By
PAUL SCHUBERT
COWARD-McCANN, INC.
NEW YORK 1942
(p211-212)
Enemy in Sight !The British capital ships came up with the Germans on Saturday morning. At 6:00 A.M., as a thick snow flurry lifted, the combatants sighted each other. The order to open fire was given simultaneously by both sides. Hood got out the first salvo from her forward turrets; Bismarck replied immediately, dividing her fire at the two British ships; Prince of Wales opened with a broadside which sent yellow cordite smoke billowing from her side.
The German fire was accurate, as usual. The first salvos aimed at the Prince of Wales fell "on" in range but just astern of that vessel. Then both sides "straddled" and with the battle only minutes old, hitting began.
A German salvo struck the Hood, penetrating the armor just forward of a main-battery turret. For a moment the giant ship continued to fire full broadsides. Then there was a repetition of the devastating violence which had ended the careers of three earlier British battle cruisers, making this type of ship the most illfated of all Britain's naval experiments. The Hood, largest man-of-war in the world, blew apart in one catastrophic moment of terrific magazine explosion, disappearing in a flash of flame, a mushrooming cloud of smoke out of which flying objects, fragments of masts, funnels, boats, rose hundreds of feet into the air. The battle cruiser's bow rose vertically, and three or four minutes after being struck she disappeared into the sea. British destroyers rushed to the spot, but picked up only three men out of the ship's company of more than 1400. The loss of this 42,000-ton ship was the greatest single battle disaster ever experienced by the Royal Navy.
Prince of Wales had sustained only slight damage, yet ship for ship she appeared weaker than the German; discretion cautioned a breaking off of the gun fight until British battleship reinforcements could be concentrated.
So far the honors were all in favor of the German ship. Nevertheless the Bismarck had sustained the first of the many injuries that were to wear her down. She had taken a main-battery hit forward in the side, near the waterline, and had lost a part of her speed—perhaps only a knot or two, but nevertheless a part, at a time when she needed every bit of her speed.
It was still early on Saturday morning. The cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk resumed the task of shadowing the German battleship at long range, and hung on doggedly through the day in spite of all efforts to shake them off. The Prince of Wales hung on, too, and late on Saturday afternoon made another brief battle contact, exchanging a few salvos with the German vessel, which turned westward for a time before resuming a southerly course.
BY STANLEY ROGERS
Thomas Y. Crowers Company
1943 (pages 25-25)
and a post war Admiralty account:Shortly after dawn the skies cleared, though the seas
were running high. The low clouds lifted, the snow-squalls
had gone, and the horizon became a sharp black edge
against a band of pale yellow sky. The visibility was per-
fect, and eager eyes aloft scanned the horizon for the first
sign of the enemy. Suddenly the shrill voice of a boy in
the highest look-out station of Prince of Wales was heard
above the roar of the wind: "Enemy in sight!'' And there
on the northern horizon, clear and sharp, was silhouetted
a monster battleship, followed by a smaller cruiser, steam-
ing in line ahead and showing no smoke. The first impres-
sion of everyone who saw Bism,arck was of her tremen-
dous size. This impression seems to have been unanimous
among the British sailors.
The range was estimated at thirteen miles. The long
barrels of the big guns of Hood and Prince of Wales were
trained on the enemy, and a few seconds later the signal
came from the flagship to open fire. Instantly bright orange
flashes spurted from the guns of the forward turrets of
Hood as she fired the first salvo. Two seconds later Prince
of Wales' 14-inch guns crashed out a deafening salvo,
just as Bismarck opened fire. The German shooting was good, and the first salvo fell uncomfortably close to the British ships. Hood and Prince of Wales were speeding toward the enemy on parallel courses firing salvos from the big forward guns as fast as they could be reloaded. Then the monstrous and inconceivable thing happened, the fatal hit which destroyed the pride of the Royal Navy. Observers from Prince of Wales, which was herself hit by a 15-inch shell from B?smarck, saw a great flame shoot up from the boat-deck of Hood, which was amidships. At the same time a signal was hoisted ordering Prince of Wales to carry on with the pre-arranged maneuver. Hood was in serious danger, though the watchers from Prince of Wales, who had their own hands full, did not yet fully realize how serious was the state of things in the flagship. The great fire amidships was shooting up tongues of flame in the center of a vast cloud of yellowish smoke hundreds of feet high. From the heart of the fire huge pieces of metal were hurled high above the stricken battleship. A second later she was almost totally obscured by a great cloud of smoke, through which her forward guns were still gamely firing. Suddenly a shattering explosion seemed to lift the 42,000-ton monster out of the sea, and when the smoke had cleared away Hood was gone.
