In the early 20th century, prosperous powers competed to build the largest and most advanced ships possible. The Titanic cruise ship has become a legend in civil shipbuilding, and the battleship Bismarck has earned special honor among military ships. It embodied the industrial and engineering power of Germany. In combination with the high morale of the crew and its no less high skill, the ship became a serious problem for the enemy. Today we will get acquainted with the history of the battleship "Bismarck" and its technical characteristics.
Short description
The Bismarck class (a total of two ships were produced: the Bismarck itself and the later Tirpitz) was originally positioned as the heir to the "pocket battleships" and was intended mainly to intercept merchant ships. Its fuel reserve was rather typical for the battleships of the Pacific Fleet, and the speed of 30.1 knots was perhaps the best indicator in the class. When the French battleship Dunkirk was launched, the design of the Bismarck-class battleship was finalized. The main change was even moresize increase. The ship was the first German battleship launched after the First World War. The armament of the battleship "Bismarck" made it possible to provide decent resistance to any battleship of those years. During the ship's short service life, it was the largest battleship in the world. The Bismarck class to this day remains the third largest after the Yamato and Iowa.
Construction
The ship's keel was laid on July 1, 1936 at the German shipyard Blohm & Voss. On February 14, 1939, the battleship left the stocks. When the ship was launched, the granddaughter of Prince Bismarck (in honor of him the ship got its name), who, according to tradition, “christened” the ship with a bottle of champagne, as well as the current Adolf Hitler, was present. On August 24 of the following year, Ernest Lindemann was appointed captain of the battleship Bismarck. Testing of the vessel and its equipment continued until the beginning of 1941.
Specifications
The dimensions of the ship are impressive: length - 251 m, width - 36 m, height from the keel to the first deck amidships - 15 m. tons. The ship's armor was no less impressive: 70% of its length was covered by the main armor belt with a thickness of 170 to 320 mm. The cabin and gun turrets of the main battery of the battleship Bismarck received even thicker armor - 220-350 and 360 mm, respectively.
The armament of the ship was no less serious. It consisted of eight 380 mm main battery guns, 12auxiliary guns with a caliber of 150 mm and a large number of anti-aircraft artillery. Each of the towers of the main caliber had its own name: the bow ones were called Anton and Brun, and the stern ones were called Caesar and Dora. Despite the fact that the British and American battleships of those times had a slightly larger main caliber, the Bismarck gun posed a serious threat to them. The perfect aiming and fire control system, as well as the high quality of gunpowder, allowed the Bismarck to penetrate 350 mm armor from 20 kilometers away.
The ship's power plant was represented by twelve Wagner steam boilers and four turbo-gear units. Its total power was more than 150 thousand horsepower, which allowed the ship to accelerate to 30 knots. With an economical course, the ship could travel more than 8.5 thousand nautical miles. Such characteristics of the battleship "Bismarck" were an outstanding achievement of German engineers. The crew of the ship consisted of 2200 sailors and officers.
Out to the Atlantic
According to the plan of Operation Rhine Exercises, the Bismarck, together with the cruiser Prinz Eugen, was supposed to enter the Atlantic Ocean, passing through the Danish Strait. The purpose of the campaign was to intercept merchant ships plying the British sea lanes. It was assumed that the battleship would divert the attention of the convoy so that the Prinz Eugen could approach the merchant ships. The commander of the operation, Admiral Günter Lutyens, asked the higher leadership to postpone the start of the operation and wait for another battleship to join it. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder- Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy - Lutyens refused. On May 18, 1941, the battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen left Gotenhafen (now the Polish port of Gdynia)
On May 20, the world's largest battleship was spotted by the crew of the Swedish cruiser Gotland. On the same day, members of the Norwegian Resistance identified the German squadron. On May 21, information about the presence of two large ships in the Kattegat Strait fell into the British Admir alty. The next day, the ships were parked in the fjords near the city of Bergen (Norway), where they were repainted. There, "Prinz Eugen" was refueled. During the stay, the ships were spotted by a British reconnaissance aircraft. After receiving pictures from him, the British leadership accurately identified the Bismarck. Soon the bombers went to the parking lot, but by the time they arrived, the German ships had already sailed. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen managed to pass undetected through the Norwegian Sea and the Arctic Circle.
