Hunt the Bismarck

by Angus Konstam

  Admiral Lütjens regarded these merchant ships as another possible security risk – some of them would undoubtedly report their presence by radio, allowing the British to pick up the transmission.20 So, he decided to forge his own path. Lell and his five minesweepers were ordered to take position ahead of the task force and to clear a fresh path through the minefield several miles to the north of the main channel. This was a fairly straightforward task for them, albeit a dangerous one. Around 16.00 they began the transit of the minefield at a steady speed of 17 knots. Everything went smoothly, and by 17.15 they were through. The minesweeping flotilla was dismissed, and the task force turned on to a new heading of 270°, or due west. There was still a risk of encountering an enemy submarine so everyone remained vigilant, particularly the hydrophone operators.

  In fact, at one stage that evening the operator on the Prinz Eugen detected what he thought was a contact to port, but nothing developed and the task force swept past. At 17 knots, they were much faster than any British submarine, and so the only real threat was from one that lay directly in their path. Accordingly, they continued to zigzag, to reduce the chances of a lurking submarine being able to launch a torpedo spread, and gradually the mountains of southern Norway loomed into view ahead of them.

  At 21.00, they reached the start of the Kristiansand minefield’s swept channel. The formation changed, with Z-10 Hans Lody leading, followed by Prinz Eugen, Bismarck and Z-16 Friedrich Eckoldt.21 The Z-23 brought up the rear. Speed was kept at 17 knots, but in case a mine was accidentally triggered, all of the ships had their damage control teams standing ready and kept their watertight doors closed. It took an hour to work through the minefield. On board the Bismarck, Müllenheim-Rechberg and some of his fellow officers settled down in the wardroom to see a film, Spiel im Sommerwind (Play in the Summer Wind), a romantic comedy released in 1938. They were up on deck, though, as darkness fell, to take in the scenery as they left the minefield.

  Sunset that evening was at around 22.00, and as they drew closer to the coast near Kristiansand the sun began to fall behind the mountains. Müllenheim-Rechberg described the scene: ‘The outlines of the beautiful, austere landscape, with the black silhouette of its mountains raised against the red glow of the sky, enabled me to forget for a moment all about the war.’22 As the sun set, they cleared the swept channel, and the destroyers took up their usual positions again, ahead and on each side of the larger ships. Now they were in open water, Lütjens ordered their speed to be increased to 27 knots and the task force surged forwards, heading around the southernmost tip of Norway. Until darkness fell, half of the flak guns on Bismarck had been manned, with the crews taking turns about to stand anti-aircraft watches. Now, for the next six-and-a-half hours, night would protect them from British aircraft.

  Watchers on the shore

  Meanwhile, as the task force approached the channel to the next minefield off Kristiansand, the ships were clearly visible from the shore. In Vestervien, a western suburb of Kristiansand, a group of young Norwegians were making their way along the shore to a bar and restaurant out of town to celebrate the launch of Viggo Axelssen’s new boat, the previous one having been commandeered by the German authorities.23 Unknown to most of his friends, Axelssen was a member of the Norwegian Resistance. He worked for a local ship’s chandlery and so had easy access both to the harbour and to the port office. There, he learned useful snippets of intelligence, such as the position of the Kristiansand minefield, as well as the channel through it. He also reported shipping movements through the swept channel – usually coastal convoys. He hoped this information would allow British submarines to lie in wait.

  Normally, Axelssen sent his reports once a week, by way of another Resistance member who lived near Flekkefjord, some 60 miles to the east.24 Axelssen himself had no contact with the radio operator. Instead, his encrypted messages were passed to Arne Moen, a local bus driver and good friend, who smuggled them to Flekkefjord hidden in a secret compartment in his bus engine. From Flekkefjord, the messages were passed on to London. While the Germans knew there was a Resistance cell in the area, and a radio transmitter somewhere near Flekkefjord, they hadn’t found them. Nevertheless, each transmission represented a huge risk.

