Hunt the Bismarck

by Angus Konstam

  In 1939, the Royal Navy had 12 battleships, three battlecruisers and six aircraft carriers.12 By contrast, the Kriegsmarine only had its two Scharnhorst class capital ships, with two more battleships still being fitted out. Clearly this overwhelming disparity of force meant that the Kriegsmarine couldn’t possibly challenge the Royal Navy for control of the seas. Effectively, the outbreak of war had ended any long-term goal of sea control, which may just have been possible if it had run its course. That left sea denial as a strategic option.

  In terms of a naval war with Britain and France, this meant that while the Kriegsmarine’s limited resources would be spread thinly – more so than in a more limited war with France alone – Britain was wholly dependent on her sea lanes. So, as in World War I, a policy of commerce raiding could well bear fruit. In that previous war, though, the German battle fleet had been confined to the waters of the North Sea. This time round, the OKM expected its larger surface ships to join in the campaign in the Atlantic.

  So, the three armoured cruisers of the Deutchland class, Deutschland (renamed Lützow), Graf Spee and Admiral Hipper, the two battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and eventually Bismarck and Tirpitz would all be used as commerce raiders.13 Despite the scarcity of ships, however, things weren’t as bleak as they might have been. First, the Royal Navy had global commitments, and much of its naval strength was deployed in the Mediterranean or in the Far East. Second, while Germany’s capital ships were brand new, most of the Royal Navy’s battleships were veterans of World War I. So, even though the Royal Navy enjoyed a huge numerical advantage, ship for ship the Kriegsmarine had the edge. The British were aware of this, a knowledge that was reflected in their own naval strategy against Germany. This would involve a ‘distant blockade’, to bottle the Kriegsmarine up in the North Sea and deny it access to the Atlantic.13 With the British Home Fleet now at its traditional wartime base of Scapa Flow in Orkney, it was ideally placed to do just that. Raeder and Schniewind had to come up with a way of breaking this blockade so that they could set about the business of sea denial in the Atlantic.

  This policy was enshrined in the SKL’s Directive No. 1 for the Conduct of the War. 14 Written on 31 August 1939 and promulgated secretly throughout the fleet, it stated: ‘The Kriegsmarine is to carry out commerce warfare, and it will be aimed primarily at England.’ Even at that late hour, as Hitler was poised to invade Poland, he still hoped that Britain and France would back down and not honour their alliance with the Poles. So, while commerce raiding was to be prepared for, and would start the moment Britain declared war, this was not to be an all-out naval campaign of the kind waged by the Kaiser’s U-boats in the previous war. Instead, international niceties would be observed, such as avoiding attacks on passenger liners, calling on victims to abandon ship before she was sunk, and making sure potential targets weren’t flying the flag of a neutral country. This would soon change, but for the moment, at least in theory, these rules would apply.

  The early sorties

  At least, as the war clouds gathered, Grossadmiral (Fleet Admiral) Raeder had the foresight to send most of his commerce raiders to sea. On 3 September 1939, the Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee was loitering in the mid-Atlantic, while far to the north her sister ship Deutschland was doing the same off the southern tip of Greenland.15 Both ships had slipped out of Germany in late August, before the British Home Fleet could intercept them. So too did 21 U-boats – four-fifths of the Kriegsmarine’s available U-boat fleet. At 12.30 that day, on board the Admiral Graf Spee, Kapitänleutnant Langsdorff was smoking a cigar on his bridge when the radio operator appeared and handed him a signal. It was the intercept of an uncoded British transmission, which said quite simply ‘Total Germany’. This clearly meant that war had been declared. This was confirmed a little later by another signal from the SKL, which read: ‘Hostilities with Britain to be opened forthwith.’ So, this was it. The two German ships got under way, and began the business of waging war.

  In fact, the two ships achieved very little. Deutschland was hindered from attacking Allied shipping for three more weeks, as Hitler hoped the British would negotiate a peace once Poland was conquered. She was also hampered by a scarcity of shipping and bad weather, and in her seven-week operational cruise she only sank one British freighter, and seized one neutral one and sank another. She eventually returned home by way of the Denmark Strait, arriving back in Gotenhafen on 17 November. Kapitänleutnant Langsdorff was more successful. The Admiral Graf Spee cruised off the West African coast and then in the Indian Ocean, sinking a total of nine British merchant ships.