Within a few minutes of the opening of the battle the flagship was lost and with her 1418 officers and ratings, including Vice-Admiral L Holland. There were only three survivors. They were picked up by one of the escorting destroyers which had arrived on the scene. The first phase of the battle was over, and the Royal Navy had received a serious blow. So far as could be seen, Bismarck was unharmed; certainly her fighting power remained untouched. How had the largest, most heavily armored, and supposedly most formidable fighting ship in the world been destroyed by Bismarck's guns at long range and within only a few minutes of the start of the action?
Was it through some inherent fault in construction, or some secret weapon of the enemy's such as a new type of armor-piercing shed? The probable explanation is simply that a 15-inch shell from Bismarck Erect at a range of twelve miles by its necessarily high trajectory had dropped almost vertically on to the lightly armored section of the deck amidships, causing a fire in a magazine which spread to one of the main magazines with the inevitable consequences. Even giving the enemy his due for good shooting at such a long range when it is quite impossible to hit a given spot with certainty, it can surely be counted as simply a lucky shot, and the enemy must have had as big a surprise at the sudden disintegration of Hood as did the watchers on board Prince of Wales, which meanwhile continued firing, although she herself was in difficulties from a direct hit aft and had eventually to take avoiding action while temporary repairs were carried out. Meanwhile Suffolk and Norfolk hung on to the enemy, who altered his course to due south and was steaming at about twentyfive knots, obviously anxious to get away.
The weather had worsened again, and snow-squalls had shortened visibility to a mile. During the day Prince of Wales resumed the chase, and at midday both cruisers and the battleship opened fire on the enemy, without, however, being able to see if any hits were scored. The weather favored the enemy, giving concealment with swirling veils of snow and rain throughout that first day of pursuit.
When capital ships are firing at each other at extreme range it is not always possible to tell whether a hit is scored, though if no splash is seen it is presumed that the salvo has found the target. At such ranges, with a pair of
binoculars, the observer will see a copper-red glow appear when a big shell strikes armor-pate, but nothing more unless an explosion follows the hit. Although it was not known at the time, Prince of Wales had permanently reduced Bismarck's speed by a hit in the engine-room.
The first day of the chase ended with Bismarck steaming due south and Suffolk, Norfolk, and Prince of Wales in hot pursuit. The enemy was proceeding on a course that would bring athwart the aircraft-carrier Victorious, which was hurrying from the west to intercept him with torpedo-carrying planes. Just after midnight (in those latitudes in May it never really gets dark) the huge, rocky shape of Victorious rose above the western horizon, appearing through the mists to be twice its actual size. Through the glasses look-outs in the control-tower of Prince of Wales
one could see tiny planes Albacores—leaving her deck, looking at that distance no larger than gnats. But each plane carried, slung beneath the fuselage, a deadly 18-inch torpedo. A few minutes later the planes, flying a few hundred feet above the seal went in to attack the enemy. A white fountain of water alongside Bsmarck told the watchers that at least one torpedo had found its mark. But obviously it was not in a vital spot, for the great battleship continued on her course without showing any outward signs of distress. It was learned that the appearance of Victorious and the subsequent torpedo attack seriously worried Admiral Lutjens, of Bsmarck, and it was this which decided him to alter course and endeavor to reach the safety of the occupied French naval base of Brest.
Up to this time Prinz Eugen had kept company with Bismarck, but when the latter was next seen the cruiser was not with her. Prinz Eugen successfully evaded pursuit and eventually reached Brest. Bad weather and the failng light and the heavy anti-aircraft defence of the enemy...