  At one point, as dusk was approaching, the group stopped to admire the view. In front of them, the wide channel fringed by a patchwork of islands led to the lighthouse on Oskøy, 5 miles away at the mouth of the bay. Beyond that was the open sea of the Skagerrak. As they watched, a group of ships appeared, heading towards the minefield. Axelssen recognised them for what they were – a task force of German warships. One of the group had an old-fashioned spyglass with him, which Axelssen borrowed and used to make out two large ships, led by smaller destroyers, with aircraft flying above them. Clearly, this was important – a major German task force leaving the Baltic and heading west. He realised that this news couldn’t wait.

  So, when his friends reached the town, Axelssen claimed he had something to deal with at work and that he would join them shortly. He scurried off, wrote out a short message in code and went round to see the bus driver Arne Moen. He was in luck – he was due to make an evening run to Flekkefjord. Axelssen handed over the note and went back to the party. In this manner, later that evening the message reached Gunvald Tomstad, the man with the radio transmitter. He usually took his transmitter deep into the woods before he sent his signal but, sensing the urgency, he realised that this time was different and with the help of another Resistance man erected the equipment in his barn and sent the signal immediately. This meant that it reached the Admiralty in London shortly before midnight. Little did he know that a second, similar message was already there, courtesy of Captain Denham in Stockholm. Now there was no room for doubt – a powerful German task force was at sea, in Norwegian waters.

  Back out at sea, 8 miles south of Kristiansand, the three destroyers threaded their way through the minefield, then increased speed to 27 knots. At 22.15 they altered on to a new heading of 286° – or west-north-west.25 This meant that they had passed the southernmost tip of Norway near Lindesnes and were curving up slightly, to clear the westward bulge of the coastline. They were out of the Skagerrak now, and in the North Sea. Midnight came and went, and shortly before 02.00 on 21 May the task force made another turn towards the north. They were now steering 327°, or north-north-west. A little later, in accordance with Admiral Lütjens’ standing orders, the ships cleared for action. Who knew what might be waiting for them as dawn broke.

  In fact, the fleet commander had every reason to be cautious. During the night, several messages were transmitted to the flagship, either from Group North in Wilhelmshaven or Naval High Command in Berlin. The first of these, received a little before 01.00, said that the British were looking for two large warships and three destroyers.26 That was reassuring because it suggested the British Admiralty had no idea what the warships were, or where they were heading. Before 02.00, as the task force drew level with Stavanger, Berlin sent a copy of a report on a reconnaissance flight over Scapa Flow. Apparently, a little after noon the previous day, an aircraft carrier, three battleships or battlecruisers and several cruisers had still been in the anchorage. This meant that the chances of an encounter off the Norwegian coast were slim, and perhaps Lütjens relaxed slightly as a consequence.

  Still, when dawn came at around 04.30, Admiral Lütjens, Kapitän Linde­mann and dozens of lookouts scanned the horizon in search of enemy ships or aircraft. It was empty. So, they steamed on, by now steering a fraction west of north, keeping roughly parallel to the Norwegian coast. This was decision time for the fleet commander.27 His original plan called for a refuelling stop near Bergen, which was fast approaching. However, he had already expressed that he favoured his alternate plan – continuing on into the Arctic Sea, and a rendezvous with a tanker beyond the Arctic Circle. We don’t know why he returned to the original plan and decided to put in to the Korsfjord near Bergen.

  He may, perhaps, have been swayed by another mess
age, intercepted by the B-Dienst section on board Prinz Eugen at 06.40 that morning.28 This reported that an overheard and decoded British signal had said they were looking for a German naval task force heading northwards up the Norwegian coast. Minutes later, the radio office on Bismarck received another message, this time from Berlin. It told a similar story: the British were looking for two German battleships and three destroyers, heading north. So, apart from the misidentification of the Prinz Eugen, Lütjens now knew that the British were looking for him, and knew roughly which way he was heading. In response, he gave the order that would send his task force turning towards the coast and the fjord that led towards Bergen.

