THE HUNTING OF THE BISMARCK
OPERATION RHEINUBUNG
HISTORY OF THE BATTLE:
THE BATTLE AGAINST BATTLECRUISER HOOD
(Drawn from: "Great German battle ships of the Second World war" of M.J. Whitley, 1989)
At 05.30 o'clock the counterespionage radio of the Prinz Eugen signalled a third unity on the left and six minutes after a fourth grade.
The hydrophones confirmed the contacts and the men they took the places of fight waiting itself for two cruisers.
Few to the time they saw to stand out himself/herself/themselves against the horizon the superstructure and the profile of two heavy unities, the Hood and the Prince of Wales without the destroyer, that you/they had been detached.
The Deputy's team Admiral Holland sailed toward the narrow one of Denmark, when, to the 20.02 of May 23, it had received the signaling of the Suffolk, follows after 40 minutes from that of the Norfolk and you/he/she was directed toward the suitable position.
Meanwhile the time was improved on the basic RAF in Iceland, allowing the take-off of the scouts Reykjavik and Kaldadarnes toward midnight of May 23. The Sunderland Z/201 arrived on the place in time to assist to the clash among the two naval strengths as the Hudson G/269. You give the information of the Norfolk, Holland changed rout to 295° and increased the speed to 27 knots, calculating to begin the attack in the first hours of May 24.
To midnight the relationships gave him/it 120 miles away from the enemy, but shortly after lost the contact with Lutjens. Holland probably thought about a radical change of rout of the enemy, thing that would explain his/her strange tacking to 340° at 00.12 o'clock and therefore to north at 00.17 o'clock.
It continued in this direction up to the 02.05, then it ordered destroyer to continue to north and it brought his/her ships 200° sailing first to 26 and then to 27 knots. At 02.56 o'clock the Surrol finally reentered in contact with a message that da1 Lutjens to around 15 northwestern miles Holland. The unities the English moved him to 220° at 03.21 o'clock, then to 240° at 03.42 o'clock, increasing the speed of another knot.
To this point they followed two parallel routs outdistanced around 20 miles.
The look-outs of the Prince or Wales, to 750 meters on the wake of the flagship, they saw to materialize himself/herself/themselves in the miles haze the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen at 05.35 o'clock, almost ten minutes of the German sighting and 7 minutes after the Hood, it corrected the distance to 14 miles.
To this point Holland committed a fatal error veering toward the enemy before 40° and still of 20, placing itself in real disadvantege.
To the 05.49 Holland it ordered to open the fire on the first German ship believing that it was the Bismarck, while the Prince of Wales, that had acknowledged the error, aimed the guns at the - the unity to the right.
The first hit of the Hood departed at 05.52 o'clock, really while Holland, made him account of I exchange him/it, it ordered to change target.
One minute after the Prince of Wales opened the fire and the Bismarck he/she answered, follows at 05.55 o'clock from the Prinz Eugen.
All and two the German ships shot with theirs four pieces against I'Hood, that instead could use only the guns of bow because of the assumed angling. L' Hood shot four or five hits before the Bismarck responded. The German cruiser used the ready bullets HE for its first complete broadside, but he/she didn't succeed in seeing to fall them.
The second complete broadside, of HE, it missed the target, while the bystander struck the Hood next to the gun carriage binati you/he/she Has some P3s from the cm, sending in fire the ready ammunition to the use.
The Prinz Eugen moved therefore the guns against the Prince of Wales, till now unmolested, leaving the Hood to the Bismarck, that shot a fork to 400 ms. L 'official of artillery Schneider calculated that the first draught had been long and the missed second as the third one and the quarter.
To this point obviously Holland wanted to fully exploit the artillery of his/her ships and at 06.00 o'clock it ordered to veer to the left still of 20°. He/she is not known if the tacking has taken then place or less, because at that time the scene salute of the Bismarck arrived.
If it is true that the towers of stern of the Hood opened the fire, the tacking had to have been initiated perlomeno. The Prince of Wales had just launched the ninth discharge when one or more bullets of the Bismarck struck the Hood in proximity of the tree teacher, provoking a gigantic explosion that destroyed the 48.000 tons of the flagship English in the turn of few seconds.
06.00 give some May 24 th 1941 to today they have risen a myriad of conjectures and hypothesis on the stricken point and on the motive for the explosion, that was more probably due to a fire of the cordite stowed in the stores X and Y.
Torn by the burst, the ship sank in the turn of three minutes dragging with if 1.415 of the 1.418 men of the crew. The Prince of Wales was found forced to change rout to estrange from the flagship and contemporarily to face alone the two German unities.
Lutjens didn't care at all thing had happened; it counted only the fact to have sunk the Hood and to have conquered a precious point for the propaganda of the Reich. Shortly after on the bridge of the Prince of Wales arrived a bullet from 38 cms, that also provoked serious losses to the English having bursted only after being gone out of the opposite side.
After this, they reached sign other six hits among which two from 38 central cms of right draught of bow and on the crane for the airplanes, while a bystander broke down the hull above the galleggiamento and concerned unexploded in a room generating.. A bullet from 20 cms not exploded, but the others two opened some leaks.
Considered the damages and the problems with the new towers, the captain Leach it didn't hold to be able to face two intact hostile unities and it also opted for the retreat with admiral Wake Walker guarantee knowing that someone would have accused him of being run away.
In reality the Germans were everything anything else other than uninjured after the three hits sent to sign by the Prince of Wales. One had pierced the broadsides of the Bismarck to level of the compartments XX and XXI above the armored bridge, to bow of the paratia armored transversal.
From the big hole of exit water entered to tons flooding shortly time the underlying compartments of bow and, despite the immediate closing of the paratia XX, a thousand of tons of fuel made unusable or unattainable.
A second bullet from 35 cms had passed under the belt of caress to level of the compartments XIII and XIV and it was exploded against the paratia of the lanciasiluris provoking the flood of the room generating n° 4 and damaging the surrounding paraties, with the consequent infiltration of water on the left side of the room boilers n° 2 various damages to some reservoirs of fuel to double fund. The third hit had reached only instead the shallops making five light wounded among the men of the crew.
The Bismarck had consumed only 93 hits from 38 cms, besides an undetermined number from 15 cms (used in a second moment against the Prince or Wales).
The Prinz Eugen had shot 178 hits but any APs, for which you/he/she could not have inflicted that I/you/he/she damn superficial as those to the bridge of the lances of the Hood. Both the ships, had shot finally some hit from 10,5 cms against the Sunderlands 2/201, that they followed the clash from the tall one.