  Eventually, though, a number of British and French hunting groups closed in on her, and on 13 December the Admiral Graf Spee was brought to battle off the South American coast, at the mouth of the River Plate. There, three British cruisers forced the more powerful German ship to run into Montevideo in Uruguay. When forced to return to sea to avoid internment, Langsdorff chose to scuttle the Admiral Graf Spee rather than lose his crew in a battle against what he thought were superior British forces. This was the first serious loss for the Kriegsmarine during the war and it emphasised the unpleasant truth about commerce raiding: once they broke out into the Atlantic, any commerce raider, however powerful, was on its own.

  By then the second phase of raiders had left port. During the autumn of 1939, the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were busy undergoing sea trials and crew training. However, early on 22 November they slipped out of Wilhelmshaven and headed north.16 The bad winter weather helped them avoid British patrols as they passed through the gap between Shetland and Norway, then turned towards the north-west, aiming for the north of Iceland. In his flagship Gneisenau, Admiral Wilhelm Marshall planned to use the poor visibility to help him sneak through the gap between Iceland and the Faeroe Islands. That evening, however, the storm abated, and dawn on 23 November brought clear skies and calm seas. Still, their progress went undetected, and as the day wore on Marshall began hoping he might actually make it through the British blockade.

  Then, late in the afternoon, the German lookouts spotted a ship off their port bow. It turned out to be the armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi, commanded by Captain Edward Kennedy.17 The Rawalpindi made smoke and tried to evade the large German warships, and Kennedy managed to send off a sighting report. He ignored German signals to heave-to and, realising that escape was impossible, he turned to fight. It was a singularly one-sided contest. Her 6in. guns hadn’t scored a hit when the Rawalpindi was battered by German shells. When one struck her magazine she was ripped apart, taking all but 38 of her crew down with her, including Captain Kennedy. It was now dusk, and as the German battlecruisers slowed to pick up survivors, the lookouts spotted more British ships approaching. Unaware they were only cruisers, Marshall ordered his two ships to turn away. Four days later, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were back in Wilhelmshaven.

  Although this Atlantic sortie was a failure, others were planned for early the following year. Then, apart from the U-boat offensive, the whole commerce-raiding strategy was halted as the Kriegsmarine was ordered to prepare for another operation, which would have major strategic repercussions. Since the war had begun, Grossadmiral Raeder had been advocating the invasion of Norway.18 Not only would this involve an amphibious invasion, in which the Kriegsmarine could play a major role, but if successful it would also give it secure bases along the Norwegian coast. This would be harder for the British to blockade, and so in theory it would make a breakout into the North Atlantic easier. The invasion began in April 1940. While both Norway and Denmark were conquered, the Kriegsmarine suffered heavy losses – three cruisers and ten destroyers were sunk in Norwegian waters, while Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged. Nevertheless, Raeder declared that gaining control of Norway was worth the loss of half of his battle fleet.

  Norway was still being consolidated by the Germans when Hitler launched his next offensive. It turned out that the Scandinavian operation had been little more than a prelude to the main event. On 10
May 1940, the German invasion of France and the Low Countries began, and within five days the German panzers had broken through the Allied front near Sedan.19 As German tanks raced across France, the British and French troops in Belgium began to retreat to the south, but on 20 May the Germans reached the Channel coast, and so cut the Allied forces in two. With pressure mounting on land and from the air, the British began evacuating Allied troops from Dunkirk. While this saved the lives of more than 250,000 British and French troops, it left the Germans free to turn south and complete their conquest of France. Paris fell on 14 June, and just over a week later the French surrendered and signed an armistice.