  Chapter 6

  Sojourn in Norway

  The Korsfjord

  It was 07.00 on the morning of 21 May 1941. Admiral Lütjens had made his decision. The German task force would put in to the Korsfjord, near Bergen. As his order was signalled from the flagship to the other warships, a cluster of specks appeared off Bismarck’s port beam.1 They were aircraft, but thanks to the bright sun nobody knew whether they were friendly or not. In fact, these were four RAF Bristol Blenheims from 254 Squadron on a reconnaissance patrol off the Norwegian coast. Since dawn, a pair of Messerschmitt Bf 109s had been circling over the task force, and it was one of these that first spotted the aircraft. They disappeared, though, and nobody knew whether or not they’d sighted the ships.

  By then, the force had turned to starboard and was approaching the mouth of the Korsfjord. One of the advantages of this particular part of the Norwegian coast was that it had two entrances – this southern one and then a second one, above Bergen. Lütjens liked the flexibility that gave him, and the fact that he had the chance to use the coastal islands as cover as the task force headed north that evening. His plan was to lie low for the day in the Korsfjord and to top up their fuel tanks – something that was particularly important for the Prinz Eugen, whose tanks were running low after her voyage from Gotenhafen.

  Initially, the Korsfjord ran towards the north-east, but after a few miles it opened out into a larger body of water that ran northwards towards Bergen. The long, hilly island Fjell lay to port, while to starboard was the Norwegian mainland. Other small islands lay dotted around the fjord, while small inlets lay off either side, the largest of which, on the north-east, led to the Norwegian city of Bergen. Müllenheim-Rechberg described how the rocky cliffs of the Norwegian coast appeared first, followed a little later by a barren, mountainous landscape.2 As they entered the Korsfjord itself, picturesque houses could be seen, lit by the bright morning sunlight.

  According to Lütjens’ wishes, the ships now split up, with Bismarck heading into the Grimstadfjord on the eastern side of the Korsfjord, a little south of Bergen, while the Prinz Eugen and the destroyers continued northwards before dropping anchor in Kalvanes Bay, off the north-eastern side of Fjell, a few miles to the west of Bergen.

  The Bismarck dropped anchor at 09.00, the ship protected by the narrowness of the small inlet, augmented by a couple of supply ships, which were ordered to anchor near the entrance to the inlet to protect the German battleship from torpedo attack.3 Then they set about the business of waiting out the day. It was the same in Kalvanes Bay, where Prinz Eugen and the three destroyers had dropped anchor. Again, with no torpedo nets available it was up to the destroyers to form a protective shield around the cruiser, as did the German tanker Wollin, and two Sperrbrecher and more supply vessels.

  The plan was to use the Wollin to refuel the Prinz Eugen first, and then the Bismarck. The cruiser had used up a quarter of her fuel during the voyage north and needed this replenishment if she were to operate effectively in the North Atlantic. The destroyers were low on fuel, too, but as they weren’t leaving Norwegian waters, their needs were less urgent. Accordingly, that forenoon and early afternoon, the Prinz Eugen took on fuel oil until her tanks were fully replenished.

  Strangely, while the Wollin should have dropped down to the Grimstadfjord and done the same for Bismarck, neither Lütjens nor Lindemann considered this particularly urgent, as the battleship’s tanks were still around 90 per cent full.4 Presumably – and the real reason may never be known – Lütjens planned to refuel the battleship from one of the tankers stationed in the north-western fringes of the North Atlantic. There was certainly time to do it in the Korsfjord – the fleet admiral planned to remain there all day and leave under cover of darkness. Instead, the Wollin remained at anchor in Kalvanes Bay. Perhaps the reason was that the fleet commander had realised that the British now knew where he was.

  That morning, Lütjens gave the orders that both the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen should change their camouflage schemes.5 Both ships carried what was known as a Baltic scheme, whereby the plain light-grey hulls were broken by two-colour black-and-white chevrons. Darker grey at the bow and the stern gave the illusion that the ship was shorter than it actually was, to confuse enemy rangefinders. This was augmented by false white waves at the fake bow and stern. Then, on the upper deck, at the ends of the focsle and quarterdeck of both ships, there was a black swastika inside a white circle. These were aircraft recognition patches, to spare the ships the ignominy of being bombed by their own air force. During the sojourn in Norway these were covered over with tarpaulins, but once at sea they were painted over in grey.

