THE HUNTING OF THE BISMARCK
OPERATION RHEINUBUNG
HISTORY OF THE BATTLE:
THE ARK ROYAL'S ATTACK
(Drawn from: "Great German battle ships of the Second World war" of M.J. Whitley, 1989)
Aside English, the admiral Tovey realized late afternoon finally the computational error in the of 25, when you/he/she was found to hundred northwestern miles of the Bismarck. The coastal command RAF sent the Catalinas of the squadron n° 210 (Iceland) in continuous recognitions for a long time ray 25 and on May 26, without however some result. On May 26 Hudson, Catalina and Sunderland patrolled with the maltempo the narrow one to south of the! 'Iceland and quel!o of the Faers 0er, while two aerial pattuglies cut the rout that had to follow the Bismarck to reach the French coast.
The Catalina 2/209 sorvolòs the south zone and I'M/204 that northerly; in case of sighting 5 Beauforts del!o squadron n° 22 were ready to take off from Kaldadarnes, 8 of the n° 42 and 2 of the n° 22 from Wick, 10 of the n° 217 from St. Eval and 8 of the n° 42 from Leuchars, besides all the available instruments of the command bombardiers.
You are submergible they were envoys to patrol the waters in proximity of Brest and St. Nazaire, while the Strength H entered action with Renown, Ark Royal and Sheffield to the orders of the Ammmiraglio Somerville, but all the searches were made particularly difficult by the! 'uncertainty sul!a position of a lot of British unities and dal!a fury del!e storms of northwest.
The fortune of the Bismarck lasted up to the morning of May 26, then it had been sighted since 2/209 through a tear nel!a curtain of clouds. The scout signalled immediate - mind the sighting, follows not too far from a relationship more detailed, but later it went out immediately from behind the clouds and you/he/she was sighted by the Bismarck that it opened the fire with the anti-aircraft one and it struck him/it with pressure in different points.
To 15 minutes from the sighting, the 2/2 9 lost the contact, but it had brought defeasible its assignment: to intercepted signaling you/he/she had reached the Admiral Tovey over that to the GROUP Ovest, from where was rebroadcasted to Lutjens., received the relationship of the Catalina, the Strength H sent for a long time immediately two Swordfishes ray of the Ark Royal looking for the battleship, but you/they was preceded by a scout taken off by the aircraft carrier two hours before.
Various unities of the RAF and the AA maintained the contact with the Bismarck for the whole day, ending every now and then under the fire of the battleship, forced to reduce the speed. Tovey wanted to reach the direct clash, but, mindful of the fate of the Hood, it ordered to the Renown of not attaccare.
The Victorious had abandoned for a long time the scene, therefore the 30 Swordfishes of the squadrons n° 810,818,820 stayed embarked only on the Ark Royal at 14.50 o'clock they began to take off the first 15 armed with lanciasiluri.
Then, in the late afternoon, 10 Sheffields, that had received the order to follow the Bismarck to the insaputa of the aircraft carrier, it signalled to have entered contact and the GROUP Ovest, intercepted the message, 10 rebroadcasted to Lutjens contemporarily sending the U48 to the attack of the cruiser English.
Despite the big sea more and more and the low clouds more and more, the airplanes of the Ark Royal continued the I attach, but, arrived on the objective, they exchanged the Sheffield for the Bismarck, almost ending up beating on the time the U48, but for them fortune the magnetic steels lack, and the torpedos missed the target. You prepared therefore a second attack with the steels to contact and, under the direction of the Sheffield, the 15 Swordfishes arrived on the Bismarck toward the 20.30.
To nothing they served the incessant manoeuvres ordered by Lindemann and the dense fire of the anti-aircraft one; a torpedo struck the ship to stern and another, or perhaps two, the belt of caress to mezzanave, while all the airplanes returned uninjured sull' Ark Royal. Toward the end of the attack, however, the Sheffield had drawn near too much and it had received some cannonade from the Bismarck before saving himself/herself/themselves bringing only light damages provoked by the splinters.
The German battleship heard again few or nothing of the torpedoed to mezzanave as, with great sorrow of the incursoris, of that to stern; at least in a first moment.
In reality, it was really this torpedo, that had inserted the left rudder on the 12°, to mark the destiny of the Bismarck.
The explosion provoked various damages, among which the flood of the tunnel of the tree motor and of the compartment of the bar, that you must be evacuates. L 'water started to infiltrate from the loosened bolts and from the premistoppas of the cables putting out use the pomps of emergency that had to serve for the rooms of stern.
Despite the shoring of the damaged paraties, the strength of the waves frustrated every attempt to cover the leak in the hull. After many efforts, he succeeded in inserting by hand a rudder, that however he revealed unusable for the infiltration of water and fuel in the gears, despite the efforts of the employees to the secondary artillery. You tried to decontrol the rudders, to direct the ship with the motors, but it was everything useless and the Bismarck it fell in the resignation. T
here was no more way out, even if the investigation conducted by the Kriegsmarine established that the ship was made again governable with a rudder of fortune and that he/she left again first to 17 knots and then to 24, also with an inclination of 5°.
Lutjens informed later about the attack the GROUP Ovest to the 20.54 and 20 minutes it communicated the chilly news of the ingovernabilità of the ship: the rudder of fortune had not held up for a long time.
The Kriegsmarine assisted impotent to the loss of its flagship; the U-boats could not do anything for the damages and the situation it was also clear to Lutjens, if at 21.40 o'clock it transmitted a message in which it hocked him to fight up to the last hit, concluding with "Long life to the Fuhrer".