  France was divided in two – the northern part was occupied by the German army, while the south was considered a ‘free zone’, governed by a rump French government based in Vichy. What this meant for the Kriegsmarine was that it suddenly found it had access to a string of sizeable French ports on the Atlantic coast. These included the magnificently equipped French naval bases at Brest and St Nazaire. In consequence, in a matter of just two months the whole strategic situation had been turned on its head. Now the Kriegsmarine could move its U-boats to these new French ports, which lay within easy reach of Britain’s sea lanes in the Atlantic.20 With Norway in German hands, surface units and U-boats could use the fjords as a staging place for sorties into the North Atlantic. Once there, they now had the option of returning the same way, or of putting into the French Atlantic ports. As a result, when commerce raiding resumed, the Kriegsmarine held a much better hand.

  Throughout the summer of 1940, the Kriegsmarine was held in readiness for Operation Sealion – the amphibious invasion of Britain. Raeder argued that after Norway the navy lacked the strength to guarantee success. This meant that airpower would be the deciding factor. So, after the Luftwaffe’s failure to subdue the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, the invasion forces were stood down, and the Kriegmarine was free to resume its policy of sea denial.

  While the U-boats continued to wage their own hidden war in the Atlantic, the navy’s surface warships could now rejoin the campaign. On 23 October, the Panzerschiff Admiral Scheer left Gotenhafen and sailed through the Baltic and into Norwegian waters. From there, she headed up past the Arctic Circle, then curved westwards. She slipped undetected through the Denmark Strait at the end of October, and into the vastness of the Atlantic.

  So began a remarkable commerce-raiding cruise that lasted five months and took Admiral Scheer as far as the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.21 In many ways, it mirrored the cruise of her sister ship the Admiral Graf Spee a year before. The difference was that the Admiral Scheer made it home again, retracing her old route through the Denmark Strait in late March 1941 and arriving back in Kiel on 1 April. Her first victim was another armed merchant cruiser, Jervis Bay, which was sunk by Admiral Scheer’s guns in a little over 20 minutes. The raider then headed south into the mid-Atlantic.

  On 30 November, a second raider – the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper – left Germany, and followed the route taken by the Panzerschiff, putting into Norwegian waters near Bergen before continuing on past the Arctic Circle.22 On 7 December, she broke out into the Atlantic through the Denmark Strait, and once more the British cruisers on patrol there failed to spot her as she slipped past them. Her hunting ground was the convoy lanes between Newfoundland and the Western Approaches to the British Isles. Bad weather made it hard to find targets, but on Christmas Eve she came upon a convoy, escorted by the British heavy cruiser Berwick. The Admiral Hipper drove off her rival, but the duel bought time for the convoy to scatter. The next day, she caught and sank one of the freighters, but it was a poor consolation prize. Two days later, on 27 December, she put in to Brest.

  The Admiral Hipper would put to sea again in early February, but this time her captain was under strict instructions to avoid engaging powerful enemy escorts. This cruise off the Azores lasted less than two weeks, after falling on a convoy and sinking seven merchant ships, as well as another – a straggler from another convoy. She returned to Brest to refuel and rearm, then returned to sea. The Kriegsmarine was keen to get her back to Germany, due to frequent British air attacks on the French ports. So, on 15 March she left Brest, avoided British patrols and safely passed through the Denmark Strait eight days later. By the end of the month, she was safely back in Kiel. Two days later, on 1 April 1941, she was joined by Admiral Scheer. During her 42,000-mile voyage she sank 17 Allied merchant ships and an armed merchant cruiser, which made her the most successful single German surface raider of the war.

  Operation Berlin

  Towards the end of 1940, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau completed their repairs and became available to play a part in these sorties.23 So, early on 22 January they left Kiel and headed north through Danish waters. This time, the German battlecruisers were commanded by Admiral Günther Lütjens, who had planned the sortie – code named Operation Berlin – in meticulous detail. However, ice delayed his passage through the Skagerrak, as did a British sweep in the Norwegian Sea, but by the 26th the two battlecruisers were safely in the North Sea, and heading north. By the early hours of the 27th they were level with Iceland, and Lütjens made his move, heading west to pass through the Iceland–Faeroes gap. The trouble was, visibility was good – too good – and the night sky was lit by the aurora borealis. Both ships were equipped with radar, albeit not such a good set as the one carried on British ships. Still, Lütjens hoped it would give him an edge. Then, the set on Gneisenau broke down.

