon as the
Renown
and the
Ark Royal
were out of gun range, Lieutenant Wohlfarth surfaced, strung up his wireless sender, and got off a message to Brest. It was among the secret German naval papers obtained after the war.

20:00. [8:00
P.M.
] One battleship, one aircraft carrier in approximate position 47 50 North, 16 50 West. Course 115 degrees. High speed.

The
Bismarck
took in the signal. At that hour she had not yet seen any of the carrier planes. But it was helpful to Admiral Luetjens to know from the U-boat just where Force H was and in which direction and at what speed it was proceeding. He did not understand why the carrier had not sent over attacking planes. But for an hour or so—until dark—he must be on the lookout for them.

At 8:54
P.M.
he had reported that they had come and were attacking. For several hectic minutes he had watched them gallantly cut through his flak fire and come in to launch their torpedoes. But the torpedoes that had not been destroyed by his own gunfire had passed wide of his ship.

Apparently no one on the
Bismarck
saw one British plane steal in from behind. But lookouts aft quickly reported a torpedo thrashing toward the stern. The target at that angle is very small—
only the width of a ship at its narrow end. It seemed certain that the torpedo was sure to miss.

Then it hit. There was an explosion. The stern of the
Bismarck
shuddered. Later, one surviving gunner remembered hearing a desperate voice shouting through the intercom: “Rudder jamming hard to starboard! Ship circling!”

Admiral Luetjens was on the bridge with Captain Lindemann, taking in the shattering reports. As soon as the ship veered and started to circle he understood what had happened.

“Get divers down to clear the rudders!” he snapped.

A message came up from the steering engine room. It had been knocked out.

“Couple the hand-steering!” the Captain barked. Damage-control parties went quickly to work. Two divers went overboard to try to clear the jammed rudders. To keep up the morale of the crew, false news was broadcast on the ship’s loud-speakers. A seaman later remembered it. One broadcast said the hand-steering had been coupled on. A second, thirty minutes later, announced that the rudders had been cleared.

Admiral Luetjens knew better. He was a man of few illusions. At 9:05
P.M.
, eleven minutes after he radioed Group West that he was being attacked by carrier planes, he got off an urgent message: “21:05. Ship no longer maneuverable!”

Within the minute he rushed off another: “21.05. Approximate position 47 40 North, 14 50 West. Torpedo hit aft.”

Ten minutes later he sent a third message: “21:15. Torpedo hit midships.”

***

After the British planes, as soon as darkness fell, came the British destroyers.

At 11:25 that evening Admiral Luetjens sent out a signal to shore: “Am surrounded by
Renown
and light forces.”

Those “light forces” now attacked in the pitch darkness of the stormy night. They were Captain Vian’s five destroyers. They had sighted the
Bismarck
at 10:38
P.M.
and a few minutes later the battleship had opened fire on them with her big guns. Captain Vian’s chief job was to shadow the
Bismarck
during the night—as added insurance to the trailing by the cruiser
Sheffield
. Then in the
morning the battleships
King George V
and
Rodney
would finish her off.

But Captain Vian was a dashing, intrepid officer. He could not stay out of a fight if there was any chance of getting into one. At great risk to his small ships from the heavy guns of the enemy, he closed in to launch torpedoes. The
Bismarck
was already unmaneuverable. Nothing that the destroyers could do would make her any more so. One cannot escape the conclusion that Captain Vian wished to sink her himself. After all, the battleships and cruisers had had their chance and—up to now—had failed. So he charged in with his little destroyers.

Each of them was nearly destroyed by the accurate fire from the German battleship. Her gunners were making good use of her radar in the darkness. The very first salvo against Captain Vian’s own
Cossack
destroyed part of her radio antenna. Splinters from the shells of another salvo wounded three men on the
Zulu
. The other three destroyers,
Maori
,
Sikh
and
Piorun
(the last being a Polish ship), worked around the
Bismarck
so as to disperse her fire. But the battleship’s guns
were aiming well. The destroyers could not get close enough to aim their torpedoes effectively. Still, all night they kept charging in until they had shot their last torpedo.

None of them scored a hit. And indeed Captain Vian was later criticized in some naval circles for needlessly risking his ships. As it was, the destroyers, dodging and twisting about in the battle, lost contact with the
Bismarck
several times during the night, thus risking failure in their main job.

At 2:30 in the morning Admiral Tovey signaled them to fire star shells to indicate the
Bismarck
’s position to him. He was getting close but was not yet in sight. The destroyers fired some star shells, drawing heavy fire from the German battleship as a result. Yet at 3:00
A.M.
Captain Vian lost his prey and did not regain contact until almost dawn. Admiral Tovey, who had lost the
Bismarck
so many times during the week, was understandably worried.

Undoubtedly this night attack in foul weather by the British destroyers was foolhardy. But despite its failure to obtain a single torpedo hit,
it did serve one purpose. It kept the German gun crews so busy all night that they were completely exhausted by morning.

And it helped to remind Admiral Luetjens that his end was near. Behind the destroyers, he knew, were British battleships and cruisers. His radio-detection officers had been picking up their signals all night. The
Bismarck
’s guns were firing well. They were showing their accuracy against the darting destroyers. But with his ship’s rudders jammed, Admiral Luetjens knew that he could not hold his own with the enemy battleships, as he had against the
Hood
and the
Prince of Wales
in the first battle.

The
Bismarck
was doomed and the Admiral knew it.

At 11:40
P.M.
, while the ship was still floundering along helplessly but nevertheless keeping up a continuous fire on the British destroyers, he got off a radio message to the Fatherland.

Ship no longer maneuverable. We fight to the last shell. Long live the Fuehrer!

Eighteen minutes later he broke the news directly
to the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany. He radioed:

23:58. To the Fuehrer of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler.

We fight to the last in our belief in you, my Fuehrer, and in the firm faith in Germany’s victory!

A minute later he sent out a general signal.

23:59. Armament and engines still intact. Ship however cannot be steered.

With the end almost certain as soon as daylight broke, Admiral Luetjens gave thought to how he could get the
Bismarck
’s log safely home. It seemed important that the Naval Command and Hitler himself should understand his strategy and tactics and how fate had turned against him at the very end.

Three of the ship’s five Arado 196 scouting planes were still undamaged. The Admiral ordered them launched. One was to carry the
Bismarck
’s log. All three would take home letters from the officers and crew—the very last letters to families and sweethearts, perhaps, that the young men
would ever write. The airmen were the envy of the sailors. They at least would get out alive.

Letters were hastily written as best they could be in the midst of the battle with the British destroyers. It would be difficult to launch the planes in the high seas, stiff wind and darkness. But the pilots were confident they could take off. The ship’s log and several mail pouches were loaded into the three planes. The first one was hoisted on the ship’s catapult. Its engine was started. The pilot waved farewell.

He never got off. Somehow the torpedo which struck aft had damaged the compressed-air feed to the catapult. Desperate efforts were made to repair it. They proved unsuccessful. In despair the pilots finally climbed down from their cockpits. Their mail would never be delivered to the loved ones at home—at least, not by air. The ship’s log would have to remain aboard.

This was a further despairing moment for the men on the
Bismarck
. Most of them were still working themselves to a point of exhaustion at the guns, which continued to bang away at the enemy destroyers.

Then, as so often happens at sea during the desperate hours, rumors began to fly through the ship. The first German submarine had arrived in the vicinity. More were just behind. Eighty-one Luftwaffe bombers were on the way out. They and the U-boats would make short shrift of the British tormentors. Two big tugboats had put out from Brest. They would haul the
Bismarck
safely into port.

Many a sailor started to sing, but not for long. Radio messages from the homeland in response to Admiral Luetjens’ desperate dispatches were beginning to arrive. Captain Lindemann read them over the loud-speakers to the crews. He must have thought they would cheer up the hard-pressed men. They had, however, the opposite effect. They seemed to confirm the hopeless plight of the great battleship.

Seven minutes before two o’clock in the morning, two messages came over the radio from Adolf Hitler himself.

01:53. To Fleet Commander:

I thank you in the name of the German people.

Adolf Hitler

To the crew of the battleship
Bismarck
: The whole of Germany is with you. What can still be done will be done. The performance of your duty will strengthen our people in the struggle for their existence.

Adolf Hitler

Such words sounded ominous to the crew. Grimly they fought on at their guns. Shortly after two o’clock there was a pause in the firing. Admiral Luetjens thought of his chief artillery officer who had done such a magnificent job in sinking the
Hood
. At 2:21
A.M.
he radioed Grand Admiral Erich Raeder in Berlin about him.

02:21. To the Commander in Chief of the Navy:

Propose Lieutenant Commander Schneider, gunnery officer, be awarded Knights Cross for sinking
Hood
.

Fleet Commander.

Within an hour and a half, there was a reply.

03:51. Berlin. To Lieutenant Commander Schneider:

The Fuehrer has awarded you the Knights Cross for sinking the battle cruiser,
Hood
. Heartiest congratulations.

Commander in Chief of the Navy.

On the swaying bridge of the
Bismarck
, drenched by spray from the wind and the waves, there was a touching little ceremony just as the ship’s bells sounded 4:00
A.M.
Admiral Luetjens read the radiogram to Lieutenant Commander Schneider and congratulated him. The cold and taciturn admiral was almost in tears. So was his brilliant gunnery officer.