Hunt the Bismarck
Page 22
Since 17.40 Sheffield had been in visual contact with Bismarck, and despite the bad weather and poor visibility she was now shadowing her, from 10–12 miles astern.17 To some, she still looked dangerously close, and everyone on board was well aware that her 15in. guns could rip Sheffield apart in a single salvo. Yet the German battleship didn’t open fire.
At 19.00, some 35 miles to the north, Ark Royal turned into the wind and Maund gave Traill the signal to launch aircraft. A 50-knot wind was whistling over the flight deck, so Maund had reduced speed to 10 knots. The flight deck was still pitching alarmingly, and spray was breaking over the flight deck crews holding the planes in place. Despite this, everyone on board or in the planes was grimly determined. They knew it was all up to them. Finally, at 19.10, Traill lowered his green flag, the flight deck crew removed their chocks and the first Swordfish began rolling forwards.
Again, it was all in the timing. Traill and his team were watching the waves, so they timed each launch as the carrier’s bows were rising out of a trough. One by one the biplanes moved along the deck, picking up speed, and then rose into the gale-tossed air. Eventually, all 15 Swordfish were airborne.18 Coode had them form up over Somerville’s flagship, and at 19.25 they set off, heading towards the south-west.
This time, despite the poor visibility and low cloud, the approach was uneventful, and shortly before 20.00 the Sheffield appeared on radar. Coode signalled for the strike to drop down below the clouds and they approached the cruiser from their port quarter. On this occasion, nobody launched a torpedo. Instead, they formed up again over the Sheffield, as Captain Larcom had a message flashed to them, saying that Bismarck lay 12 miles away, on a bearing of 110°. With that, the 15 Swordfish raced on into the gloom, and towards the waiting enemy.
The cloud was a little higher this time, at about 2,000ft, covering seven-tenths of the sky. Coode led his aircraft above the cloud layer to hide his approach, and after a false start when he lost the bearing, they set off towards the east while climbing to 6,000ft. At 20.30 they split up into sub-flights, each group of three planes following the one in front, with Coode’s sub-flight in the lead. There were mist patches at sea level and the light was fading, so he hoped it would help screen their approach for a few vital seconds while the Swordfish made their attack runs. His plan called for half of the strike to attack the Bismarck simultaneously from each beam. Now, however, the poor flying conditions made this set-piece attack look unlikely. The low clouds meant there was a good chance that the sub-flights would lose contact with each other. For this reason, he signalled them to act independently and choose their own approach.
At 20.45, Coode reckoned they were getting close, so he ordered the planes to start their dive. Later, he recalled: ‘Visibility was limited – a matter of yards. I watched the altimeter go back. When we reached 2,000ft I started to worry … At 1,000ft I felt sure something was wrong, but still we were completely enclosed by cloud.’19 The clouds were thicker over Bismarck – and lower. They finally broke through them at 700ft. As Coode had feared, the strike had been broken up by the cloud. It was just as well. They had overshot their target, and Bismarck lay 4 miles behind them. Turning and attacking upwind in such lumbering planes would have been suicidal, so Coode had the three planes accompanying him bank around, then climb back into the clouds. The rest of the strike were nowhere to be seen. A few minutes later, just before 21.00, Coode dropped down again, followed by his three companions. As they emerged from the clouds, they saw the Bismarck dead ahead of them.20
To Coode’s slight annoyance, he saw they weren’t the first planes to arrive. Over beyond Bismarck, two planes of Lt David ‘Feather’ Godfrey-Faussett’s second sub-flight could be seen, approaching the battleship from starboard, but aiming slightly ahead of her. The textbook called for the torpedoes to be launched 900 yards (0.14 miles) from the target, at a height of 90ft above the water, and with the Swordfish travelling at 90mph. At that range it would take the 18in. Mark XII torpedo 40 seconds to reach its target. In that time, though, a battleship making 28 knots would travel 622 yards – and Bismarck was 274 yards long. Thus, the Swordfish had to ‘lead’ the target by around 500 yards (0.25 mile), aiming in front of her to make sure the torpedo hit her squarely. As the two planes levelled off and began their run, Bismarck’s side erupted in orange flame and lines of multi-coloured tracer began streaking towards them. Seconds later, flak bursts erupted, but mercifully for the air crews, they were in front of them.