  As dawn approached, a radar contact was made – probably an enemy cruiser – and Lütjens ordered his ships to turn away to the north. In fact, it was the light cruiser Naiad, whose radar was malfunctioning and was therefore slower than the Germans’ to detect the enemy. A second contact at 08.00 forced another turn, until they were now heading away from the Iceland–Faeroes gap and back towards the Arctic Sea. At that point, the fleet commander gave up the attempt. Instead, he planned to head north and refuel from a waiting tanker, stationed to the east of Jan Mayen island. Unknown to him, this was the best move he could have made. The British were expecting him, and the bulk of the Home Fleet was at sea. This included the battleships Nelson and Rodney, and the battlecruiser Repulse. Collectively, they had more than enough firepower to destroy Lütjens’ command.

  Instead, he spent the next few days making contact with the tanker Adria and completing a refuelling at sea – a tricky operation given the rough seas and intense cold. Still, by 23.00 on 1 February the refuelling was complete, and the two German battlecruisers turned south again. Lütjens had decided, however, that this time he was going to try the Denmark Strait, between Greenland and Iceland. Again, his timing was perfect. By then the bulk of the Home Fleet was running low on fuel and had returned to Scapa Flow.24 He also made his approach to the Denmark Strait late on the evening of 3 February, so his ships would be cloaked by the Arctic night. In theory, the Strait was 150 miles wide, but at that time of year pack ice off Greenland reduced it to a little less than half its full width. The crews were at Action Stations and the lookouts peered into the darkness, not just for enemy ships, but also for ice floes lying across their path. Everyone was tense and fully expecting an enemy warship to appear at any moment.

  At 03.00 a radar contact was made, and Lütjens edged his ships away from it. This contact – an armed merchant cruiser – maintained its course, which suggested that they hadn’t been spotted. By the time dawn broke, they were through the Strait and the danger of encountering the enemy was behind them. Ahead lay the vastness of the North Atlantic. Lütjens understood the importance of the moment. On his flagship’s tannoy, and in a signal flashed to Scharnhorst, Lütjens announced: ‘For the first time in history, German battleships have reached the Atlantic.’25 It was true. That day, 4 January 1941, was a key moment in the Kriegsmarine’s history. Not only had the two capital ships broken out into the Atlantic, but they had also done so without being detected. Now the two wolves were loose among the sheep.

  The
distances in the Atlantic were vast, so Lütjens’ first priority was to refuel, to give him the greatest possible range of operation. Fortunately, the tanker Schlettstadt was waiting for him 100 miles south of Cape Farewell, the southernmost tip of Greenland. The two battlecruisers reached the rendezvous point, code named Point Black, and found the tanker waiting for them. By the morning of 6 February the refuelling was complete, and the battlecruisers parted company. With that done, Lütjens reviewed his options. The main transatlantic convoy route lay a few hundred miles to the south, running between Halifax in Newfoundland and the Western Approaches. Naval intelligence knew that the two old British battleships Ramillies and Revenge were being used to escort convoys part of the way, then return to Halifax to refuel. So, Lütjens planned to intercept these convoys well to the east of this, to avoid being drawn into a needless fight.

  He reached the chosen area on 7 February, and intelligence reports from Berlin suggested an eastbound convoy was on its way.26 In response, Lütjens split up his two ships to cover a wider area and waited for the enemy to appear. Sure enough, the next morning the enemy convoy appeared, directly between the two battlecruisers. Lütjens gave the order to close in. Both of the German ships were about 20 miles from the convoy, at the very edge of visibility. Then, amid Convoy HX106’s ragged lines of 41 merchant ships and four destroyers, lookouts on the Scharnhorst spotted something a lot more menacing: it was a battleship – one of the two Royal Sovereign class ships based in Halifax. In fact, she was the Ramillies. Although a lumbering relic of the previous war, she carried eight 15in. guns – significantly more powerful than the 11in ones mounted in the German ships. When Lütjens heard the report he ordered his two ships to break off the attack.