THE HUNTING OF THE BISMARCK
OPERATION RHEINUBUNG
HISTORY OF THE BATTLE:
THE ERROR OF LUTJENS
(Drawn from: "Great German battle ships of the Second World war" of M.J. Whitley, 1989)
Lutjens meanwhile it got further southeast, but it was not convinced to be freed him some pursuers, so much that at 07.27 o'clock its radio announced "07.00 a war ship and two cruisers always in contact", without not even worrying himself than among - to stop in so that court, according to the procedure of rule not to jeopardize the position in sea. It would be interesting he knows - pears as has reached a similar conclusion, if it is true as it is true that to the time suitable none of the pursuers was in the ray of the German radar.
The hypothesis of an interception of signals weak radio too much to be able to return to the ship of departure it is to discard because to the epoch the passive interceptors of signals radar type mettox had not been invented yet.
As unlikely as you/he/she must not be excluded that the technical radars of the flagship, select among the best in the field, you/they had hocked an equivalent system of intercettazione.
In every case Lutjens was a lot, too much worried, and intimidated by the British radar, of which without doubtful sovraestimava the course!
L 'more puzzling aspect is however that the command to earth knew, from the monitorings and from the deciphered messages, very before receiving the 07.27 relationship, that the ships to the pursuit had stopped the communications from the 03.06; he doesn't explain therefore as the counterespionage radio on board of the Bismarck had not reached the same conclusions, of it because Lutjens has kept on transmitting.
Of first I lead off it seems incomprehensible that at 09.00 o'clock the Bismarck launched for almost 30 minutes a long relationship with the particular ones of the clash with the Hood, after at 08.46 o'clock the GROUP Ovest had communicated to believe that the enemy had lost the contact.
You can suppose only that, gives the slowness of the operations of codification, transmission and decoding of the messages, the deduction of the GROUP Ovest has probably come in the hands of Lutjens when the 09.00 o'clock relationship had already been transmitted, and to that point any man of sea with a minimum of experience could realize the consequences of such a long radiomessaggio for a ship just escaped the enemy: Lutjens was betrayed by se.
Demolished by this consideration, to midday it heavily addressed a defeatist discourse to his/her men that looked out upon a battle to the last bullet, for the victory or for the death, with obvious depressing effect on the moral one of the crew.
The Bismarck was closed in the silence radio at 10.00 o'clock, but by now the damage was done, even if the effects didn't make him immediately feel.
The English had calculated badly the position, for which Tovey thought that the Bismarck was in rout for 10 narrow Iceland Faer Òer and made to assemble all the available strengths to north - east. In a second time some unities, among which the Rodney and the Edimburgh, were moved for stopping the battleship in the case that was indeed direct toward the French coast, while Wake-Walker with the Norfolk tried to cover both the routs.
The moral a.bordo of the Bismarck him risollevò in the afternoon, thanks to the efforts of Lindemann to attenuate the effect of the discourse of the commander.
The ship meanwhile it continued on the rout of southeast, as long as to midnight of May 25-26 it arrived to around 500 west mn of the south point of Iceland.
In the afternoon speed had been reduced for allowing the technicians to enter the bow to mend the damages and to try to recover the fuel from the reservoirs been isolated, while in Germany they took all the necessary measures to help the flagship of the fleet, resorting above all to the Luftwaffe; they served only after all to hold tall the moral one.