Bismark 1804

       In May of 1941 the German battleship Bismark was one of the biggest and fastest ships ever made. It was 823 feet long, 41,000 ton displacement and could make 30 knots at sea. It was nearly as big and as fast as a USS Forrestal class aircraft carrier made in 1955. By comparison, the US battleship Arizona in service at that time was 608 feet long, 31,917 ton displacement with a speed of 21 knots at sea. It is easy to see why the British were scared of that mighty ship. The pride of the British navy was the HMS Hood, 860 feet long with 15 inch diameter guns, 42,000 ton displacement and added armor which reduced its speed to 14 knots at sea.
       In May of 1941 the battleships Hood and Prince of Whales were dispatched to intercept the Bismark and the German cruiser Prinz Eugen in the Denmark straits. The Hood was believed to be unsinkable as was the Bismark. The Hood was hit by German shells from the Bismark and sunk in just 3 minutes. Her crew of 1,300 officers and men save 3 were lost. The news of the loss arrived and Churchill ordered all British ships to sea to find and sink Bismark. Six days and nights the British fleet searched for Bismark. The British fleet was searching in the wrong area, thinking Bismark was headed back to German ports. The German captain broke radio silence to report his damage from the earlier conflict in the Denmark straits to the newly acquired French port of Brest. The British radio operators triangulated the German signal and discovered the location of Bismark. Lucky for the Brits, their aircraft carrier Ark Royal was near in the Mediterranean. Ark Royal dispatched her torpedo bombers to attack. One plane launched its torpedo and hit the Bismark in the aft steering compartment, freezing her rudders in place. She was in process of turning at the time and was then trapped in a circular motion, giving the British ships a giant duck to shoot at as she spun around. British destroyers harassed Bismark all night long, but did not have the firepower to sink her until the big girls of the British fleet arrived the next day. The Bismark went down just 10 hours away from port.
       Three things come to mind with this story. One, modern day satellites could most likely find Bismark in a short time instead of days. Two, had the German captain kept radio silence, he and his ship and crew would have made it to port safely. Three, those sailors aboard Bismark had to know they were doomed and yet they had five inch shells from British destroyers hitting their ship all night long. They had a long time to think about their fate.
       The Brits did rescue 111 survivors from the Bismark and would have taken more but had to leave the area due to the arrival of a German Submarine. 5 more survivors were picked up by a German sub and a weather ship the next day