HSwMS Gotland

[navalreasearch]

In William shirers book "The deadly hunt" he writes"At 8.00 am on May 21 a coded message arrived at the admiralty in london from a british agent insweeden.On the previous afternoon he had seen from the sweedish shore two large german warships"etc.He continues"the ominous report was flashed at once to sir John Tovey".I found a similar report in cs forster's Sink the Bismarck.These are outdated books.I belive the official position by most historians is that the swedish HSwMS Gotland sighted the bismarck and reported it.The british eventualy got hold of this report.Does anybody have any information as to how these two authors got the facts wrong?

[RNfanDan]

Ludovic Kennedy also went into some detail about the shore-based Intel networks, I recall most immediately a man named Roscher Lund. Whether he mined the same information source as Shirer and Forester used, I cannot say; but I felt it worthy to add that his fine book, Pursuit, seems otherwise to have been researched fairly well.

I don't imagine any of these authors, particularly Kennedy (whom I regard as more authoritative than either Forester or Shirer), would be so careless as to knowingly use shoddy references. Perhaps one or another of the "revised edition" lobby who refutes the "old" story, can provide the source for the disproving evidence?

Regards,

Dan

[paulcadogan]

Hi,

It seems the British got reports from two sources. The Swedish Gotland's report was first and this was passed by Alfred Roscher Lund indirectly to the British naval attaché in Stockholm (there was no direct contact between them), who then sent the famous signal to the Admiralty.

Later that evening when the Germans were passing Kristiansand, they were observed from shore by Viggo Axelssen and other Norweigian resistance personnel who also radioed London. Their report confirmed the Swedish one.

The details and sequence are pretty nicely laid out in Bercusson & Herwig's "The Destruction of the Bismarck". It seems the two events got merged into one in some accounts.

Also...C.S. Forrester's novel, which formed the basis for the movie "Sink The Bismarck" is certainly not to be considered historically accurate.

Paul

[RF]

Ludovic Kennedy also went into some detail about the shore-based Intel networks, I recall most immediately a man named Roscher Lund. Whether he mined the same information source as Shirer and Forester used, I cannot say...;Dan

Roscher Lund was the Norwegian naval attache in Stockholm who used his contacts within the Swedish navy and secret service to obtain routine service reports and to pass on any information that might be useful to the British.