Godfrey-Faussett’s Swordfish 2B and Sub Lt Kenneth Pattison in 2A had climbed above the clouds, but were forced down due to ice forming on their wings.21 However, Godfrey-Faussett had ASV radar and they emerged well placed off the battleship’s starboard beam. It looked like every gun on board was aiming at them as they made their run. Tracer and shells ripped through their wings, but they held their nerve long enough to drop their torpedoes before banking away to starboard, trying to climb away from the flak. Kapitän Lindemann was already turning to starboard though, but not fast enough to avoid one of the torpedoes, which struck the battleship near her stern. This may well have been the crucial rudder hit that crippled the Bismarck.
This turn also meant that Coode’s four planes were now approaching the Bismarck from her port side, which erupted in flame as the battleship’s flak batteries once more opened up on the four Swordfish. Three of them were from Coode’s first sub-flight, made up from 818 Squadron.22 Sub Lt Edward Child’s aircraft 5B had been hit by shrapnel, but somehow it stayed in the air. Amazingly, none of them was knocked out of the skies before they released their torpedoes. Coode loosed his moments after Child, and just before Sub Lt John ‘Jock’ Moffat, the youngest member of the sub-flight. Born in the Scottish borders, he had only joined the Fleet Air Arm the year before, and Ark Royal was his first operational assignment. As he flew closer to Bismarck he was awestruck by her size: ‘If you’re facing a ship that size, twice as big as your own ship, and they’re firing everything they have at you, it is simply unbelievable. The stuff was coming in at such a rate I don’t mind admitting that I was petrified.’ Still, Jock released his torpedo and banked away, the tracer following him as he went.
Moffat released his torpedo at a signal from his observer, Sub Lt John ‘Dusty’ Miller, who’d been watching the wave tops.23 If the torpedo landed in a trough, it was likely to run deep and strike below the battleship’s armoured belt. Hitting a wave or its crest meant it would run shallow and was less likely to do any real damage. Jock and Dusty timed their drop to perfection, although they were still about 1,500 yards (0.75 mile) from the Bismarck. At this point, Kapitän Lindemann was turning Bismarck hard to port, and as the Swordfish turned away it looked like the four torpedoes would miss. Looking back, Lt Edmond Carver, who was Coode’s observer in 5A, thought he saw a column of water erupt on the battleship’s port side, just by her funnel. That may have been an illusion, however; the hit was actually further aft.
The fourth pilot in the group, Lt Keane of 818 Squadron, flying 5K, dropped his ‘kipper’ at a similar range. Later, both Keane and Moffat laid claim to scoring a hit, but the likelihood is that it was 5K’s torpedo that struck the ship on her port side. Now, as the other three planes flew off, Coode hung around as he wanted to see if the rest of his strike aircraft would have better luck. The third sub-flight of two planes had been split up, one accompanying Coode and the other joining the fourth sub-flight, which was still nowhere to be seen. Clearly, the whole strike had been badly scattered in the clouds. At the next moment, Coode saw them drop through the clouds and head towards Bismarck’s port quarter.
There were four aircraft in this attack – three from the fourth sub-flight, and Sub Lt Charles Jewell’s plane 2A, from the third sub-flight. Stewart-Moore commanded the attack, from the observer’s seat of Swordfish 4A.24 His planes had been in a tight formation as they entered the cloud layer, but by the time they emerged they were strung out, and so there wasn’t any chance of a coordinated attack. Regardless, they pressed on. S
ub Lt Alan Swanton’s Swordfish 4C was one of these. To him, Bismarck, now less than half a mile away, ‘looked black and menacing’ – a sinister humpbacked ship whose flak guns seemed to be aiming directly at him. Indeed, some of them were. They approached the battleship from her port beam.
First, two other planes dropped their torpedoes – Swordfish 4A and 4B, both from 820 Squadron. Then it was Swanton’s turn He released his torpedo, then turned away. As he banked, a flak shell erupted just beneath them and pieces of shrapnel ripped through the flimsy plane. The Swordfish staggered, but she stayed in the air. Both Swanton and his gunner were wounded, and afterwards they counted no fewer than 175 holes peppering 4C’s airframe. The flak was terrifyingly thick and it seemed miraculous that none of the other planes was hit. Later, all the air crews agreed that the Germans seemed to be firing ahead of the aircraft – almost as if they couldn’t imagine that a torpedo-carrying aircraft could be quite as slow as a lumbering Swordfish.
All three Swordfish of Stewart-Moore’s sub-flight launched their torpedoes and made off, as did Lt Jewell in 2M of the third sub-flight, who had tagged along for the attack.25 They attacked almost simultaneously with Godfrey-Faussett’s sub-flight, coming in from the battleship’s port side. That in theory should have made it harder for Kapitän Lindemann to avoid the torpedoes. Somehow he managed it, and all of the fourth sub-flight’s ‘kippers’ missed the battleship. They were now heading away from the ship and so the flak eased as they drew out of range of the battleship’s smaller anti-aircraft guns. They weren’t home safe yet though – at that moment Bismarck fired her main 15in. guns, and the salvo landed right in front of Stewart-Moore’s plane. The columns of water they threw up were even higher than the altitude of the planes. In fact, Swanton had to fly through one of these columns of collapsing spray.
So, Coode’s four aircraft attacking from off the battleship’s port bow, Stewart-Moore’s four from the port beam and Godfrey-Faussett’s two from the starboard beam had all launched their torpedoes. Of these, one had hit the battleship on her port side, but there was no visible sign of damage. Coode had watched the other two attacks go in, and was disappointed that Bismarck seemed virtually unscathed. Still, he had five more aircraft left, somewhere above him in the clouds. These were the four Swordfish making up the fifth and sixth sub-flights, and one missing plane, 2P, flown by Sub Lt Tony Beale of 810 Squadron. He had been part of the second sub-flight but had lost his way in the clouds.26 So, he calmly returned to Sheffield and his observer flashed a signal lamp, asking for directions. With these, Beale set off again and spotted Bismarck ahead of him, 7 miles away. He skirted the clouds, working his way around to her port side, before turning in to start his attack.
His observer, Charlie Friend, thought Bismarck looked particularly wicked, with her huge humped back.27 Beale kept the Swordfish low, just 50ft from the water, and he held his nerve, too, closing to within 800 yards (0.4 miles) before dropping his torpedo. The flak was intense. As Friend put it as they flew closer and closer to Bismarck: ‘Her decks seemed to explode into crackling flame, the sea was lashed with shot and fragments.’ As they released the torpedo and banked away, at the back of the Swordfish Leading Airman Ken Pimlott opened up on the battleship with his machine gun, just for the heck of it. Next, Friend saw a big plume of water erupt on the port side of the Bismarck, amidships, near the funnel. Pimlott danced a little jig as they sped away, ignoring the tracer chasing after them.
Lt Alistair Owen-Smith, leading the two Swordfish of the fifth sub-flight, was behind the others, and as the first planes attacked he was still diving through the cloud. He saw shells bursting near him as he dived, and when he dropped through the cloud cover he found he was astern of Bismarck. He was working his way forwards towards the starboard beam of Bismarck when he saw a column of water erupt near the battleship’s stern, on what he thought was her port side. He closed to within 1,000 yards (0.5 mile), ‘flying through a wall of smoke and water’, then launched his torpedo before turning away.28 It missed, as the battleship turned hard to port. At the time he thought this was an unusual manoeuvre, as he expected her to be turning the other way. Still, he was more successful than the second Swordfish of the flight, which made two attempts to attack but was forced back by the wall of flak. After this, the pilot jettisoned his torpedo and headed home.
That left the two planes from the sixth sub-flight, both from 820 Squadron. They lost each other in the clouds, and while one gave up and headed home, the other, Swordfish 4G, approached Bismarck from her starboard side. By now the other planes had gone, so her pilot, Sub Lt Willcocks, felt horribly exposed, as all the flak now seemed to be directed at his solitary plane. As a result, he released early, at 2,000 yards (1 mile), but Bismarck continued to turn to port, and the long-range torpedo attack failed as it surged past the battleship, well off her starboard side. That was the last roll of the dice. From start to finish the attack had lasted roughly 25 minutes, from 21.00 onwards. Now, as the last plane departed, the Bismarck’s guns fell silent. Several of the Swordfish flew over Sheffield on their way home, and the cruiser’s crew cheered them, not from any expectation they’d achieved anything, but really in celebration that the airmen were still alive.