Key to Victory;The Triumph of British Sea Power in W0rld War II
WRITTEN WITH THE APPROVAL OF THE ADMIRALTY BY ,
Lieutenant-Commander P. K. KEMP F.S.A., F.R.His.S., R.N.Retd (Admiralty Archivist and Head of Historical Sections)
(1957 pages 168-169)
...hoped, would bring him into contact with the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen later in the day.
As the two enemy ships emerged into the Atlantic they met the force of the wind and the heavy swell that was running. The Norfolk and Suffolk were still in contact, sometimes losing sight of their gigantic quarry in the rain and falling snow, but always picking her up again by radar. The Arctic twilight was beginning to grow into day, and as a result the shadowing becoming easier. At 3.30 a.m. On the 24th they had a clear sight of her, twelve miles ahead, still steaming at twenty-eight knots. The sighting signal went out, and an hour and a quarter later the Suffolk intercepted a signal from the destroyer Icarus, escorting the Hood. It gave her position as some distance astern of the Norfolk, and was the first intimation to Rear-Admiral Wake-Walker, commanding the cruisers in the Denmark Straits, that the Hood and the Pnnce of Wales were in his vicinity
In the Hood and the Prince of Wales the ships' companies were already at action stations. Vice-Admiral Holland, flying his flag in the Hool, intended first to make contact with the Norfolk and Suffolk and then engage the enemy, concentrating the fire of the two capital ships on the Bismarck and that of the two cruisers on the Print Eugen. The northern day dawned with a leaden sky and a strong, freshening wind that whipped the tops of the waves into foam. At 5.15 a.m. smoke was sighted on the starboard quarter. It was quickly identified as the Norfolk. The daylight of the northern morning increased rapidly, and twenty minutes later, at 5.35 a.m., the loom of a large ship could be seen on the north-western horizon. A few moments later it was recognised as the Bismarck, with the Print Eugen ahead of her. Although the Norfolk and Suffolk were still too far away to join action with the enemy, Vice-Admiral Holland's reaction was immediate. Two minutes after sighting the Bismarck the flag signal "Blue pendant four" was flying from the blooms yardarm, and she and the Prince of Wales turned 40 degrees together to starboard towards the enemy.
At 5.52 a.m. the Hood fired her first salvo at a range of 25,000 yards. Thirty seconds later the Prince of Wales also opened fire. The enemy replied two minutes later. Almost at once both sides were hitting each other.
The Hood, laid down during the first war with Germany and launched in I919, was an old ship. Being a battle-cruiser she was lightly armoured, and her magazines were but scantily protected. A fire was started by a hit near her mainmast, which spread until the whole of the midship section seemed to be in flames. She was still firing and had, in fact, a signal flying ordering a turn of 20 degrees to port when suddenly, exactly at 6 a.m., she was hit again by plunging fire from the Bismarck. A shell exploded in "X" magazine and she was torn asunder by a tremendous explosion. Her bows reared up into the air and then sank vertically. For a minute or two her stern remained afloat, hidden in a vast pillar of smoke, then it, too, sank. Three minutes after the explosion nothing remained of the great battle-cruiser but a huge pall of smoke that drifted away across the waters of an angry sea.
The Prince of Wales, following astern of the Hood, was forced to alter course to starboard to avoid the wreckage of Vice-Admiral Holland's flagship. This brought her nearer to the enemy ships, and both of them concentrated on her at a range that closed to 14,500 yards. She was hit by the Bismarck and her bridge wrecked. Unlike the Hood she was a new ship, so new indeed that she had not yet had time to "work up" into full operational efficiency. She was also subject to "teething" troubles with her turret machinery, and as she turned away behind a smoke-screen her after turret jammed, putting four of her big guns out of action for two hours.(5)
But the Bismarck had been hit three times by the Prince of Wales during the action, and one of the hits was to play a vital part in the later stages of the operation. The shell passed right through the ship, holing two oil tanks. The loss of this oil was not unduly important, but what was far more serious was that the oil in the tanks forward of the damage, a thousand tons of it, could not be used as the suction valves were inaccessible in a flooded compartment. It was this fact that caused Admiral Lutjens to signal home at 8 a.m. that he was going to abandon the operation and make for the Biscay port of St. Nazaire.
(5) PoW Report of Proceedings
I don't see any evidence of a conspiracy to hide the fact that PoW turned away after Hood sank.
