Ed Toner wrote:I enjoy Naval History, and have studied the German Navy. They built some fantastic ships.
The demise of the BISMARK has always made me wonder about tactics. She had a rudder jammed hard over by a torpedo from a Swordfish, but everythine else worked.
Why wasn't the Prinz Eugen used to tow her to safety? A cable to Bismarks bow would have allowed both ships to proceed at limited speed and manueverabilty, and all those guns were operating.
I think an error was made in dispatching the Prinz Eugen and leaving Bismark to her obvious fate.
I would offer a few observations on this: The High Seas command would not have necessarily known that
Bismark was being left to a fate of any kind. The United States Coast Guard was tracking
Bismark, both from the surface and the air. The USCG surveillance aircraft were "sold" to the Brits, and then "training crews" would arrive as a part of the sale deal. In fact, USCG aircraft simply flew from the U.K. as though at home--a part of waging neutrality.
The biggest mistake made was the failure to "top-off"
Bismark's bunkers before leaving Norway. This meant that when she began losing fuel oil from damaged bunkers, she was obliged to run for Brest or La Rochelle, because there was nothing else in range. She was obliged to turn toward the concentration of the Royal Navy. In addition to the attacks by Swordfish (i can't believe they flew those damned things ! ! ! ), Mountbatten and his destroyer division came in close at night to harrass and delay her. I would say that when the decision was made to separate from
Prinz Eugen, it was not yet understood that the Brits had basically "dropped everything" in order to concentrate to get the killer of
Hood. The bunker oil situation required
Bismark to head for the Bay of Biscay,
Northhampton and
Southhampton (which had first sighted the Germans and shadowed them into the Denmark Straits) had been "shaken off," making it seem reasonable for
Bismark to make flank speed for the French coast, while the erruption of
Prinz Eugen into commercial shipping lanes would draw off the Royal Navy. (I am purely speculating here, but this whole campaign seems to have been a case of one wrong turn after the other, with all the little mistakes eventually providing the path to disaster.)
The Swordfish were open cockpit bi-planes, and were doing little better than 90 knots in a torpedo launch run (to put that in perspective, modern naval jets would likely stall if they attempted to maneouver at 90 knots--too slow).
Bismark was actually well provided with anti-aircraft; but the equations of air power vs. surface ships was not fully understood by either the Brits or the Germans at that time. By 1941, the United States was building light cruisers which were purpose built to provide AA protection for capital ships. Later in the war, Adolf Galland was able to provide sufficient land-based fighter cover for
Scharnhorst,
Gneisenau and
Prinz Eugen to run the Channel in daytime. But when the hunt for
Bismark was on, neither navy seems to have understood that a capital ship operating within range of land or ship-based attack aircraft without substantial AA support was basically committing suicide. That the Royal Navy did not understand, i think, is shown by the loss of
Prince of Wales the following year when the Brits sent a task force to shell the Japanese at Camron Bay, and
Prince of Wales and other ships were lost to Japanese aeriel attack. In 1941, the newest models of U.S. destroyers had better AA protection than Royal Navy cruisers, and as good as that on Royal Navy battleships. Royal Navy carriers had a capacity of about two suadrons, and although better AA protection than other RN capital ships, nothing compared even to old U.S. and Japanese carriers.
Lexington and
Saratoga were originally to be laid down as heavy cruisers, but with the provisions of London Naval Treaty, they were converted to carriers. Although more than a decade old when war broke out, these two carriers (and all in their class) had more than twice the aircraft carrying capacity of RN carriers, and significantly more than even
Shokaku and
Zuikaku, Japan's newest carriers, which first saw action in the attack on Pearl Harbor (it was
Zuikaku's first cruise).
I guess i'm just saying that the High Seas Fleet just didn't know what they were getting into when the decision was made to run for the French coast. Personally, i think that had
Prinz Eugen attempted to tow or even escort
Bismark, she would have gone down as well. Had
Bismark topped off her bunker oil before leaving Norway, she might well have made it out of the Denmark straits and beyond aeriel reconnaissance before the Royal Navy could pull together the ad hoc fleet which destroyed her. Neither navy seems to have understood the profound change ship-based and land-based attack aircraft were making in naval warfare.
As for HB's comment on the seas running high, certainly the Denmark Straits in May is no place to have a slug-fest. Bad weather most of the time, and bad waters almost all of the time.
