‘SINK THE BISMARCK!’ CHURCHILL'S REVENGE
The Allies were stunned when in 1941 Germany’s largest battleship sank the pride of the Royal Navy… but the hunter quickly became the hunted
With a salvo from its huge guns ringing in the ears of its crew, a cry went up on the bridge of the Bismarck: “She’s blowing up!” It was 6am on 24 May 1941, and a huge column of black smoke on the horizon signalled the death of HMS Hood and all but three of its crew of 1,418 men. In the freezing sea 300 miles (483km) west of Iceland, Bismarck and its escort Prinz Eugen had won the Battle of the Denmark Strait. The ‘Mighty Hood’ was the most famous ship in the world, the pride of the Royal Navy and the embodiment of British sea power, but it had been destroyed within minutes of engaging the enemy.
Damaged and with shells raining from the sky, Hood’s companion, HMS Prince of Wales, was forced to flee the scene of carnage. News of Hood’s loss could not have come at a worse time for morale in Britain, bombed, beleaguered and reeling from a succession of military retreats and defeats. Germany seemed to have the upper hand. The Kriegsmarine plan to use fast and heavily armed surface raiders to destroy the convoys bringing vital supplies to a besieged Britain looked to be paying off. But the Royal Navy and Britain’s leadership was out to avenge the Hood – Winston Churchill quickly issued the order: “Sink the Bismarck!” A dramatic hunt began.
Enter the Bismarck
Symbolically named after the unifier of the modern German state, with a crew of over 2,000 men, displacing nearly 52,000 metric tons and at just over 822ft (250m) in length, Bismarck was Germany’s newest, largest and most powerful battleship. With a speed of 29 knots (54kp/h) it could outrun any ship in the Royal Navy, and could fire its 15-inch (38cm) shells up to 22 miles (35km) with its eight independently elevating and firing guns mounted in four turrets. The ship was a sign of Adolf Hitler’s intent and ambition. But although its hull was launched in Hamburg on 14 February 1939, under the gaze of a gleeful Führer and a crowd of 60,000, Bismarck was not ready to undergo sea trials until 18 months later. By that time Germany had already been at war for a year, and the German army and air force have achieved major victories. The German navy, the Kriegsmarine, now needed to do the same.
In January 1941 the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau undertook Operation Berlin, successfully engaging Allied convoys in the Atlantic and sinking and capturing a number of vessels. Grossadmiral Erich Raeder, the head of the Kriegsmarine, saw the opportunity to bring his newest and largest battleship into action in the same role, and a new operation was