  Then, on both Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, working parties were sent over the side to paint over the chevrons. This took most of the morning, but eventually it was done. The dark grey at the bow and stern were gone, too, but the bow wave remained. One final touch was the painting of the turret tops in a slightly darker grey. The result was a pair of ships whose appearances were better suited to the grey seas and grey skies of the North Atlantic than the waters of the Baltic Sea. This was the colour scheme the Bismarck wore when she sailed from the Grimstadfjord and would keep throughout the operation. That task done, the crews settled down to enjoy the rest of the long, sunlit afternoon.

  The blue Spitfire

  Meanwhile, 320 miles to the south-west, a pair of Spitfires was taking off from RAF Wick, in the north-east tip of Scotland.6 A year before, the Supermarine Spitfire fighter had been the mainstay of Great Britain’s air defence during the Battle of Britain. These Mark III aircraft, however, were different. Rather than sporting a green-and-grey camouflage scheme, they were painted light grey-blue all over, to merge with the sky. They belonged to the Photo Reconnaissance Unit (PRU), and carried cameras rather than guns – four of them mounted in their fuselage, designed to take overlapping pictures of targets on the ground. These little planes had a range of 1,500 miles, and with a top speed of over 300mph they could also outpace most enemy fighters they ran into.

  Their job was to locate the German task force that had been reported by Denham and Axelssen. One PRU Spitfire flown by Flying Officer (Fg Off.) Frank Greenhill was to reach the Norwegian coast near Stavanger and fly around it as far as Oslo. The other, flown by Fg Off. Mike Suckling, was to head north towards Bergen. Greenhill drew a blank and only spotted small patrol boats and merchant ships during his sweep. Suckling’s sweep was proving fruitless, too, until he began approaching Bergen and flew up the Korsfjord. There, 27,000ft below him, was a large warship – probably a cruiser – surrounded by several merchant vessels.7 The time was 13.15. His cameras clicked away at it, but also below him, Suckling noticed enemy fighters. So, he flew on, and was rewarded with the sighting of another cruiser in nearby Kalvanes Bay. He continued his probe of the fjord and then turned for home.

  Back in a corner of the bleak airfield at Wick sat the PRU technical building. Once Suckling had landed, the cameras were unclipped from his Spitfire and taken straight to the darkroom there. Earlier in the war, this had been centralised, and film was sent south for development and analysis. Now, a two-tier system had taken its place and each PRU base had its own photographic laboratory where the prints were developed within an hour of the plane landing. These were then taken to an initial analysing team, who pored over them and made an evaluation. If t
he photographs revealed something of critical importance, then they would be studied in more detail and the negatives would be flown south for further examination. This meant that important or time-sensitive discoveries – such as the presence of major German warships – could be acted on without any unnecessary delay.

  Suckling landed a little before 15.00, and within two hours the ships had been identified as a Bismarck class battleship in the Grimstadfjord and an Admiral Hipper class heavy cruiser in Kalvanes Bay.8 The Admiralty were fairly certain they were the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen. So, their next problem was what to do about this sighting. The immediate step was to inform Admiral Tovey in Scapa Flow. Then, RAF Coastal Command were contacted and asked to organise an air attack on the two anchorages. That evening, a force of 12 Hudson and six Whitley twin-engined bombers from 222, 269 and 619 Squadrons were sent from RAF Wick, carrying a mixture of 500lb bombs and flares.9 However, when they reached the Bergen area two hours later they found the Korsfjord was blanketed in a layer of fog.

  Only two of the Hudson bombers therefore actually managed to identify their target areas, and blindly dropped their ordnance into the murk below them, in the vicinity of Kalvanes Bay. The problem was, the weather conditions were changing. A strong wind had sprung up from the south-west, bringing rain, low cloud and poor visibility with it. The fog over Bergen was more of a local phenomenon – the region was well known for it. However, it was enough to hide the German task force. Worse, though, was to come. Back in Britain, a second, even larger, air attack was being coordinated.10 This would have involved up to 30 two-engined bombers from RAF airfields in Caithness and Orkney – a mixture of bomb-carrying Hudsons and torpedo-armed Beauforts. Also prepared to join them were seven torpedo-armed Albacores from 828 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm.