Hunt the Bismarck
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Plates
Even her British enemies described Bismarck as a very elegant warship. Her sleek lines are shown to perfection in this photograph, taken while she was anchored off Kiel in September 1940. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
When Bismarck was launched in Hamburg on 14 February 1939, the event was attended by the German Führer and many of the Nazi elite. After she was launched into the River Elbe, she was towed to the nearby equipping pier to be completed. (Bettmann/Getty Images)
Once she was commissioned, Bismarck and her crew underwent an extensive period of trials and training exercises in the Baltic Sea. This photograph was taken from the Prinz Eugen, while the two warships were conducting joint exercises off Gotenhafen in April 1941. (Photo by Apic/Getty Images)
Kapitän Ernst Lindemann (1894–1941) was an experienced officer and gunnery expert who first saw action during World War I. However, he never held a seagoing command before the Bismarck. (The Stratford Archive)
On 5 May 1941, the German Führer Adolf Hitler visited Bismarck while she was lying off Gotenhafen. He spent four hours on board, and seemed particularly interested in examining her gunnery fire control systems. (Photo by Apic/Getty Images)
Another view of Bismarck, seen from the Prinz Eugen in April 1941, as the two warships were preparing for Operation Rheinübung. The battleship carries a ‘Baltic scheme’ of disruptive camouflage. These chevrons were painted over before the two warships left Norwegian waters. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
This is the aerial photo taken by Fg Off. Suckling at 13.15 on 21 May as he flew over the Grimstadfjord at a height of 27,000ft. It revealed the presence of the Bismarck, accompanied by two supply ships. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)
The modern battleship King George, flagship of the Home Fleet. Early on 27 May, in company with the older battleship Rodney, she was finally able to bring Bismarck to battle. (The Stratford Archive)
As commander of the Home Fleet’s Battlecruiser Squadron, V. Adm. Lancelot Holland (1887–1941) flew his flag in the Hood when she encountered the Bismarck in the Denmark Strait. While his battle plan was sound, he was thwarted by a combination of bad luck and the poor armoured protection of his flagship. (The Stratford Archive)
Earlier in 1941, Admiral Günther Lütjens (1889–1941) had led a successful sortie into the North Atlantic using the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. He now hoped to repeat this success using Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bildvia Getty Images)
Out to stop Admiral Lütjens was Admiral John Tovey (1885–1971), commander of the Home Fleet, who flew his flag in the battleship King George V. He more than anyone was responsible for hunting down and destroying the Bismarck. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)
The battlecruiser Hood in Scapa Flow, pictured in early 1941 from the deck of another battlecruiser, the Repulse. While Hood was the most prestigious capital ship in the fleet, her design was flawed, and she lacked the armoured protection she needed to take on an adversary as formidable as the Bismarck. (Photo by Lt. R G G Coote/ IWM via Getty Images)
In May 1941, R. Adm. Frederic Wake-Walker (1888–1945) commanded the heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk as they shadowed the Bismarck in the Denmark Strait, and in the run south into the North Atlantic. (The Stratford Archive)
This photograph of Hood from the Prince of Wales, taken in the early evening on 23 May 1941, is the last known photograph of the famous battlecruiser. The following morning Hood would be torn apart by a shell from the Bismarck. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
In May 1941 the Prince of Wales, pictured here off Iceland, was the most modern battleship in the Home Fleet. Despite the technical problems she encountered with her main guns, the hits they scored on Bismarck in the Denmark Strait had a dramatic influence on the course of the campaign. (Photo by Arkivi/Getty Images)
The heavy cruiser Norfolk, pictured in Scapa Flow shortly before the Bismarck made her sortie. Not only did she shadow the Bismarck during her breakout into the Atlantic, Norfolk was also there at the end, playing her part in the destruction of the German battleship. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Bismarck firing at the Hood during the Battle of the Denmark Strait, 24 May 1941. Although this photograph, taken from the Prinz Eugen, looks as though it was shot at night, the darkness is due to underexposure caused by the flash of the battleship’s guns. (Photo by Apic/Getty Images)
This historically fascinating but slightly hazy photograph was taken from the Prinz Eugen just before 06.00. The smoke on the horizon comes from the two British warships – Prince of Wales to the left, and Hood to t
he right, which is also surrounded by shell splashes from the Bismarck’s salvos. A minute or so later the Hood was blown up. (The Stratford Archive)
The fleet aircraft carrier Victorious pictured off Scapa Flow, 1941. Captain Bovell was determined that his carrier would play a part in the drama, despite the inexperience of his embarked air crews. (Photo by Lt. R G G Coote/ IWM via Getty Images)
Fg Off. Dennis Briggs of 206 Squadron, RAF Coastal Command, speaking to mine workers during a goodwill tour of the North of England in 1941. It was Briggs, piloting a Catalina flying boat, who finally spotted the Bismarck at 10.30 on 26 May. (Photo © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
The aircraft carrier Ark Royal, viewed from an escorting destroyer early in 1941 while operating off Gibraltar. On 26 May, she was the only warship available to the Admiralty that had any chance of stopping the Bismarck. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
While the Fairey Swordfish TSR (torpedo-spotting reconnaissance) was obsolete – and painfully slow compared to more modern naval torpedo bombers – on the evening of 26 May, it and the 18in. aerial torpedo it carried were all that stood between the Bismarck and safety. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)
The light cruiser Sheffield off Scapa Flow in 1941. When Ark Royal’s Swordfish attacked her by accident on 26 May, her commander, Captain Larcom, was described as being ‘purple with rage’. (Photo by Lt. R G G Coote/ IWM via Getty Images)
While the Rodney was over 20 years old when she took on the Bismarck, her powerful armament of nine 16in. guns made her and her sister-ship Nelson the most powerful battleships in the Royal Navy. On 27 May, her gunnery would prove utterly devastating. (The Stratford Archive)
The Bismarck, seen on the left of this dramatic photograph, is seen being pounded by salvos from the battleship Rodney. (The Stratford Archive)
The final moments of the Bismarck, as seen from beside the deck of a British warship, probably the heavy cruiser Norfolk. Moments later the German battleship began listing to port, before capsizing and sinking from view. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
Survivors from Bismarck being rescued by the crew of Dorsetshire. Many of the German sailors were either too injured or too exhausted to climb to safety. Just 86 of them were rescued before the cruiser had to leave the area. (The Stratford Archive)
Survivors from Bismarck being landed in Leith Docks near Edinburgh from the destroyer Maori. Her crew rescued a total of 25 sailors from the German battleship. They were subsequently interred in a POW camp in Canada. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Kapitänleutnant Burkhard von Müllenheim-Rechberg was the Fourth Artillery Officer on board the Bismarck, whose post was in the After Fire Direction Tower. He was the most senior of the battleship’s officers to survive. (The Stratford Archive)
An artist’s reconstruction of the wreck of the Bismarck, lying 15,700ft below the surface of the Atlantic. The battleship lost her turrets during her descent to the seabed, and her hull still bears the scars of her final battle. (Photo by Richard Schlecht/National Geographic/Getty Images)
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This electronic edition first published in Great Britain in 2019
© Angus Konstam, 2019
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Maps by Nick Buxey
Front cover: HMS Hood as viewed from HMS Repulse whilst on patrol in the North Sea on 1 September 1939. (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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