Lt Cdr Coode had watched it all. With the attack complete, it was with a heavy heart he ordered a signal to be sent off before turning for home. It simply read: ‘Estimate no hits.’29 With that, the last Swordfish departed, heading back towards Ark Royal, and the prospect of another dangerous landing in rough seas and the growing dark. The first Swordfish began landing on the carrier just after 22.00, and the last of them touched down just before 23.00. The landing itself was almost as dramatic as the attack had been. Ark Royal was still pitching violently, and five of the Swordfish had been hit by flak. The worst was 4C, piloted by the wounded Swanson. He landed her safely, but she turned out to be so badly damaged that she was deemed a write-off and was ditched over the side. Three of the others crash-landed on the carrier’s deck, either through mistiming the pitching of the ship or from damage to their undercarriage. Nevertheless, everyone survived the experience.
When Coode sent his signal, he presumed that none of the torpedoes had hit their target. On the bridge of King George V, Admiral Tovey had been waiting for Coode’s signal, and when it came he merely smiled, and said nothing.30 At that moment he must have thought that he was beaten. He had come very close, but Bismarck seemed to lead a charmed life. The same signal was also received by V. Adm. Somerville in Renown, Captain Maund in Ark Royal, Captain Dalrymple-Hamilton in Rodney, Captain Larcom in Sheffield and Cdr Vian in Cossack.
Larcom, however, had his own problems, as Bismarck had opened fire on her. She even straddled the cruiser before Sheffield made smoke and disappeared from view. By then, though, Larcom had noticed something strange.31 Bismarck was no longer heading away from her, towards the French coast. Instead, she had turned to port. This may have been merely so that all her 15in. guns could bear on Sheffield, but somehow it seemed slightly more unusual. Accordingly, Larcom sent a signal to Tovey. It read ‘Enemy’s course 340°’. It meant that Bismarck was now heading north-north-west, almost straight towards the King George V. Tovey laughed it off, saying rather cuttingly, ‘I fear Larcom has joined the reciprocal club.’ He meant, of course, that he expected Bismarck was probably heading in the opposite direction.
While the attack had been taking place, Maund and Traill had launched two more aircraft from Ark Royal, to continue shadowing Bismarck for another hour or so. After all, there might still be a chance that the aircraft carrier might launch another strike at dawn, before the Luftwaffe arrived to escort Bismarck home. Then, one of these shadowing aircraft sent its own signal, which proved Captain Larcom wasn’t getting his bearings mixed up. It read: ‘Enemy steering due north’.32 Everyone who heard it must have greeted the news with amazement. Larcom was correct: Bismarck was now heading north instead of east, and straight towards Tovey’s flagship. Somehow, one of the air strike’s torpedoes must
have caused some serious damage to Bismarck after all. In that instant, the whole game had changed.
Chapter 14
Destroyers in the Night
One in a hundred thousand
During the air attack, Lt von Müllenheim-Rechberg was at his post in Bismarck’s after gun director tower. Later, he recalled the moment: ‘The attack must have been almost over when it came, an explosion aft. My heart sank. I glanced at the rudder indicator. It showed “Left 12°”. Did that just happen to be our correct heading at that moment? No. It did not change. It stayed at “Left 12°”. Our increasing list to starboard soon told us that we were in a continuous turn.’1 Then, Müllenheim-Rechberg was distracted, as the order came to fire on the light cruiser Sheffield. She was roughly 9 miles away, and the battleship fired six salvos at her. The first was a miss, but the second straddled the target.2 The cruiser immediately turned away, making smoke, and the next four salvos all fell short. Although no serious damage was done, shrapnel thrown up as the 15in. shells exploded next to the ship killed one crewman and injured seven more. Later, one of these would die from his wounds. All the time, though, Bismarck kept turning to port.