Commander of the British Home Fleet, Admiral John Tovey sent the battleship "Prince of Wales" and the cruiser "Hood" and their accompanying destroyers to the southwestern Spanish coast. The Danish Strait was assigned to patrol the cruisers "Suffolk" and "Norfolk", and the strait separating Iceland and the Faroe Islands, the light cruisers "Birmingham", "Manchester" and "Arethusa". On the night of May 22-23, Admiral John Tovey, at the head of a flotilla of the battleship King George the Fifth, the aircraft carrier Victories and an escort, set off towards the Orkney Islands. The flotilla was supposed to be waiting for German ships in the waters northwest of Scotland.
On the evening of May 23 atIn the Danish Strait, which was about half covered with ice, in thick fog, the Norfolk and Suffolk ships discovered the enemy flotilla and made visual contact with it. The battleship of the German navy opened fire on the Norfolk cruiser. Notifying the command about this, the British ships disappeared into the fog, but continued to follow the Germans on the radar. Due to the fact that the Bismarck's front radar failed after firing, Admiral Lutyens ordered the "Prince Eugen" to become the head of the flotilla.
Battle in the Denmark Strait
Ships "Prince of Wales" and "Hood" made visual contact with enemy ships in the morning of May 24th. At about six o'clock they began to attack the German flotilla from a distance of 22 kilometers. Vice Admiral Holland, who led the British group, gave the order to fire on the first ship, as he did not know that the Bismarck had changed places with the Prinz Eugen. For some time, the German side did not respond, since it was ordered to engage in battle only after the enemy entered the convoy. After several British bombardments, Captain Lindemann, declaring that he would not allow his ship to be attacked with impunity, ordered to return fire. Having come under fire from two German ships, Holland realized that he had made a mistake in ordering to attack the first of them.
The sixth shot of the Prince of Wales gave a result: the projectile hit the fuel tanks of the Bismarck, which caused a copious leak of fuel from the tanks and filled them with water. Soon both German ships hit the Hood cruiser, as a resultcausing severe fires on board. A few minutes later, two volleys overtook the battleship Bismarck. By that time, the enemy ships were at a distance of about 16-17 km from each other. After another hit on the Hood ship, a strong explosion was heard on it, literally tearing the ship into two halves. Within minutes, it was under water. Of the 1417 crew members, only three managed to escape. "Prince of Wales" continued the battle, but unsuccessfully: in order to avoid a collision with a sinking ship, he had to get close to the enemy. After receiving seven hits, the battleship withdrew from the battle, using a smoke screen.
Captain Lindemann offered to go in pursuit of the "Prince of Wales" and sink it, however, Admiral Lutyens, due to the severe damage to the "Bismarck", decided to continue the campaign to the French port of Saint-Nazaire, where it was possible to repair the ship and take it to the Atlantic without hindrance. It was assumed that the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau ships would later join it. "Prince Eugen" was ordered to continue shelling the British convoy on their own.
Chase
Prince of Wales, together with the ships Norfolk and Suffolk that approached him, continued to pursue the German flotilla. The death of the ship "Hood" was taken extremely painfully by the British Admir alty. Later, a special commission was set up to investigate her circumstances. Soon, most of the British navy based in the Atlantic was involved in the hunt for the battleship Bismarck, including convoy guard ships.
On May 24, at the beginning of seven in the evening, in a dense fog, the Bismarck turned on its pursuers. There were no hits during the brief exchange of volleys, but the British had to evade. As a result, the vessel "Prinz Eugen" successfully interrupted the contact. Ten days later it arrived in French Brest. On May 24, at 22 o'clock, Admiral Lutyens informed the command that, due to a lack of fuel, his battleship could not continue trying to fight off the pursuit of the enemy and was forced to go straight to Saint-Nazaire. Meanwhile, Admiral Tovey ordered the aircraft carrier Victorious to close the distance. At the beginning of the eleventh, 9 torpedo bombers of the Swordfish model were launched from the ship. Despite massive resistance, they still managed to hit the side of an enemy ship once. In this case, the impressive size of the Bismarck battleship played a cruel joke on him.
By 2:30 all planes returned to the aircraft carrier. "Bismarck" practically did not suffer from this raid, since the only accurate hit fell directly on the main armored belt. However, the German crew still lost one person. This was the first loss of the Nazis for the entire time of the campaign. To protect against torpedo bombers, the crew of the battleship Bismarck had to use all anti-aircraft weapons and some large-caliber guns. To make it harder for the torpedo bombers to aim, the ship increased its speed and tried in every possible way to evade the fire. Although the British attack did not affect the condition of the vessel, due to abrupt maneuvers, some of the problems left over from previous shelling were exacerbated. So, plasters wound on a hole in the bow of the shipthe sails moved away, as a result of which the leak intensified, and with it the trim on the bow also intensified.
On the night of May 25, the Bismarck's pursuers began to zigzag, apparently wary of the prospect of becoming victims of German submarines. Taking advantage of this, the battleship accelerated and broke contact. At 4 o'clock in the morning, the ship "Suffolk" officially announced this.
Detection
The German battleship Bismarck, apparently, continued to receive signals from the Suffolk radars, and already at 7 am on May 25, Admiral Lutyens informed the command about the continuation of the pursuit. On the evening of the same day, the command demanded from the Bismarck data on its location and speed and indicated that the British had most likely lost sight of the German ship. Lutyens did not send a response radio message, but thanks to the interception of morning messages, the enemy was still able to determine his approximate course. Mistakenly assuming that the battleship headed for the strait separating Iceland and the Faroe Islands, Admiral Tovey headed his formation to the northeast.
By 10 am on May 26, the US-British Catalina flying boat, which took off from Lough Erne (Northern Ireland) in search of a German vessel, found its exact location. At that time, the Bismarck was only 700 miles from the French Brest, where he could count on the support of the Luftwaffe bombers. Due to this circumstance, only one British formation had a chance to slow down the battleship - the formation "H" based in Gibr altar,commanded by Admiral Somerville. The main trump card of this flotilla was the ArkRoyal aircraft carrier, from which a detachment of torpedo bombers flew out at 14:50 on the same day. At that time, the cruiser Sheffield was in the area of their attack, which separated from the formation to establish contact with the enemy. The pilots were not aware of this, so they attacked their own ship. Fortunately for the British Navy, none of the 11 torpedoes fired hit the ship. Subsequently, it was decided to replace the poorly performing magnetic torpedo detonators with contact ones.
At 17:40, the Sheffield cruiser made contact with the Bismarck battleship and began to pursue it. At 20:47, 15 torpedo bombers took off from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal for the second attack. They managed to inflict two (according to some sources, three) accurate blows, one of which became fatal for the German ship. In an attempt to evade the torpedo, the battleship received a powerful blow to the stern, as a result of which her rudders jammed. Having lost the ability to maneuver, the ship began to describe the circulation. All attempts to regain control were in vain, and the battleship began moving to the northwest. About an hour after the start of the torpedo attack, the battleship began shelling the Sheffield and wounding 12 of its crew. At night, the battleship Bismarck fought with five British torpedo bombers. Both sides were unable to deliver an accurate strike.
Drowning
May 27, at about 9 am from a distance of 22 km, the German battleship was attacked by heavy ships from Admiral Tovey's formation, the battleships King George the Fifth and Rodney, as well as two cruisers -Norfolk and Dorsetshire. The Bismarck returned fire, but the British pressure was too massive. Half an hour later, the ship's gun turrets were badly damaged, and the superstructures were destroyed. He had a strong roll, but kept on the water. At 09:31, the last tower was put out of action, after which, as the surviving members of the crew testify, Captain Lindemann gave the order to flood the ship. Since the Bismarck, despite the fact that its fate was a foregone conclusion, did not lower the flag, the Rodney battleship approached it at a distance of several kilometers and began to fire direct fire. Due to the fact that the British battleships were running out of fuel, Admiral Tovey, realizing that the Bismarck would not leave, ordered them to return to base. At about 10:30 the cruiser Dorsetshire fired three torpedoes at the German ship, each of which hit right on target. May 27, 1941, at 10:39 am, the battleship Bismarck boarded and began to sink.
Answering the question of who sank the battleship Bismarck, many recall the three decisive hits of the cruiser Dorsetshire. In fact, the fate of the vessel was predetermined by a torpedo bomber hit, which deprived it of the ability to maneuver.
Ships "Dorsetshire" and "Maori" picked up 110 people from the crew of the sunken ship. When the alarm was sounded about the approach of German submarines, they hurried to leave the place of sinking. In the evening, after the ships moved to a safe distance, the submarine U-74 rescued three more people. The next day, the hydrometeorological ship Sachsenwald picked up two more sailors. Other 2100people died. The forces of the English fleet, which at the last stage of the battle had a clear superiority, deliberately did not save its crew when the battleship Bismarck was destroyed. Thus they avenged those who died in the sinking of the Hood.
Submarine operations
German submarines, which, as part of the “wolf packs”, hunted enemy convoys in the Atlantic, were notified of the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen's departure.
On May 24, according to a radiogram, the submarines received a message about the victory of the battleship over the "Hood", as well as the installation in the future to be guided by orders that take into account the position of the "Bismarck".
On May 25, the submarine U-557, located several hundred miles from the battleship, discovered and attacked a large convoy. The next day, she was ordered to share her coordinates with other submarines for a joint strike.
Early on the morning of May 27, all submarines that had a supply of torpedoes left were ordered to head for the Bismarck at maximum speed. The submarines received the order with a delay of 8 hours: it was signed at 22 o'clock the previous day. At the time of signing, most of the boats took part in the attack of the convoy, hid from escorts and, for technical reasons, could not receive an order. In addition, at this moment, the submarines pursuing the convoy pulled away from the Bismarck to the north. On May 27, at 11:25, the headquarters informed the submarines that the battleship had become the victim of a massive enemy attack. All nearby submarines were ordered to go to rescue the ship's crew members.
Arriving at the place of death, the submarines were found on the surfacea huge amount of debris and a thick layer of oil. After a day of searching, they returned to patrol areas.
Result
The last battle of the Bismarck was an illustration of how difficult it is to hit a battleship even with numerical superiority and the presence of equipment of similar characteristics. On the other hand, a single torpedo from a small aircraft delivered the decisive blow to the huge ship. Therefore, the main conclusion that the military drew from the death of the Bismarck battleship was that the battleships had ceded the dominant position in the fleet to aircraft carriers.
Soon the German naval command abandoned the raider operations of the surface fleet in favor of unlimited submarine warfare. The second battleship of the Bismarck type, the battleship Tirpitz, did not make a single salvo attack on enemy ships during all the years of the war. However, the British had to tie up a formidable sea and air force in case the Norwegian-based battleship did go to sea.
Memory
The warships Bismarck and Tirpitz are often compared to the civilian ships Titanic and Olympic. In both cases, the ship that sank on its maiden voyage received worldwide fame, while the ship that served much longer remained in the shadows. In 1960, the film "Sink the Bismarck" was filmed by director Lewis Gilbert.
The place where the story of the battleship Bismarck ended was discovered only on June 8, 1989 thanks to the efforts of Robert Ballard, who had previously found the very"Titanic". According to international law, this place is considered a military burial. Since the sinking and to this day, six expeditions have been organized there. In the same 1989, Patrick Prentice made another documentary about the secrets of the battleship Bismarck. In 2002, the director of the film Titanic, James Cameron, also made his contribution to the memory of the ship. Using Russian Mir submersibles, he filmed underwater for the film Bismarck Expedition.
